Academic Updates:
We started our folktale research project, with each table being given a different country to read a story from, and start to research. We had a great conversation about why certain animals were in some stories, whereas completely different settings or characters were present in others. We will have more discussions about how location and culture affect a story, and why certain elements are important to different people. Next week, the third graders will move into creating hanging posters in order teach the rest of the class about their country and folktale. Another focus this week has been understanding the steps it takes to get through the entire Writing Process. Many of us are on our Editing and Revising stages of our stories, and will move into Peer conferences shortly! A new resource that is being used in the classroom are color coded writing process squares that the students use as editing and revising checklists, and also as a way to keep track of their stage in the Writing Process. It has become very helpful already. We also now have a way to show student work from the ceiling, so feel free to stop by the next couple weeks as we add to our display! The students earned their privilege this week to watch a movie, Sean the Sheep, which they seemed to really enjoy. We’ve actually already made it to the top of our token jar again, so we will be voting early next week for our next privilege! Early next week, we have a couple full school celebration activities that we will participate in. There are so many things to look forward to! Upcoming events & Reminders:
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Academic Updates:
We have successfully made it through all of our Reading Centers during the last couple literacy blocks. It’s been a lot of work, but the students should be very proud of themselves for being able to put every part of our literacy learning together into one hour of book groups, listening to reading, partner reading, read to self, typing games, work on writing, and word work, (each on different days). The third graders are doing an excellent job keeping up with our transitions and helping each other out as we go. This week the Reading skill we focused on was retelling stories. We used the “Retelling Hand” to help us understand how to use each bit of information that we know about the story, and put it all together. We practiced this as a group from Little Red Riding Hood’s perspective in the book Red Riding Hood by James Marshall, and then the students were able to do the same through the wolf’s perspective. Next week we will read the Chinese version of this story, Lon Po Po. This will be the start of our “Folktales Around the World” display. Writing is something that we’ve focused a bit more on this week as well, making sure we understand the entire writing process, and what it takes to go from an idea, to an outline, into a first draft writing pieces. We’ve also finalized our Personal Learning Plans, thinking about our strengths and challenges as a learner, as well as an academic goal for ELA and a goal for Math. Upcoming events & Reminders: * The students also made it to the top of their token jar this week, so they will get their privilege early next week! Academic Updates: I hope everyone’s enjoying the changing seasons and the beautiful fall foliage! This week we focused on our narrative writing pieces about a memory that we have with a family member. The students have done an excellent job brainstorming, using a variety of techniques and graphic organizers to aid them in their writing. Thank you for your help with the family interviews. I know we are all very busy this time of year, so it is now going to be used as an extra credit piece, and a useful tool if students need ideas for their family memory writing. The third graders have also been reviewing verbs during ELA. There were many unique sentences created when we put together subjects and verbs including “alligators frolicking” and “pigs surfing.” The students did an excellent job working together during this activity. Next week we will turn these creative sentences into a verb book. We also did a lot of practice with our Literacy Centers, and the students were able to try out a new part, “Listen to Reading,” where the third graders tried out the website “Get Epic.” They seemed to really enjoy this. Another big part of our week was Fire Safety Day on Wednesday. Thank you, Nicki Buck for planning such a fun presentation. I can’t tell what the students liked more, the fire station water bottles or getting to try on/help friends get their fireman outfits on! We had some excellent photo opportunities, that you can all see on our third-grade web page! Upcoming events & Reminders: *If the students would like to access their ‘Listening to Reading’ at home, please feel free go to: “Get Epic Student Login” and have your child type in the code: WNC9057. Reading 15 minutes each night, (either listening to the “Read to me Audio” on Get Epic or reading with a book at hand), is greatly encouraged to help your child’s learning! Academic Updates:
This week we officially started our Literacy Centers! The third graders did an excellent job learning these new routines, and putting each station that we’ve practiced all together. There are pictures online of students practicing each station in action. We had a “Work on Writing” station where students worked on their ‘Family Tradition Quilt Square’ after having read another Polacco book, The Keeping Quilt about Patricia’s great- great grandmother who brought a quilt made from family member’s clothing to American when she immigrated from Russia. We had some fantastic discussions around this book about what traditions are and why they are important to our families. Another station that was implemented this week was “Work on Words” where the students were given their group to work on specific word patterns. We sorted words into the correct patterns and each member of the group helped out. They did a fantastic job with this! “Read to Self” and “Read to Partner” were both included in our centers this week, as well as some of our Reading groups. The last station the students were eager to work on was “. They were able to practice this with a BBC game called Dance Mat Typing. Next week, During Social Studies, we will move into folktales and Native Americans, which will tie in our theme of families and our separate cultures. On another note, we made it to the top of our token jar, and earned an extra recess time! Upcoming events & Reminders: Monday, October 9th- Columbus Day- No School! Wednesday, October 11th- Fire Safety Day! *Heads up- The assignment is coming home today for students to ‘interview’ a family member about childhood memories/ stories which will then be made into writing pieces. |
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June 2018
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