Weekly Update-September 30

Announcements

We had an busy and exciting week! On Tuesday, a group of 7th graders from Smithton Middle School came over to our classroom. These students are in a literacy class learning about storytelling. They performed 5 or 6 stories for us. It was a wonderful opportunity to see literacy demonstrated in another form, and the 3rd graders and I really enjoyed it!

We also had excitement on Thursday with the Color Challenge! We'll have to wait to see the all school picture, but here are a couple of just our class.

On Friday, we had our all school assembly! Students who sold more than 15 items for the Fundraiser were able to slime Mrs. Patton. Jesse from our class was able to do this. What a fun morning!

Fall Party Sign-up Link-http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-room

In the Classroom

In math this week, we finished our Addition unit. Next week, we will begin our Subtraction unit. Please be checking in with your third grader at home, as this typically is much more challenging than addition. 

Last week in writing, our focus was on Small Moment stories. This week, we exploded those moments into fully developed stories. We accomplished this by asking ourselves questions like...

-"What was I thinking?"

-"What did I do/say?"

-"What did the other characters do/say?"

-"How did I feel?"

These questions helped guide students to put more details into their writing. Next week, we will look at another elaboration technique called Shows and Tells.

In reading this week, we focused on reading responses. Students were asked to use everything they knew about text evidence to help support their responses. We also read a Scholastic News magazine.

 

We started our next social studies unit, Economics. We read the book, If You Made a Million as an introduction. 

We learned about the different options people have when they are given money. Students were then asked to say what they would do if they made a million dollars. Would they save, spend, or invest? 

Upcoming Events

October 13-Picture Retake Day
October 19-Early Dismissal at 12:50

October 28-Fall Room Party 2:15-3:00

October 31-No School, Teacher Work Day

Weekly Update-September 22

Announcements

A big thank you to Stefanie Arnold for taking the role of Parent Room Coordinator! We still need someone to volunteer for the game and craft at our Fall room party. The kids look forward to these parties so much, and I would love for them to be successful and fun. Please consider signing up to help!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-room

Thank you to everyone who returned a consent form for the University of Missouri student that was in Friday folders a few weeks ago. However, we were just informed the consent forms were changed this year and the old versions were sent out. You will find the new version in the Friday folder. Please sign it and return with your third grader next week. We are sorry for the confusion!

Every Monday, we have a class meeting. This is an opportunity to discuss upcoming events, problem solve any classroom issues, and share about our weekends. Every student has 30-60 seconds to share something with the class. If students do not want to share about the weekend, they are allowed to bring in an object to share. This object should be able to fit in their backpacks and will stay there until class meeting time. Students should not take the object out to recess or out in the classroom. Some students think this is an opportunity to play with that object during class. I have discussed the expectations with students, but wanted you to be aware as well. Thank you for your help with this matter.

Students are allowed to bring a healthy snack for the morning, as we do not eat lunch until 1:00. Please remind students to bring a snack or purchase one from the cafeteria in the morning before coming up to the classroom. 

In the Classroom

In math this week, we continued to focus on addition. Students practiced adding three digit numbers, adding more than 2 numbers, and how to solve various word problems. We will assess over this unit next week and then move on to subtraction.

Our focus in writing this week was zooming in on small moment stories. Many times, third graders try to write a story that includes too many events or even stories that take place over a full day or weekend. Instead, we are learning to choose a small moment and stretch it out with strong details. We read the book Zoom and also looked at many examples of small moment stories.

We also started writing cursive letters this week! We will learn 2-3 letters per week. We will always learn and practice the letters in class. I will also give students time to start on their homework. They are required to write at least 4 letters per line. When we start knowing enough letters to write words, they are required to write at least 2 words per line.

Our focus in shared reading this week was problem and solution. We read books together to practice finding the problems and solutions. Students also looked for problems and solutions in their independent books. We started our reading response routine. Each day, students will be asked to respond to a specific question regarding their independent book. They will be asked to use text evidence to help support their answer. Here is picture of the types of questions they will be answering and sentence starters to help with their responses.

Here is one example of a response a student completed on the book, A Bad Case of Stripes. 

In Social Studies, we finished our discussion about urban, rural, and suburban communities. We also talked about the names of our city, state, and country. Students made a book with the names and pictures of all their communities including school, city, state, country, and continent.

Upcoming Events

September 26-No School, Teacher Work Day

September 30-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00
October 13-Picture Retake Day
October 19-Early Dismissal at 12:50

October 28-Fall Room Party 2:15-3:00

October 31-No School, Teacher Work Day

Weekly Update-September 16

Announcements

We are still in need of a room parent coordinator as well as two volunteers to do the game and craft at the Fall Party. Please use the link below if you can help!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-room

On Monday, each student set a goal for themselves. Some of the goals were related to academics, while others were related to behavior. We really talked about self-reflection and making sure you chose something you wanted to improve. We looked at our goal sheet Friday to see if we reached it and to make a plan for next week.

In the Classroom

This week in math, students learned about rounding and estimating. We practiced rounding to the nearest ten and to the nearest hundred. We even had a rounding snowball fight! After the snowball fight, students picked up the closest "snowball" and rounded. 

We also started adding two digit numbers. Students shared and discussed all the strategies we know in order to add these numbers. I emailed out the strategy chart we made, but here it is again.

Next week, we will work on adding three digit numbers as well as more than 2 numbers. 

We started our first word work unit this week. Students should study the words that come home on Monday to be prepared for a test on Friday. They should also study words that have the same patterns, as they will be asked to apply their knowledge to 5 new words. Graded tests will come home on Monday along with the new list. Here are some students completing word work activities with a partner.

In writing this week, students wrote about a special person. We used a character web to help us come up with ideas. I wrote about my dog Charlie. 

We also drew maps of a special place. These maps provided us ideas to write more personal narrative stories. Next week, we will focus on shows, not tells.

In shared reading this week, we focused on setting. We learned how knowing when and where a story takes place can be very crucial to understanding the story. In this activity, students were given instructions that produced 4 new settings for the character. 

We completed our ABC of Columbia book!

We also learned about rights and responsibilities, how to be a good citizen, and the names and titles of leaders in our community. On Friday, we began learning about urban, rural, and suburban communities. 

Upcoming Events

September 26-No School, Teacher Work Day

September 30-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00
October 13-Picture Retake Day
October 19-Early Dismissal at 12:50

October 28-Fall Room Party 2:15-3:00

October 31-No School, Teacher Work Day

Weekly Update-September 9

Announcements

We are still in need of a room parent coordinator as well as two volunteers to do the game and craft at the Fall Party. Please use the link below if you can help!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-room

Don't forget about the Fall Fundraiser! Order are due Tuesday, September 13th. Please help your third grader sell as many items as possible. The students would greatly benefit from new playground equipment as well as more technology for the classroom. 

Our Comet Carnival is quickly approaching! This annual event will take place on Friday, September 30th from 5:00-8:00. There will be games, food, an inflatable obstacle course, and a dance party! If you can help with our class booth, face painting, please use the link below to sign up.

                                     http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e4faea82ba75-comet

Also, the Comet Carnival committee is still looking for donations. If you own a business or restaurant and would like to donate, please let me know and I will connect you with the appropriate people.

Friday morning, we had Mizzou students come talk to us about the Missouri Strings Project. This is a fabulous opportunity to have your third grader learn to play an instrument. The students loved the demonstration! Look in the Friday folder for more information. 

In the Classroom

We started our addition unit in math this week. Students learned about the properties of addition and began studying various strategies. We will continue to focus on strategies next week. 

In writing this week, we started filling our newly decorated notebooks with personal narrative stories. The notebooks all look wonderful!

We began studying story elements in reading this week. We focused on characters this week. Students learned how authors can describe characters based on both physical traits and personality traits. We also continued to increase our independent reading stamina. 

In social studies this week, we completed our ABC of Columbia book. We will be putting it all together and will have it ready to share next week. Students also learned about rules and laws in communities.   

Upcoming Events

September 14-Hearing and Vision Screening
September 26-No School, Teacher Work Day

September 30-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00
October 13-Picture Retake Day
October 19-Early Dismissal at 12:50