1. Weekly theme: Amazing Animals Essential Questions: How do the features of animals help them survive? Standards: Science The Living Environment 3.4.1 Demonstrate that a great variety of living things can be sorted into groups in many ways using various features, such as how they look, where they live, and how they act, to decide which things belong to which group 3.4.3 Observe that and describe how offspring are very much, but not exactly, like their parents and like one another 3.4.5 Give examples of some kinds of organisms that have completely disappeared and explain how these organisms were similar to some organisms living today Resources: http://gboyd.edu.glogster.com/amazinganimals/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYmsm5lmNwI http://www.sfscience.com/english/grade_3/unit_A/chap_2/index.htm

2. Practice Makes Proficient Monday Hallway Greeting: Eat well. Sleep Well. Do Your Best on the Test. Welcome Message We will continue to talk about the amazing world of animals this week while we read Charlotte’s Web. We’ll focus on spiders for the welcome message. The baboon spider is a large heavily built spider. It has thick legs and long leg-like pedipalps. This Spider subdues its prey with venom, which it injects through fangs. The venom of the baboon spider is not dangerous to humans. The baboon spider lives in a silk-lined burrow. This particular one lives in the roots of a rock fig tree. Tasks:# 1-6 shop for books Read, write, or draw and relax for ISTEP+.

3. Charlotte Tuesday Hallway Greeting: Eat well. Sleep Well. Do Your Best on the Test. Welcome Message The black and yellow garden spider is a large heavy spider. It has thin black striped legs and normally hangs upside down with its two back and two front legs together. The abdomen is lobed and yellow with black spots. The head is silvery grey. In the enlarged pictures the zigzag of silk known as the stabilimentum can be seen. Tasks: #7-12 shop for books Read, write, or draw and relax for ISTEP+.

4. Wilbur Wednesday Hallway Greeting: Eat well. Sleep Well. Do Your Best on the Test. Welcome Message The Banded-legged Golden Orb-web Spider in these pictures is a female. In the bottom picture, on the left, a male can be seen, above and to the left of the female. The male is tiny compared to the female and is sometimes found in the web. This female is about three inches (75mm) in length. The Golden Orb-web Spider hangs in a large golden colored silk web suspended between branches. Tasks: #13-18 shop for books Read, write, or draw and relax for ISTEP+.

5. Templeton Thursday Hallway Greeting: Eat well. Sleep Well. Do Your Best on the Test. Welcome Message The Kite Spider has a hard shiny abdomen with projections pointing out from the sides and rear. The orb is usually in a tree. This specimen is about 12 millimeters or half an inch across. Tasks: #19-22 shop for books Read, write, or draw and relax for ISTEP+.

6. Farm Animals Friday Hallway Greeting: Eat well. Sleep Well. Do Your Best on the Test. The Female Wolf Spider carries its egg sac attached to its spinnerets until the young hatch. When the young hatch they climb onto the mothers back and are carried around by her. Tasks: Read, write, or draw and relax for ISTEP+..