CLASS NEWS & REMINDERSMay 15
End of Year Dates
Message from the Student Council:The fifth grade student council will be hosting a summer supplies drive for The Second Step program. Second Step is an organization that helps survivors of domestic violence in the Newton area. We will be collecting donations at the start of school from 8:20 to 8:40 in the lobby next week, May 20th through 24th. Some supplies they are looking for are: suntan lotion, bug spray, beach towels, giftcards for swimwear and outdoor games. Thank you in advance for your donations! April 1
Math Updates & MCAS
March 18
Working on Writing At Home Many students have asked about working on their informational books at home. We love their enthusiasm and motivation to get ready for our Publishing Party! Your child can work on their writing at home by clicking the Google Drive icon on the Cabot homepage. Below is the checklist each student has so they know what is required in their writing. March 13
Field Trips We have the confirmed dates for our two field trips this year: Durant Kenrick House in Newton- April 25th 8:45- 11:15 Plimoth Plantation- May 23rd 8:45-2:00 Please let us know ASAP if you would like to chaperone one or both of the trips. You must have an updated CORI/SORI in the system to accompany the class. If you'd like to chaperone the trip(s), please send us an email. The permission slip for Durant Kenrick House is being sent home on Friday in your child's Take Home folder. Please return by Wednesday, March 20. March 5
Conferences & Upcoming Dates
https://goo.gl/forms/Uavbq3O31YtzdLvi2
February 7
Newsletter Thank you for joining us for Math Morning! The students had a great time teaching you all they have learned! Reading Third graders are excited to begin our next unit, “Communities in Realistic Fiction.” Students will learn how to determine a central message and analyze the development of the message in the book through the characters - their thoughts, feelings, actions, and change. We will explore several texts together including Peppe The Lamplighter as well as students’ reading group books that all address a similar big idea: a community, acting supportively as a family, can help characters solve their problems. Two major skills this unit focuses on is making inferences about characters’ attitudes and feelings from the way they speak and act as well as tracing changes in characters over time and plotting them on a timeline. Fundations Information on our new unit, including extra at-home practice, will be sent home tomorrow in your child’s Take Home Folder. It is also attached below. Writing 3rd graders are continuing to work on their Informational Writing projects. We have concluded the research part of our project in which students used books and online resources to gather information and take notes. We are now using our research to draft each chapter. Students will learn to incorporate text features (charts, diagrams, tables, text boxes) into their writing as well as how to write an introduction and conclusion. Math Information on our new unit, will be sent home tomorrow in your child’s Take Home Folder. It is also attached below. Unit 4: “Perimeter, Area, and Polygons” is broken up into 3 Investigations: linear measurement, understanding and finding area, and triangles and quadrilaterals. We have begun our study of linear measurement by reviewing U.S. (inch, foot, yard) and Metric (centimeter and meter) units for length and how to estimate and measure object’s length. We will also measure perimeter and solve word problems about perimeter. Each day, we will have a ten-minute Math warm-up reviewing place value. These warm-ups will focus on reading and writing 3-digit numbers, including using expanded form, adding and subtracting multiples of 10 to 3-digit numbers, and rounding whole numbers to the nearest ten or hundred. Social Studies After concluding our Massachusetts Geography unit by making topographical maps, we began our study of the Wampanoags. These Native Americans lived along the southeastern Massachusetts coast at the time the Pilgrims arrived from England in 1620. Our unit is a cultural study of the Wampanoag people and provides students with the chance to consider how others have lived in other times than the present. At the end of our unit, students will be able to:
Science Each Friday, 3rd graders in our class participate in a hands-on Science lab in our “Investigating Things in my World: Observing and Measuring Materials and Objects” unit. Through these labs, students work in small groups together to learn the concepts of material, weight, volume, and matter. Student also learn to use data tables and measure lines to represent weight. They express their ideas through discussions, writing, and drawing. Coming up…
Reminders
February 3
5th Grade Student Council Drive - Newton Food Pantry The 5th grade student council will be hosting a drive the week of Valentine's Day to collect food and personal care products to donate to the Newton Food Pantry. Items will be collected by 5th grade student council members in the Cabot lobby from 8:20 to 8:40 during the week of February 11th to 15th. Here is the list of items that the pantry is in need of: dish soap, sponges, household cleaners, toothpaste, lotion, spices, baking projects, and canned fruit. Any donation is appreciated, thank you! January 21
Reminders & Upcoming Dates
January 14
3rd Grade Math Morning! January 9
Help Make Cabot's Mural Our muralist, David Fichter, will begin his 3-week long residency at the end of this month. During this time, our class will be spending their art classes working to build the glass-tile mosaic mural that will be installed in the main lobby of our new school. Parent helpers are needed to assist our class - if you can spare some time during the school day to come and help in the art room, please, sign up here. Informational Writing Books As you may have heard, your child is working on an informational writing piece on a topic of their choosing. Yesterday during Library, they had the chance to check out books related to their topic to use to research. Unfortunately, some students were not able to find the topic they were looking for. This is where you come in! We would greatly appreciate helping your child find 1-2 age-appropriate, non-fiction books on their topic. In the past, families have been able to find what they were looking for at Newton Free Library. We are beginning the research phase of our work, so bringing in these books as soon as possible would be great! Please ask your child if they were able to find 1-2 books. Thank you for your support with this! December 6
Newsletter Reading The mystery unit is in full swing! Each student selected a “Just Right” mystery novel and is also enjoying an additional mystery in their reading groups. Students are loving completing their “Sleuth Notebooks” as they read, tracking clues and suspects! Throughout this unit, we will be enjoying three of Doug Cushman’s mystery picture books for interactive read alouds. These books will provide opportunities for the whole class to discuss/identify the elements of mysteries together. We have read The Mystery at the Club Sandwich, The Mystery of King Karfu, and The Mystery of the Monkey’s Maze all by Doug Cushman. Using these books, we have learned important mystery vocabulary such as alibi, breakthrough, clue, crime, evidence, motive, mystery, red herring, sleuth/detective, suspect, witness, and victim. Students also have been working on conversation skills to share ideas as we read. A major focus with this unit is one we will return to over and over: close reading. Close reading is rereading to uncover layers of meaning that lead to deep comprehension. This attention to the text empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details, while enabling them to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. We will focus on 4 basic questions as we close read:
Cursive! Students have been THRILLED to begin learning to write in cursive. We will progress through the letters in an order that builds on the strokes. For example, students learned lowercase a first and then lowercase d because of how similar they are. Ask your child to show you their cursive skills! Fundations Students are currently reviewing the following suffixes: s, es, ed, in, ive, able, en, er, est, ish, y, ful, less, ness, ly, ty, and ment. We are also reviewing the procedures for identifying basewords when reading or spelling words with suffixes. Coming up, students will learn how to identify 1-1-1 words. A 1-1-1 word has 1 closed syllable, 1 vowel, and 1 consonant after the vowel. This comes with a new spelling rule: when to double the final consonant of a 1-1-1 baseword. The final consonant is doubled when adding a vowel suffix (ship + ing = shipping) but not when adding a consonant suffix (ship + ment = shipment). Writing Thank you to those of you who came to our Personal Narrative Writing Celebration! The kids were so excited to share their work and what they had learned. In addition to learning about the characteristics and elements of Personal Narratives, we also focused on creating paragraphs within our writing (when to start a new paragraph) and how to include dialogue and punctuate it correctly. Students also learned how to revise and edit as well as the difference between the two. Our next writing unit is Informational Writing. Students have already chosen a topic that they know a lot about. We are currently exploring informational texts to see what structures are used and what kind of information is shared. In the coming weeks, students will learn about table of contents, headings, glossary, and how to organize their information into a logical sequence of chapters. They also will have the opportunity to research their topics to learn more! Math We are concluding Unit 2, “Graphs and Line Plots: Modeling With Data.” In this unit students first learned to collect, organize, represent, and describe categorical data. They used a bar graph and pictographs (using a scale with intervals larger than one) to model what their data showed. We even visited a 5th grade classroom to collect data on topics the students came up with in pairs and created a graph to display it. The second major concept focused on was representing and analyzing ordered, numerical data using a line plot. They generated measurement data (How far can you blow a foam pattern block? How long is your foot? How far can you jump?) and represented that data using a line plot that includes fractions. Next week, we will begin Unit 3, “Travel Stories and Collections: Addition, Subtraction, and the Number System.” Below you will find a list of the major focuses of this unit:
At the bottom of this post you can access the Unit 3 Family Letter which includes related activities to try at home. A printed copy of this letter will be sent home next week. Social Studies We are wrapping up our first Social Studies unit, “What is History?”. This unit is designed to give students a chance to think about what history is all about. While students have had some exposure to people who lived in the past in their earlier social studies program, this is their first substantive look at themselves in history as well as others in history. Key questions:
Students have:
The next Social Studies unit focuses solely on Massachusetts Geography and is always a favorite! Science We have concluded our study of trees and have focused on the following topics:
Coming up…
Reminders
December 3
Timeline Projects Today, your child will bring home a Timeline Project for Social Studies. This is due on this Friday, December 7. Below you will find the assignment page in case you need an extra copy. Thank you for your support!
November 14
Support at home needed! Keyboarding Without Tears: We have started typing our personal narratives into Google Docs! The kids are very excited about this process. They will type their drafts double-spaced, print them, and then edit/revise with pen before going back and publishing their final copy. As we are typing in class, many students are "hunting and pecking" (using 1 hand or 1 finger to type to search for each letter). This is very typical for this age! If possible, please give your child a couple opportunities during the week to practice keyboarding using Keyboarding Without Tears. Having practice with the "Home Row" and using two hands will help them at school not only this year, but in future years as well. You can find the link to KWT on the Cabot homepage as well as our blog's main page. Our first Writing Celebration! To show off their hard work with their personal narratives, we will be hosting our first Writing Celebration on Thursday, November 29th from 8:20 - 9:00 in the classroom. We hope you will join us! Please note that food will no longer be incorporated into Writing Celebrations school-wide due to the Wellness Policy. The focus will be on the students and their accomplishments! Thank you for your understanding and we hope to see you all there! October 29
Finding books for your children As conferences progress, we are getting lots of questions about selecting books to match your child's reading level and interests. We love this question! Below you will find a list of newer books that 3rd and 4th graders love as well as a list of books organized by Guided Reading level (A-Z). If you'd like guidance about what level to look in for your child, please email us and we'll be happy to help. Additionally, we have selected your child's reading level on their RAZ Kids account, so any text they read or listen to on that website is appropriately level. RAZ Kids: www.kidsa-z.com/main/Login
October 25
Student Accounts 3rd graders have access to many accounts that they can access at home! Here is the complete list for your reference:
All of these sites are linked on the home page of this website or on Cabot's website. October 22
Reminders
October 11
Newsletter Reading We are continuing to “launch” our Reading Workshop routines and explore 3rd grade reading skills such as writing a reading response, discussing what we are reading with our classmates, and utilizing Larry Bell’s 12 Power Verbs (trace, analyze, infer, evaluate, formulate, describe, support, explain, summarize, compare, contrast, predict). We will continue to use these verbs to help us respond to our reading. Additionally, one of the most important skills students have been taught is how to select a “Just Right Book.” See the graphic below to see the “5 Finger Rule” used to determine if a book is not challenging enough, a just right fit, or too challenging. Each student received a book bag to store their Reading Journals, Just Right Books, and Dessert books (books we love to read- they may be too easy or ones students love over and over!). It is expected that all third graders are reading a Just Right Book for at least 20 minutes each night. Coming up, we will be using mentor texts to continue to model the meanings of the 12 Power Verbs and provide students opportunities to practice. Students will be exposed to various graphic organizers such as Venn Diagrams and a Box and T-Chart to display their thinking. Fundations Unit 1 is in full swing! See the letter below outlining the skills of this unit! Writing After sharing our awesome Writing Journal covers, students used the people and places they love from their covers to develop ideas for their personal narratives. Students were exposed to personal narratives in 2nd grade (seed stories), but will be challenged to expand upon those skills by incorporating dialogue and descriptive language as well as increasing the length to 5 paragraphs. Math We have made so much progress in Math already! We have completed the first 2 “Investigations”, Things That Come in Groups and Skip Counting/100s Charts. Both of these Investigations are building blocks for understanding the meaning multiplication. Thus far, students have:
The 3rd Investigation, Arrays, builds on the first two by having students represent multiplication in another way. Students will be able to:
Social Studies Our study of “What is History?” has continued after students shared their artifact bags. After understanding how artifacts help us learn new information, we will explore timelines as a way to learn about chronological order. Be on the lookout for the next project, a timeline of their life. This project connects to our Social Studies goals, but also helps us to continue to build community in our classroom by getting to know each other! Science Our first Science unit, “Phenomenal Trees”, has already been so much fun! This unit focuses on weather, climate, and trees as well as the relationship between them. Currently, students are collecting weather data daily and eventually, we will use this as we track the changes in trees around us. Other big ideas in this unit include characteristics of trees (living vs. non-living), Deciduous and Evergreen trees, leaf investigations, photosynthesis, tree structure, reproduction, life cycle, seasons, and tree rings. We are looking forward to spending time outside to gather data, make drawings/observations, and collect leaves. In November, we will be visited by Eric Olson, “The Tree Guy”, who will teach us even more about trees and was a huge hit last year! Coming up…
Reminders
October 8
Conference time! It is hard to believe it is already that time of year to sign up for conferences! We are using a google form for sign ups. Please use the following link to select a time that works best for you: goo.gl/forms/aM7t2QAVJcm8wbEF3 Please know that if none of the time slots listed works for your schedule, Lucy and I are happy to find another time to talk with you either in person or on the phone. We look forward to discussing your wonderful children with you! October 3
Reminder: Picture Day tomorrow! Tomorrow is picture day! We realize it is also a P.E. day, but please know the students will have their photos taken before P.E. Please remember to send them with the proper footwear to participate in P.E. Thank you for your support! October 2
Scholastic Book Club & Conferences Please read the letter below for information regarding Scholastic Book Club and how ordering books can not only help your child as a reader, but also help grow our classroom library! Also, keep an eye out for a link in your email and on this page to sign up for a parent-teacher conference. The conference window opens Monday 10/22! October 1
Parent Volunteer Needed! A parent is needed to serve as the Understanding Our Differences representative for 3rd grade. This program introduces disabilities to the children to promote understanding. If you are interested, please contact Deb LaCamera ([email protected]). September 26
Thank you to the families who attended Back to School Night! We enjoyed meeting you! If you missed our presentation, the information we sent home with families is attached below!
September 20
September 14
A Great 2 weeks in 3rd Grade! We have had a fantastic two weeks of school! Each one of your children is special and is adding so much to our classroom. We have been focusing on classroom and school routines as well as building our classroom's sense of community. We have placed a large emphasis on respecting and appreciating each others' differences, showing kindness whenever possible, and having a positive attitude. We are happy to have a full-time intern working with us this year from Brandeis University. Katey Duchin is currently working towards her Masters degree in Education. Katey enjoys engaging with kids and helping them develop positive mindset and self confidence. Please welcome Katey (Miss Duchin) to our classroom. You will get a chance to meet her at Curriculum Night! Our primary method of updating you on our classroom happenings will be through posts on this blog. We recommend subscribing by inputting your email address on the home page. This way, you will receive an email when announcements/updates/newsletters are posted. On this website, you will also find information about 3rd grade curriculum and our schedule. We will go more in depth with curriculum at Curriculum Night! Hope to see you there! As we transition from classbuilding/routines to curriculum, you will receive updates about what your child is learning. We have started our first Math unit focusing on multiplication. Today, a letter was sent home explaining the skills taught in this unit and some suggested activities for at-home. In Reading, students have set up their book bags and are excited to begin Readers' Workshop! In the coming week we will be learning about how to choose a "just right book", building our reading stamina, and how/why to read a variety of genres. We are about to begin Social Studies with our first unit called: What is history? The students will begin the unit with a brown bag activity asking each student to pick 3 things that are important to them. Each will share their "all about me" bags with classmates and explain why their objects are important. Details will be shared next week. This activity is a fun way for all of us to learn more about each other. Announcements/reminders: *Today (Friday) your child received a blue plastic take home folder. This will go to and from school daily. Please get in the habit of checking it with your child each night. They brought home a few papers today including their first assignment! *Please remember to change School Pass if your child's dismissal plan has changed. This is so helpful to us! *Lucy and I encourage students to select areas to work in around the room that best suits them. Students are often at small group tables, working on the rug, or using a clipboard in a "smart spot" that allows them to best focus. It is not required, but we offer the option to bring in a bath mat for them to work on. If you send one in, please write your child's name on the back. *We have received many questions from eager students about homework. Each night, 3rd graders are expected to read a minimum of 20 minutes. From time to time, they will have a Math page reinforcing skills already taught in their Take Home folders. *Keep an eye out for information regarding our class Twitter account! *Wednesday 9/19: No School *Tuesday 9/25: Curriculum Night at 6 PM *Thursday 9/27: Early Release August 30
Summer Letter A letter to both your child and parents/guardians was sent to your home address this week. In case you did not receive it, please use the link below to access the information. We look forward to meeting you all and having a wonderful year!
2017-2018June 14
Summer Math & Reading Hard copies of the rising 4th grade Math calendar and a list of awesome new books will be coming home with your child next week. Neither of these are required, but will help your child stay on track and be ready to continue growing as mathematicians and readers in 4th grade. I have linked the documents below for your reference! They can also be downloaded and printed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 31 Announcements/Reminders We are entering a very busy time of the school year so I have a few reminders/announcements for you: 1. Color Day: Tuesday, June 5. Please check your email to see what color team your child has been assigned to. On Tuesday, please send your child dressed in the color listed, wearing sunscreen, and with a water bottle labeled with their name. 2. Wax Museum is coming up! As a reminder, this will take place on Friday, June 8 from 9-10 am outside on the field. At this point in the project, your child is using their research/notes to write their speech. On Friday (tomorrow) speeches should be completed and ready to print. They will have time to work on them at school today, but if they are not done, will need to finish at home in order to be prepared for next week. Next week, we will focus on memorizing. This should definitely be practiced at home as well! On the day of the Wax Museum, your child should dress up as their person and can bring school appropriate props. I will send a reminder next week with more detail on this. 3. Band/Orchestra: Yesterday, all 3rd graders attended an instrument demo to help them start thinking about playing an instrument in the band or orchestra next year. A blue pre-registration form was sent home yesterday. They can be returned in your child's take home folder and I will get them to the music department. 4. Library books: On Tuesday in Library, students who have books that need to be returned received a list of these titles. Please check in with your child regarding library books and return them as soon as possible. If they are lost/you have questions, please email Jill Leibowitz. The first 3rd grade class with no remaining books to return wins a popsicle party from Mrs. Leibowitz! 5. Final Writing Celebration: This will take place on Wednesday, June 13 from 12:00-12:30 (right before the 3rd grade picnic). Students will get to share their opinion/persuasive writing pieces and open their time capsules from the beginning of the school year. Because this is right before the picnic, we will not have food/refreshments at this celebration. Hope to see you all there! Thank you for you support and participation in these end of the year events! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 4
Thank you for joining us to celebrate your child’s hard work at our Writing Celebration! On Monday and Tuesday, 3rd graders will be taking their Math MCAS. We will start first thing, so please ensure your child has a good breakfast and arrives to school on time. Thank you for your support! Math We have concluded our fractions unit by learning to compare fractions – those with like denominators, those with like numerators, and fractions on a number line. We then reviewed multiplication and division strategies within word problems. Next week after MCAS testing, we will begin Unit 7, “How Many Miles?”, which focuses on addition, subtraction, and the number system. Be on the look out for the Unit 7 Family Letter for more information and activities/practice to try at home! Please support your child’s learning at home by continuing to review their basic multiplication facts up to 10. Writing In the next week, students will begin learning about opinion/persuasive writing. We will first discuss opinions and how to appropriately share/discuss them and developing lots of ideas for students to choose from. The end goal is for 3rd graders to write an opinion piece that includes:
Reading & Social Studies In Social Studies, we are transitioning from the time of the Pilgrims to our next unit, “The Colonial Newton Story.” This week, students have been comparing homes, public buildings, and clothing from the 1620s to those of the 1770s in the thirteen colonies. In the coming weeks students will be able to:
We are integrating Social Studies and Reading to support the students’ learning! Students will be reading and using various non-fiction texts to research the Social Studies objectives. We will be noticing and discussing non-fiction text features and working to improve our comprehension of these texts. Science North American Wood Frog eggs arrived this week! In observation journals, students are monitoring the transformation from egg to tadpole, then to tadpole with legs, froglet, and finally frogs! Along with this study, we are learning about the characteristics of amphibians and other animals that go through metamorphosis. Fundations We have moved on to our next unit which focuses on the following new concepts:
Reminders/Upcoming Dates
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April 28 End of the Year! We are entering a very busy time of the school year! Below I have listed all of the upcoming events. I also have included the dates as a pdf if you'd like to download and print. I hope to see many of you on Tuesday at our Writing Celebration! bischof_end_of_year_dates.pdf MAY: Tuesday, May 1: Writing Celebration 8:20-9:20 Thursday, May 3: Early Release Friday, May 4: Cabot Sprit Day Monday, May 7th: Math MCAS Tuesday, May 8: Math MCAS Monday, May 14: Field Trip to Durant Kenrick House 8:45-11:00 Tuesday, May 15: Recorder Concert 11:10-11:45 Monday, May 28: No School JUNE: Friday, June 1: Cabot Spirit Day Tuesday, June 5: Color Day Friday, June 8: Wax Museum 9:00-10:00 Wednesday, June 13: 3rd grade picnic 12:50-2:50 Monday, June 18-Friday, June 22: Spirit Week Friday, June 22: Last day of school (early release at 12:00) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- April 9 Thank you for taking the time to conference with me about your child's progress! Math Since the last newsletter, we have concluded our study of Unit 4 (linear measurement, area, triangles, and quadrilaterals). This week, we are starting our study of fractions! On Tuesday, your child will bring home the Unit 6 letter which includes an explanation of the entire unit as well as some extension activities to try at home. I have also uploaded a digital version at the bottom of this post. Unit 6, “Fair Shares and Fractions on Number Lines”, focuses on:
We will begin the first Investigation this week. This Investigation is called “Sharing Brownies” and gives students experiences dividing paper “brownies” into equal pieces, labeling them as fractions, and ordering fractions by size. We will also explore whether two differently shaped sixths, for example, of the same whole are equal. Students will then consider more than one piece of the brownie, exploring fractions that have a numerator more than 1. We will continue to expand our understanding by placing the fractions on a number line and identifying equivalent fractions for 1/2 and 1/3. Reading We are still enjoying our author study of Dick King-Smith and have completed our second read aloud, Mysterious Miss Slade. As a reward for passing the line in our word pebble jar, students chose to watch the movie Babe on this coming Friday. Dick King-Smith wrote the book that Babe is based on. We will look for commonalities in the themes, style of writing, and characters between the books we’ve read in class and the movie. We have especially been focusing on the elements of fiction such as plot, setting, characters, conflict/problem, resolution, and theme. As we record these elements in the Dick King-Smith books we are reading, students have been able to draw conclusions about Dick King-Smith’s style of writing, what was important to him, and themes he includes in many of his books. Writing Students are hard at work on their informational writing pieces. We are currently drafting our chapters as well as learning to insert/create pictures, diagrams, charts, and tables all on Google Docs! We plan to have a Writing Celebration on Tuesday, May 1 @ 8:20 to share the students’ hard work. Hope to see you there! Social Studies We have recently started our Pilgrim unit, which the students are loving! Each student has been assigned the persona of a real Pilgrim, creating families within our classroom. They will research their family and assigned Pilgrim and write journal entries from their point of view. The kids look forward to finding “their Pilgrim” on our upcoming field trip to Plimoth Plantation. This unit has 3 main ideas:
Students will learn about about the experiences of the European settlers coming from England and Holland to New England in the early mid-17th century. Students will learn the Pilgrim experience in this “new world” and have some opportunity to compare/contrast their lives with the lives of the Wampanoag nation we have already studied. At the end of the unit, students will be able to:
Reminders/Upcoming Dates
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March 5-9 This week and last week, our class has been focusing on kindness. This fit perfectly with the “One School, One Book” approach Cabot is taking towards Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson. All classes have read the book, which focuses on showing kindness, respect, and empathy to everyone, regardless of how different they may be from you. In our classroom, we continue to discuss how kindness is like a boomerang and have even seen this in action! Students are also taking note of how others are kind and we share at the end of each day. For each act of kindness noticed, we add a piece of “confetti” to our class poster. See the picture below! Math We have completed Unit 3, which focused on addition, subtraction, and the number system, and have started Unit 4. This unit focuses on the following big ideas: linear measurement, understanding and finding area, and triangles/quadrilaterals. On Monday, your child will bring home the Unit 4 letter which includes an explanation of the entire unit as well as some extension activities to try at home. I have also uploaded a digital version at the bottom of this post. This week, we have started our exploration of linear measurement. At the end of this first investigation, students will be able to:
After wrapping up our focus on informational texts about Wampanoags, we started our next Reading unit: an author study focusing on Dick King-Smith, author of The Sheep Pig which later became Babe. The goal of this author study is to introduce students to this engaging author and to learn to identify common themes, stylistic elements, and the author’s craft. We will also be learning about Dick King-Smith’s life and examining his writing to see how his interests and experiences influenced it. Because of his love for animals, Dick King-Smith made many of his characters humorous animals with personalities that all students are sure to love! We will enjoy at least two read-alouds together as a class, Lady Lollipop and Mysterious Miss Slade. Students will also enjoy a leveled Dick King-Smith book in their small reading groups. Additionally, we will focus on the elements of fiction books such as characters (their traits and how they change), plot, conflict/problem, resolution, and themes. We also have recently updated our "Books We've Read" bulletin board in our classroom. Check out the picture below! Writing We have continued researching using books and online resources for our informational text pieces. In the next week, students will begin drafting, starting with an introduction and then using their research to develop each chapter. Eventually, students will add in text features like charts, diagrams, vocabulary boxes, maps, etc. to bring their work to life! In Fundations, we have just started Unit 4. On Monday, your child will bring home the at-home support pack for this unit. Please read the letter outlining the focus of the unit and encourage your child to complete the practices attached. This unit contains a review of r-controlled vowels and vowel teams (see posters below) and instruction on the -ive exception to the vCe rules we learned in Unit 3. Students learn that words in the English language do not end in v and therefore we add an e to the end. In some cases, this does not change the vowel sound to a long one like we have been practicing. For example, give, olive, and active are all exceptions to the rule because the i is a short vowel. Science We are thoroughly enjoying our current Science unit, “Investigating Things in My World”, focusing on material, weight, volume, and matter. Throughout this unit, students use scientific practices that are central to inquiry such as reasoning from evidence, building and using models, and developing explanations. They work collaboratively with their classmates, using measurement, mathematical and graphical representations, and discussion to build scientific explanations about objects and materials in the world around them. Within their investigations, students learn to use data tables and measure lines to represent weight. They express their ideas through discussions, writing, and drawing. At the end of this unit, students will have the following understandings:
Reminders
Math Unit 4 Letter: u4_letter.pdf Math Unit 4 Related Activities to try at home: unit_4_letter_2.pdf Fundations Unit 4 Letter/Activities: unit_4_fundations_letter.pdf -------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 21 Spring Conference Sign-Ups Please use this link to sign up for an in-person or telephone conference: goo.gl/forms/SwMCn6irL45V3yr43 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- February 2 News & Reminders
------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 30 Flu update Please see the important note below from the Newton Health and Human Services Department passed along from Ms. Kerrigan. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 30 Kindness Boomerang In the next coming weeks, the third grade will be focusing on kindness and how to spread it within our classroom, school, and community. This morning, we brainstormed ways to spread kindness and talked about examples of kindness we have seen or experienced. We also watched the video below called "The Kindness Boomerang" which shows how one act of kindness can spread and make a difference, as well as potentially come back to you like a boomerang. Please ask your child about the kindness boomerang and check out the great video! -------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 22-26 I apologize for the long overdue classroom update! It has been quite a busy time of year, but that means lots of learning! Math Our current Math “Investigation” focuses on building 1,000. Students use this knowledge of place value to add and subtract larger numbers. We began with using 100s charts to create 1,000s charts to visualize the quantity. We also practiced using number patterns within the charts to locate and write in various numbers. Students were also expected to be able to sequence these larger numbers and did it in the context of collections. They examined collections of toys, stamps, books, etc. and used the data on collection cards to order them least to greatest. These cards were also used in a new game, “Go Collecting”. This game is similar to Go Fish but includes the skill of determining the number of 100s in the sum of 3-digit numbers. For example, 329 + 287 has 6 hundreds in it. This game can be played at home using the Pearson Realize website! Students also practiced identifying the number of 10s in 3 digit numbers. For example, there are 27 tens in 276. We concluded this investigation today with rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100. Next week, we will begin the next investigation, which builds on the previous one. Our focus will be addition of 2 and 3 digit numbers up to 400. Students will use strategies that involve breaking each number apart by place or adding on one number in parts. Reading Students have been quite busy in our mystery unit reading mystery novels independently and in groups. We also have loved reading some of Doug Cushman’s mystery novels and using his awesome illustrations and exciting words for some close reading activities. As we near the end of our unit, students will be completing sleuth notebooks, book reviews, book advertisements, and many discussions on their books. Writing We have started our Informational Writing unit! Students have chosen their topic, gathered books from the library, learned how to use online research resources, and have started to plan their subtopics. This week, students will construct their table of contents as an organizational strategy. This will help them plan out their subtopics in a logical order, construct chapters of equal weight and importance, present enough information to cover their whole topic, and avoid repeating information throughout their writing. Or next steps will be to learn and practice multiple organizational techniques such as a pro/con chart, statistics, lists, etc. If your child has books at home about their topic, feel free to send them in for research! Social Studies Students have been so excited by our new Social Studies unit, “The Wampanoag Story.” This unit focuses on the Wampanoag nation of Native Americans who lived along the southeastern Massachusetts coast at the time the Pilgrims arrived from England in 1620. This unit is a cultural study and provides them the chance to consider how others lived in the past. Our lessons will cover:
Thus far, students have had the opportunity to observe, analyze, and make inferences using photographs of Wampanoag artifacts to learn about daily life, their homes, clothing, and food. Reminders
January 18
P.E. Footwear Reminder See the message below from Ms. Foley: Hello Families! It is that time of year when winter boots become a staple of our wardrobe. While this is fantastic to battle the harsh New England elements, winter boots are not beneficial to the movement during Physical Education and other activities. Please remember to send a pair of sneaker for your child to change into for ease of movement and overall safety, and especially on PE days as wearing sneakers is part of personal and social responsibility, and readiness for PE. While students are not normally asked to sit out for wearing boots, I notice they are much more clumsy and unsafe during class when wearing improper footwear. Thank you in advance for reminding children to bring their sneakers to change into! Kindly, Miss Foley ------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 17 3rd Grade Math Game Night! This year we are having the first ever Math Game Night. The teachers felt this would be a great opportunity for your child to teach you some of the new math games we have learned during third grade. We would love for you to attend. Date: Feb 15th Time: 6-7pm Location: Cabot at Carr - Cafeteria Please RSVP using the link below as we will be providing refreshments/food during the evening. Siblings are welcome to join. goo.gl/forms/cRKO5TzUYutXqB4j2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 9 See information below for upcoming Responsive Home Workshops! These focus on many of the Responsive Classroom ideas and strategies we use at Cabot that can be applied in your homes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 11-15 We are in the midst of cold/flu season and could use more hand sanitizer in our classroom. Any donations would be greatly appreciated! If I do not see you at Tuesday’s Writing Celebration, have a wonderful holiday break with friends and family! Math We have started Unit 3! This unit is called “Travel Stories and Collections” and focuses on three main math ideas:
At the end of this unit, students will be able to:
The first investigation of this unit, which we started this past week, focuses on working with 100. We began adding and subtracting multiples of 10 and at the beginning of this week, will solve addition problems with 2- and 3-digit numbers (up to 400) as well as reviewing the place value in these numbers. Additionally this week, students will subtract 2- and 3-digit numbers and show this on a number line. Lastly, we will focus on using our knowledge of pairs of numbers that add up to 10 to help us solve addition problems that add up to 100. For example, we know that 2 + 8 = 10, so this can help us with 20 + ___ = 100. Students will also learn two new Math games: “Capture 5” and “Close to 100”. Both of these can be played online on the Pearson website. For more at home activities as well as additional information about this new unit, please see the Unit 3 Family Letter or the paper copy sent home with your child. Reading The mystery unit is in full swing! Each student selected a “Just Right” mystery novel and is also enjoying an additional mystery in their reading groups. Students are loving completing their “Sleuth Notebooks” as they read, tracking clues and suspects! Throughout this unit, we will be enjoying three of Doug Cushman’s mystery picture books for interactive read alouds. These books will provide opportunities for the whole class to discuss/identify the elements of mysteries together. We have read The Mystery at the Club Sandwich and will soon read The Mystery of King Karfu and The Mystery of the Monkey’s Maze. Using The Mystery at the Club Sandwich, we have learned important mystery vocabulary such as alibi, breakthrough, clue, crime, evidence, motive, mystery, red herring, sleuth/detective, suspect, witness, and victim. Students also have been working on conversation skills to share ideas as we read. Our final focus with this book is one we will return to over and over: close reading. Close reading is rereading to uncover layers of meaning that lead to deep comprehension. This attention to the text empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details, while enabling them to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. We will focus on 4 basic questions as we close read:
Writing We have been busy bees revising, editing, and publishing our personal narratives in preparation for the Writing Celebration on Tuesday. Hope to see you all there at 8:20! Social Studies Third graders are continuing their study of Massachusetts geography. Using a story called “Ms. Achusetts and Her Dress”, students learned how to draw the shape of MA. Be sure to ask your child about this story and have them draw our state for you! We also will be working on a MA Scavenger Hunt using Google Earth to practice the following:
Also this week, we will focus more closely on the major rivers and water ways in MA. Students will be able to identify and map the following geographical features:
Reminders
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November 27-December 1 I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family! I am very thankful for working in such a supportive school community and having fabulous students! Math Continuing our study of collecting and displaying data, students visited a 4th grade classroom and collected data with a partner using a question they created. They then got to choose whether to create a bar graph or pictograph to best display their data. This week, we will cover our final type of graph; a line plot. Students are introduced to a line plot for representing numerical data. We will create a line plot showing how many years a class of 5th graders has been at their school and then analyze and describe what we observe. After line plots, we will be shifting gears towards collecting data through measurement. We will be focusing on measuring length, to the nearest ½ inch and foot. We will practice these skills by measuring our feet, how far we can blow a pattern block across a table, and how far we can jump. Reading We have finished reading our realistic fiction books in reading groups and have been spending time working on a project related to the books we read. Students are working on various projects including: writing the first chapter for a sequel to their book, writing book reviews for their classmates, creating new covers, or developing questions about what they read. This has been a big hit! Students have loved having this creative time as well as time to practice their computer skills. This week we will begin our third Reading unit: the genre of mystery. In this unit, students will read engaging mysteries with diverse characters. They will learn about the structure of mysteries and how to actively read and revise their thinking as new evidence is presented. They will engage in reading, writing, thinking, speaking, and listening in small and large groups. We will focus on strategies for determining vocabulary in context and how to discuss and write about what we read. Students will have the opportunity to select their own independent reading mystery, listen to an interactive read aloud, and read a mystery within reading group. Be sure to ask your child about our visit from David Kelly, the author of the Baseball Park Mysteries series. Not only were we able to learn about the writing process from someone who uses it every day, but also we got excited for our upcoming unit! We can’t wait to start mysteries! Fundations Students continued practicing adding suffixes to various words, with a focus on those 1-1-1 words. We practiced first identifying 1-1-1 words (1 vowel, 1 syllable, and 1 consonant after the vowel), then deciding if the suffix is a vowel or consonant suffix, and finally deciding whether all of this means to double the consonant or not. Because there are many steps and much to think about, we will continue to practice this skill in the coming week. Writing We are in revising and editing mode! Students have finished writing their small moment stories and are now learning strategies to edit and revise. We have spent a lot of our time focusing on revising our writing into paragraphs and when the appropriate time to start a new paragraph is. Students are also working on adding dialogue into their writing and using the correct punctuation when they do so. See our anchor charts below to learn about these strategies! Social Studies 3rd graders are finally jumping in to Massachusetts’s geography! After exploring the concept of scale on maps and creating our classroom map to scale, we will begin to learn about the shape of MA and its geographical features. Questions to ask your child:
Reminders
November 13-17
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Math We have started our second Math unit, Graphs and Line Plots. The unit focuses on using bar graphs, pictographs, and line plots to represent, describe, and compare categorical and numerical data. Students will also generate measurement data in inches, half inches, feet, and yards. This week, students collected and organized data about places we like to eat. They then developed questions that can be answered by looking at different arrangements of the data. The students then were able to work in small groups organizing different favorites of the class and had to decide an organized way to display this data, with the hopes that they created a bar or pictograph. We also learned a new game, “Guess My Rule”, which focuses on having to observe commonalities of a group to guess the secret rule. The overarching skills we focused on this week include:
Next week, we will move into bar graphs, double bar graphs, and pictographs. Reading Continuing our study of realistic fiction and communities, our mini lessons this week focused on connecting with our stories’ characters and inferring how they feel, using context clues to discover meanings of new words, and comparing/contrasting the communities in The Sandwich Swap to their reading group books. Throughout this unit, students have been making inferences about the setting and characters in their books. This is a very important skill for third graders to master and will be incorporated throughout the year. We have learned that to make an inference, you use evidence from the text along with your background knowledge to draw a conclusion. For example, an author may not tell us a character is feeling frustrated, but may describe the character stomping their feet as they walk up the stairs. Students can use this evidence plus their knowledge that people often stomp their feet when angry or frustrated to conclude that their character is feeling angry. Another important third grade skill is the use of context clues. We examined different types of context clues and how they can be used. See the chart below for different types of clues! Fundations This week students learned about 1-1-1 words. A 1-1-1 word has 1 vowel, 1 consonant after the vowel, and is 1 syllable. When adding a vowel suffix to a 1-1-1 word such as drop, the final consonant is doubled. Drop would become dropping or dropped. Writing Third grade writers focused on organizing their personal narratives in preparation of writing their drafts in the coming week! Students worked hard on sequencing events, writing an exciting hook, and identifying details they wanted to include using their 5 senses. Next week, we will draft our stories and begin to learn strategies for organizing our writing as well as revising and editing. Social Studies We have started our second Social Studies unit! This unit focuses on Massachusetts geography. Following this unit, students will be able to:
Our focus this week was on perspective. Students learned that we could all be looking at the same object, but depending on our location, it could appear different to us. Students also learned about aerial views and how most maps use this perspective. Questions to ask your child:
Reminders
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November 5 Have you heard about Cabot families? -------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 31-November 3 Thank you for taking the time to meet with me about your child! Math We had a busy week of Math with lots of new, challenging material! We focused on:
Essential understandings for your child with these topics include:
As we wrap up Unit 1, students will write their own story problems for a class multiplication and division book and will be assessed on their 1s, 2s, 4s, 5s, and 10s multiplication facts for progress monitoring. Reading This week, third graders began Readers’ Workshop. The structure for Readers’ Workshop is as follows:
Continuing our theme of communities, students were assigned Realistic Fiction novels on their level and are very excited about them! This week, our mini-lessons focused on dictionary skills to support learning new vocabulary in our books and the difference between making an inference and making a prediction. Fundations In our Fundations time, we have been focusing on suffixes. We started with the concept of plurals and the rules for when to add an –s and when to add –es. Students learned that words ending in s, x, z, ch, and sh all get –es. We also learned that –es and –s can have multiple sounds. –Es sounds like /iz/ and –s can make the sounds /s/ or /z/. Students also learned that some words just don’t follow a rule and therefore must be memorized. So far, our trick words for the unit are: wolves, halves, and women. We have also covered the suffices –ing and –ed and discussed that –ing is added to words to show that an action is happening now, while –ed is added to words to show past tense. –Ed can make the sound /d/ as in filled or /ed/ as in dusted. Writing Students have finally selected the seed idea they will develop into their personal narrative! After deciding on their “best seed” with the help of their Writing Buddy, third graders practiced telling their stories orally to a partner. Without using their notebooks, students had to recall details and really create an image of their story in their minds. After sharing, students drew this image in their notebooks. We will use these ideas and drawings to develop our stories’ settings in the coming week. Science To supplement our study of trees, we had a visit from “The Canopy Guy” on Friday! Students learned all about which animals make trees their homes, different types of bark and fungus, and even saw our presenter climb a tree. After the outdoor session, we got to experience many natural items up close and then broke into smaller groups to draw some of the big ideas of that indoor session: The Life Cycle of a Moth, the Story of Mushrooms, and the Importance of Wasps. Check out our class instagram for pictures! Technology As students begin to use Keyboarding Without Tears and RAZ Kids more at school, it would be wonderful if students had headphones to use. If you have a pair of headphones at school you’d be willing to send it, please do so and label them with your child’s name. Only your child will use these headphones and it will allow us to keep our classroom quieter during these times. We will send headphones home at the end of the year! Questions to ask your child:
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October 24 Parking for Conferences When coming to Carr for conferences, please park on the streets surrounding the school, not in the front or back parking lots. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 16-20 Math Our study of multiplication continued with the following focus points:
Students also brainstormed multiple strategies for solving a multiplication fact they found to be difficult. For example, 7 x 8 can be solved by starting with 7 x 5 if that is a known fact. Students discovered they could then add 7 x 2 and then a 7 x 1 to total the 8 groups of 7. We will continue of study of multiplication, hoping to improve fluency along the way. The array cards made at school were sent home in Take Home folders this week. Playing Factor Pairs or using them as flashcards is a great way to support your child at home! Reading Third graders are excited to begin our second unit of Reading, Resolving Conflict through Community. This unit focuses on fiction books and the following essential understandings:
Fundations This week, we wrapped up unit 1 by addressing the 5 closed syllable exceptions and how to mark them: ild like in wild, ind like in kind, old like in cold, olt like in colt, and ost like in host. These glued sounds do not make the expected short vowel sounds. All topics from unit 1 were reviewed and students took their first Fundations assessment on Friday. Next week we will begin unit 2. Be on the look out for at-home unit 2 resources being sent home! A digital copy has also been uploaded to the At-Home page of this website. Writing This week, students developed their “storyteller’s voice” with the goal of showing, not just telling about people, places, and things. We focused on the following goals in our writing:
Also, to provide an end goal to have in mind, students spent time this week looking over the 3rd Grade Narrative Writing checklist that they will use when writing their final small moment narrative. Using the checklist, students assessed the writing of a third grader and noticed what he/she did well and what they needed to improve upon. Students were also THRILLED to begin learning to write in cursive. We will progress through the letters in an order that builds on the strokes. For example, students learned lowercase a this week and will do lowercase d next week because of how similar they are. Ask your child to show you their cursive skills! Science Through the use of non-fiction texts and online resources, students researched the parts of a tree: crown, branches, leaves, trunk, roots, outer bark, inner bark, heartwood, sapwood, pitch, and cambium. We will continue to learn more about trees as we discover the differences between deciduous and coniferous and apply basic tree classification skills. Social Studies We spent our Social Studies time this week sharing our personal timelines. Students had the best time not only sharing their family photos and memories, but learning even more about their classmates. As we shared, the concepts of chronological order, the linear quality of timelines, and ordering dates were reinforced. Technology Each student now has their own Google Drive account and have learned to create Google Docs and Drawings and share their work. To practice these skills and continue to promote a positive classroom environment, students created Google Drawings of their “buckets” and ways to fill others’ buckets after reading Have You Filled A Bucket Today? by Carolyn McCloud. Check out their awesome drawings here: drive.google.com/a/newton.k12.ma.us/file/d/0B5hQevh7lGepaWlUODktTHA0ZFk/view?usp=sharing Reminders
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October 19 Important updates/reminders! 1. At-home resources: Students have been asking about login information for at-home resources. Here's a reminder about those websites:
2. Conferences: If you have not yet signed up for a conference and would like to schedule one, please do so using the following link: www.signupgenius.com/go/508044ca5ab29a2f94-q1conferences 3. Halloween: Please see the flier below about how Halloween will be handled at Cabot this year. 4. Responsive Classroom at Home! The Responsive Classroom approach we use at school can be applied to your home life as well! NPS will be holding a Responsive Home Workshop. See the flier below for more information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 11 Conference Sign-up Please click the following link to sign up for a conference time! www.SignUpGenius.com/go/508044CA5AB29A2F94-q1conferences ------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 2-6
Thank you for sending in scissors! We now have the amount needed. If you'd still like to contribute to our classroom, we'd love some handheld pencil sharpeners with covers that catch the shavings. We frequently use colored pencils that cannot be sharpened in an electric pencil sharpener because they jam it. Math This week, students were introduced to arrays to represent multiplication. To explore this concept, students worked on a "chair arranging" challenge. Each student was assigned a number and they had to create an array using unifix cubes with equal rows and then cut out the array with paper. Check out our instagram for pictures of this activity! We were able to make the connection between dimensions of the array and factors and the total number of chairs and the product. We continued investigating arrays to identify features of square and prime numbers. We learned that no matter which way you turn an array of a square number, it will appear the same. For example, an array of 3 rows and 3 columns will always look the same and therefore, 9 is a square number. Additionally, prime numbers, such as 13 could only be represented by 1 row of 13 chairs or 13 rows of 1 chair. We wrapped up the week in Math by finding products of arrays by skip counting the rows or using known facts. For example, an array for 9 x 8 (9 rows of 8) can be broken up into (3 x 8) + (3 x 8) + (3 x 8) or 24 + 24 + 24 = 72. The next focus with arrays will be connecting it to area of a rectangle. Students will find the area of a rectangle by covering it with square tiles. The goal is for students to develop an understanding that the area of a rectangle can be found by multiplying its dimensions. Reading We continued our focus on comprehension strategies, this week with visualizing and making connections (Text-to-self, Text-to-text, Text-to-world). Students learned that good readers visualize or make movies in their heads and actively make connections while they read. Both of these strategies improve understanding. To practice visualizing, students had the opportunity to read quotes from some of our favorite books, create a detailed picture in their minds and then draw that picture to share with the class. We also practiced this skill using a non-fiction text about characteristics of different bugs. I did not show them the pictures! Instead, students discussed what they thought the pictures may have been showing going off of what they heard. We used the book Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeannette Winter to practice making connections together. Similar to Snowflake Bentley and Sonia Sotomayor, this book depicts a true story of an individual who worked hard and made a difference in the lives of others. Students were definitely able to make many text-to-text connections from these three stories. Towards the end of the next week, we will begin our next Reading unit: "Communities in Realistic Fiction." Through this literature unit on realistic fiction, third graders will learn how to determine a central message, and analyze the development of the message in the book through the characters—their thoughts, feelings, actions and change. Students will note that several texts selected for this unit address a similar big idea: a community, acting supportively as a family, can help characters solve their problems. The unit consists of whole class and guided reading lessons. Students will address specific common core objectives while making inferences about characters and how they change over time. Writing In Writing, students continued to build on ideas for their narrative writing piece. We focused on the importance of getting ideas down on paper- not being worried about spelling perfectly or if we are "doing it right" at this point. Revising and editing comes later in the process. Students were encouraged to "write up a storm" and participated in a few sustained writing timed challenges with the goal of keeping their pencil moving for the full 5 minutes and writing a continuous stream of consciousness related to one of their brainstormed ideas. Below you will find anchor charts showing strategies we are currently practicing. Students were very excited to also set up their Google Drives this week! Each child has login information to access their NPS Google Drive where they can store Google Docs, Slides, Drawings, etc. for work related to the curriculum. This will mostly be used in Writing to publish final copies. At this point, this will only be used at school. If there is a time students can work on their Writing at home, I will send home their username and password on a label in their take-home folders. There will also be directions on how to access the Google Drive accounts on my links page. Most importantly, students learned internet safety and expectations for use of Google Drive: rules_for_google_docs_use.pdf Our next couple Writing lessons will focus on using a storyteller's voice. This includes telling their stories in scenes rather than reporting them in summaries. We will use the mentor text, Come on Rain!, to illuminate this idea. Social Studies We had a great time sharing our found items from the Old, Older, Oldest assignment. Our goal with this activity was for students to understand that objects, as well as people, have a history to tell. After the students shared, they arranged their drawings in chronological order on a string timeline to display in our classroom. See instagram for the finished product! In the coming week, your child will bring home information about their next Social Studies assignment, a personal timeline. I have linked both of the information pages below in case you need another copy. Before constructing their own, I will share a timeline of my life, which will prompt a class discussion to answer these questions:
This assignment will be due on Wednesday, October 18. If you do not want your child to depict a timeline of his or her life, please contact me so I can provide you with an alternative subject. Fundations This week, students continued to practice identifying, marking, and spelling words with closed syllables as well as deciding which words use –tch and –ch. We also touched on new sound alike words (homophones): know/no and right/write. To wrap up week 1, students took a brief check-in for progress monitoring which you will see sent home Tuesday. Our next focus is closed syllable exceptions, which have a similar pattern to closed syllables, but have a long vowel sound instead of the expected short vowel sound. Examples include child, kind, and most. Students will also learn that w and qu change the sound of the letter a like in wash and squash. Please refer to the Fundations at-home support letter that was sent home this past week for a list of skill words (words that demonstrate the skill we are learning), sound alike words, and trick words (words that do not follow the usual spelling patterns and should be memorized). Coming up...
------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 25-29 Thank you to all of you who were able to join us at Back to School Night! I enjoyed meeting you! If you were unable to make it, here is the link to our power point. If you have any questions about the topics mentioned, please email me. btsn_ppt_17-18.ppt.pptx.pdf So many of you have generously offered to contribute supplies and items to the classroom. At the moment, our greatest need is children's sized scissors (we do not have any), handheld pencil sharpeners with shavings catchers, and books to add to our library. See the classroom wishlist to the right for more details. Thank you! Math At Back to School Night, you were given a pink letter with a white page stapled to it. If you were not there, this form was sent home Friday with your child. This packet provides login information to the Pearson Realize website and gives to access to extra assignments, games, and videos that go along with Investigations. Assignments will appear for about a month while we are covering that topic and then disappear. In Math this week, students continued to explore the relationship between related facts like 5s and 10s and 3s and 6s. We expanded on this skill by solving related story problems that encourage them to use the answer to one problem to help them solve another, larger problem. For example, use 3 x 7 to help them solve 7 x 7. We will wrap this investigation up on Monday with a review and quick check-in of these skills. At this point in our study of multiplication, students have explored multiples of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10. Our next investigation is still multiplication, but now looking at arrays. In the coming weeks, students will:
I have assigned optional activities, games, and videos on the Pearson website for our current investigation and the upcoming array investigation. The assignments called MWI (Math words and ideas) are particularly helpful videos to review major topics taught in class. Reading This week, we continued to apply the 12 power verbs from last week in making meaning of and responding to reading. We practiced these actions while we read two inspirational books about children with determination and perseverance who went on to change the world: Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Sonia Sotomayor by Jonah Winter and Edel Rodriguez. The students loved learned that both of these books were true stories! After reading both stories and analyzing them separately, students compared and contrasted the characters Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley and Sonia Sotomayor using a venn diagram. Additionally, after independent reading of their “just right books” or read alouds of Snowflake Bentley and Sonia Sotomayor, third graders practiced the following important skills: • Listening attentively to books read aloud • Participating in group discussions • Taking turns in conversation when discussing books with a partner or a group • Responding appropriately during book conversations (Partner or group) • Discussing independent reading plans with a partner Our next focus will be two new comprehension strategies: making movies in your head (visualizing) and making connections while you read. Good readers visualize or make movies in their heads when they read, because it helps them understand the text better. Readers actively make connections with books that help them understand the text better. These connections can be Text-to-self, Text-to-text, Text-to-world. Writing We began our first unit of study, Crafting True Stories (Narrative). Our focus this week was finding ideas and writing up a storm! Students began brainstorming small moment ideas by focusing on people and places they love and listing specific memories associated with that person or place. This coming week, the class will discuss strategies to improve writing stamina and what can be done when we “run out of gas” as writers and how to write a story rather than a summary. Students will develop their “storyteller’s voice” and learn to show, not tell. We will use a mentor text, Come on Rain! by Karen Hesse. Social Studies To continue our study of “What is History?”, students learned the meaning of chronology. Their Old, Older, Oldest assignment is due this Wednesday and will be used to place their found items in chronological order and create a classroom timeline. We also will discuss how these items can teach us about the past. Our goals in this unit are to confront the following essential questions:
Fundations Below you will find the Unit 1 letter and at-home support activities for our current Fundations (phonics) unit. We are currently in our second week of this unit and focusing on the trigraph -tch and practicing the spelling of words that use -tch versus -ch. These activities are optional, but would support your child's learning at school. unit_1.pdf Coming up...
Reminders
------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 27 Old, Older, Oldest assignment Today your child will be bringing home a Social Studies assignment called Old, Older, Oldest. The assignment is due next Wednesday, October 4. Your child is being asked to find the oldest thing in your home and answer questions about it along with drawing it. The item itself is not brought to school. Thank you for your support in this assignment! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 25 Reminders:
September 18-22 Math Continuing with our study of multiplication, this past week we focused mostly on skip counting, 100s charts, and how they relate to multiplication. A new vocabulary word was also introduced, multiples. Students highlighted multiples of 2, 5, and 10 on separate 100s charts and looked for patterns. The goal with 2s was for the students to notice that the multiples of 2 are all even numbers and the columns beginning with 2, 4, 6, and 8 were all shaded in. With 5s and 10s, students observed that there are twice as many multiples of 5 on the 100s chart as there are 10s and that every other multiple of 5 is a multiple 10, The connections they made between the 5s and 10s were tested on 3s and 6s. We will continue our discussion of multiples and skip counting next week with 3s and 6s and using that knowledge to solve related number stories. Math challenges have also been introduced in the classroom. Students have a chance to take their thinking a step farther. For example, students this past week were able to make connections between multiplication and division in number stories. Math challenges are available as "early finishers" or during choice times. Reading We have done lots of writing and discussing of our reading this week! Our focus has been on comprehension before, during, and after reading. We began discussing predictions and inferences using illustrations and titles. Students also practiced techniques with sticky notes to use while they are reading to identify areas of the story they love, were surprised, made a connection, laughed, etc. For after reading, students practiced being excellent sharers and listeners with Reading buddies. Third graders were also introduced to Larry Bell's twelve power verbs. These power verbs promote higher-order thinking skills and will be used throughout the year. Students learned the following words and their meanings:
Writing In order to prepare for third grade writing, we studied exemplars of student notebooks to discuss what third grade writers do and don't do in their notebooks. The kids became very excited and motivated by seeing what they are going to be doing this year in Writing! Students should have returned their decorated Writer's Notebook so that we can begin using it in class this coming week. We will start with brainstorming! Social Studies We have continued our study of history and discussed the past, present, and future and ways of displaying it. This led to our discussion of timelines. The take away for students was the meaning of chronology and that timelines are linear. In our next lesson, students will be assigned a personal timeline project depicting their lives. Details to come! Coming up...
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 17 Decorating Writer's Notebooks Your child will be bringing home his or her Writer's notebook (composition book). Their assignment is to decorate/cover the front cover with pictures of things, people, and places they love and return it to school no later than Wednesday. The cover will serve as inspiration for many of their writing pieces throughout the year! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 11-15 Math NPS has adopted a new Math curriculum for 3rd grade called Investigations. You should have received the Unit 1 letter this past week in your child’s Take Home folder. We have started our study of multiplication and various strategies to solve multiplication problems (skip counting, drawing pictures, repeated addition) as well as write their own number stories. You can see examples on our Instagram account! At this point, it is important for your child to understand that 4 x 3 means 4 groups of 3. By the end of 3rd grade, students should be fluent with multiplication facts up to 10 x 10. This is a great focus for at home work! Reading We spent the week in Reading setting up the basics for Readers’ Workshop. Our mini-lessons for the week included:
In the coming week, we will shift our focus to comprehension and strategies to apply while reading as well as writing reading reflections. Writing Students spent time working on a small moments story to serve as a pre-assessment as we begin our first unit. This style of writing is something they have seen in past grades, but this year we have higher expectations for their output. The 45 minute sample they wrote gives me an understanding of what they know and remember from past years. Over the next few months we will work to build their knowledge and output. Also, your child learned the format for a friendly letter to help with our weekly Friday letters home. Your child’s letter was sent home in their Take Home folder. Social Studies In our first unit, our focus is What is History? We began this unit with a lesson on artifacts, primary sources, and ways we can learn about the past through inferences. Students were given the artifact bag assignment to not only share about themselves as we continue to get to know each other, but to see an example of how artifacts can help us draw conclusions. Students started sharing their artifact bags and we will continue into the coming week. If your child did not bring their bag on Friday, please encourage them to bring it in as soon as possible. Our next upcoming project will be a personal timeline. Details to come! Coming up...
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 13 Artifact Bags Today, your students will be bringing home an assignment called their "Artifact Bag." In Social Studies, we learned about artifacts and how they can teach us about the past. This assignment is their opportunity to learn about each other by bringing in items that describe them. They will need 5 items from home and a brown lunch bag. Please have your child bring this to school on Friday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- September 5-8 We had a great first week! This week our focus was on classbuilding and daily routines. Students enjoyed community-building games and activities that allowed them to find commonalities with their classmates as well as learn what makes each other unique. Students also spent time reflecting on challenges and successes from second grade in order to come up with their "Hopes and Dreams" for third. Throughout this process, students had practice in revising and editing their writing before creating a final draft to display on the wall. Another activity we did this week was creating time capsules that will be reopened at the end of third grade. Inside of the capsules, students placed a drawing and photograph of themself, current interests, likes, and dislikes, a letter to their future selves, and tracings of their feet and hands. We look forward to seeing how we've changed at the end of the year! A highlight of the week was a visit from Principal Sprung to discuss school values and to have him read his favorite book, Oh the Places You'll Go! To wrap up the week and practice communication and teamwork, we had a Friday STEM challenge of building a tower using the following materials: plastic cups, straws, tape, scissors, popsicle sticks, and a gallon ziplock bag. The catch? The tower had to be as tall as possible but still support the weight of a tennis ball. Students will continue their building on Monday and we will test out their hardwork. So far, the communication and planning has been impressive! This coming week, curriculum will begin. Below you will see an outline of our focuses/topics for the next few weeks in each subject.
Coming up...
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CLASSROOM WISHLIST
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