Saturday, September 27, 2014

Farewell September!

It's hard to believe that we are almost into October already!  The children (and teachers) have settled into a routine and things are running smoothly in third grade.

We are almost finished with our second unit in the Journeys program and I am already seeing the benefits of using a program that integrates the components of our Balanced Literacy framework.  Students are introduced to new vocabulary words on the first day of a new lesson and hear those words in the context of a short read aloud, a fiction story, and an informational text.  They see those same words in Guided Reading books at their instructional level as well.  The target skill for the lessons- Summarizing in Lesson 1 and Drawing conclusions in Lesson 2- are also carried over into students' Guided Reading lessons so that each child has an opportunity for more practice of that particular skill as it relates to his/her Guided Reading book.  The children are doing a great job!

In word work students have studied short vowel sounds and the long vowel sound that comes from words that have a Vowel-Consonant-final e.  They sorted simple words that had these patterns, and then learned how to look at words with more than one syllable like confuse, pollute, and amusement and use what they know about the vowel sounds to break those longer words apart and read them correctly.

This past week we also had visitors from the Troy Lodge of Elks come into our classroom and donate a personal dictionary to each student.  The Elks members spoke of the importance of Learning to Read so that you can Read to Learn, and it was wonderful for the children to hear this message from members of their community.  By coincidence, a segment of our Journeys lesson this week also began to teach students the skill of reading dictionary entries and selecting the most appropriate meaning of a word, so this visit from the Elks was well-timed!

Check back soon for more updates!

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Third Graders Can Do Amazing Things!

We are off and running here in third grade!  The students have done a wonderful job making the transition from the comfort of the K-2 wing up to the 3-5 wing with all of the "big kids".

A big idea that we have been talking about in these first days of school is all of the things that we can do as individuals and as learners that we are proud of.  Outside our classroom is a list of "I Can" Statements that celebrate the many achievements of third graders.  We have singers, athletes, dancers, jewelry makers, and more!  Inside our class, posted on the front board, is a chart listing all of the academic "I Can" Statements that we are proud of.

This week we are celebrating the following "I Can" Statements:
In ELA- We can ask and answer questions to show that we understand the stories we read, and use evidence from the text to support our thinking.

In Math- We can find patterns in addition and explain them using what we know about how numbers work.  We can also count by 1's, 10's, 100's, and 1,000's to 10,000.

In Science- We can think and write like a scientist by describing what we see, feel, hear, and smell.

And in Social Studies- We can identify our continent, country, state, and town.

Aren't these wonderful accomplishments?  Be sure to congratulate your third grader for achieving these goals!

Please be in touch any time if you have any questions about what we are learning in class.
I hope to meet you all at Open House on September 17th at 7:00 pm.