Learning Farm Opportunity

                                      

I wanted to let everyone know that I have signed up for a trial account with Learning Farm
https://www.learningfarm.com/. I did this so students could use the Main Idea and Details link to practice at one of our centers last week.
The good news is that it is a one month trial account, set to end around 12/30/15. If you would like to have your child practice reading skills we have learned in class, they could log on at home and play various games as they have time during the next month. There is also a math tab. Please understand this is not assigned homework, just a fun opportunity for anyone who is interested. 
Login:  student's first name.
Password: abc123
Enjoy!

Its Monday! What Are You Reading?

This week we will continue our exploration of nonfiction text structure by delving into a nonfiction book called, Animal Homes.  This fascinating book immediately engages readers by asking why people need homes. The author reveals that animal homes serve the same basic functions as our homes do— they provide shelter, a place to store and make food, and a safe place to raise families. This topic fits perfectly with our science unit on Habitats! (Double Bang for our Buck!)
On Monday, I will model reading two chapters and determining the main ideas and supporting details. On Tuesday, Students will work with a partner for support. They will read the next chapter and will collaborate to decide on a main idea statement and supporting details. Finally, on Wednesday students will move toward independently finding the main idea and details of the last chapters.

Next, the process of determining main idea and detail will become hands on with center practice on our shortened conference days. 

Students will work on four centers:

• Each student will use laptops to visit web sites with main idea/detail games. 
• Other centers will feature manipulatives to organize and categorize big ideas and match details that support. 
• Finally, small groups will meet with me to read a passage at the appropriate reading level and write a main idea statement and details.

This will wrap up a busy short week with a big focus on determining main idea and detail. This is a  comprehension strategy that will prove important in reading nonfiction text!

Nonfiction Reading of All Kinds!

What a busy time it is in our classroom! It is hard to believe we soon will be entering our third unit in reading. We have read and enjoyed an extensive unit on nonfiction. The unit began with expository nonfiction which is mainly facts and information and highlighted with many text features such as diagrams, maps, and photographs with captions. We've had several lessons on 'reading around' an unknown word to figure out the meaning. We found that nonfiction author's uses context clue words such as: is, or, called etc to aid the reader. Other times there are clues such as synonyms, antonyms or examples that help guide us to the unknown word's meaning. We focused on writing main idea and detail as well as using this structure to write a summary.
The unit finished up with a focus on narrative nonfiction, which featured biographies. We took a look at several individuals such as children's book illustrator, Ezra Jack Keats and writer, speaker, activist, Helen Keller. We learned in order to read a biography well we need to pay attention to the life story of the subject, but also to gain facts and information about the time period the person lived in, and to take note of the way the subject led his/her life. We also found that very often the life lessons the subject learns are lesson for anyone to learn including the reader!
      Since are close to completing the nonfiction reading and students have gained skills in this area, I'd like to take the time to mention two fantastic website for the whole family. The activities on these websites would support the learning  that we have done in class. Don't worry too much about reading levels just choose a topic of interest to all of you and Enjoy!
Non-fiction reading that Kids Love: The following article discusses areas of the newspaper that are appropriate and enjoyable for kids to read. The article is written by Scholastic especially for parents.
Reading Adventure Packs for Families: Reading rockets is a website for teachers, students and parents. It has lots of information about many different aspects in reading. I will link you to this site again and again in the future. It is an awesome resource that I use in class as well. This link will take you to a page that has Adventure packs of books specifically designs for parent and children to investigate together. The creators have paired excellent fiction stories with logical nonfiction topics. For example, the outstanding author, Patricia Polocco has a book called, The Bee Tree which has a theme of maintaining stamina to learn to do something worthwhile and then enjoying the rewards. This has been paired with a nonfiction book, The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci. There is a free PDF that can be downloaded which provides questions and activities for you and your children to further explore the topics. Either book on its own would have great value, together they will create a wonderful learning experience for you and your child that will be treasured.
Keep these ideas in mind as the colder months approach and there is more indoor time to be spent together.
Finally, I am attaching a link so that you will have a small selection of before, during and after reading activities for you to discuss as your child reads nonfiction books at home.
Nonfiction questions 1- Just nonfiction
Nonfiction questions 2 - Fiction and Nonfiction
How to Ask Questions to Check Comprehension - Blog article
I hope these are helpful tools for you and your family,

Reading Comprehension Strategies at Work!

Room 24 students are working hard to get to know characters in the books we are reading. As third grade readers who have crossed the threshold from learning to read to reading to learn, we have started working hard to utilize reading comprehension strategies. The strategies for comprehending text are: Predicting, Questioning, Connecting, Visualizing, Inferring and Summarizing. A brief description is:
Predicting: Using clues from the text to make good guesses about what might happen next in the story.
Questioning: Asking and answering questions about the text while reading.
Connecting: Making connections helps bring meaning to the text. There are three types of connections. Text to Text, Text to Self and Text to World. These are likenesses drawn between another text or the world and the book being read.
Visualizing: Readers create a picture in his/her mind based on the author's words.
Inferring: Using what was read in the text and the reader's background knowledge to figure out messages that are not directly stated.
Summarizing: Paraphrasing a section of the text to verify your own understanding.

Each day during our whole class lesson I model the use of reading comprehension strategies that a good reader should do while reading. Slowly students take over and begin to share their thinking, about our whole class reading and then practicing this by jotting think notes about his/her independent reading. As we read we are using these reading comprehension strategies to better understand the text and "figure out" the characters we are reading about. Your child will be familiar these strategies and can explain how he/she uses each one during at home reading time

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Following Characters Into Meaning

Gooney Bird Greene

One of the most important ideas we discuss in our character study unit is that the big ideas in the text center on the people. After all, don't we all read stories to slip into another person's life and experience what the characters are experiencing.

As we begin our unit on Following characters into meaning, we have started a shared reading of Gooney Bird Greene. This book, written by Lois Lowry, introduces us to a delightful character that has a lot to teach us about being your own unique self. Gooney Bird takes over Mrs. Pidgeon's class of second graders and shares unusual stories such as, How Gooney Bird Greene Came From China on a Flying Carpet and How Gooney Bird Greene Got Her Name. These sound like fictitious titles but, Gooney Bird professes she tells only "Absolutely True Stories" and we as readers discover she does!
Lois Lowry makes it easy for readers to become part of Miss Pidgeon's class and really get to know Gooney Bird well.  Her incredible writing has not only helped us come to truly know Gooney Bird Greene, but it has also provided many opportunities for us to discuss the way a reader comes to know any character. The big idea we are discovering is when you follow a character into meaning you grow ideas about the character by noticing: 

• how the author describes the character's appearance and personality
• what the character says and how it is said
• the characters actions 
• how other characters treat the main character

We are realizing some characters are round characters, or fully developed characters and secondary characters are usually flat characters, or we only learn a bit about them.

When you are discussing characters in fiction reading with your child see how they respond to these ideas with their at home independent reading.

Anyone have a good book?

We have just completed our first reading unit entitled, "Building a Reading Life". In this unit the students learned some of the traits of a person who has an active, healthy reading life. We learned that:

• We chose our attitude toward reading...and it may-as-well be a curious, interested attitude toward books. This allows us to want to read, not only when we have to, but because we want to!
• We've come to recognize that readers need many hours of high success reading. This is time when they are deep into the world of their books. We learned about connecting to the text, visualize the author's words, predicting what we think will come next based on the author's words, noticing when things change and questioning the changes and finally summarizing to insure that we are understanding the text. We will have additional lessons on how we can use these strategies more precisely in the future, but for now we all know they are an important part of being an active reader.
• We found out through several characters that reading longer and stronger requires persistence and perseverance. Every student in room 24 is now tracking the number of pages he/she is reading in Reading Workshop to try to improve his/her reading stamina.

We are now working on our end of unit project that involve each student recommending a book that has been read in third grade to his/her classmates. We are briefly writing what makes the book worthy of a recommendation and illustrating our favorite part. Then the students will "advertise" their book to the class in hopes of getting others interested in reading the book.

In our next unit, we are on to "Following Characters Into Meaning"! Stay tune for more information on how we are learning to understand characters based on the text.

Please Take a Minute to Respond My Blog Survey

     

This year has been an exciting year of learning and growth for the students as well as myself. I have used the classroom blog to try to keep you up to date on the units we've covered in reading, writing, math, science and social studies as well as some of the cool projects we've completed with technology.

     At this time, I would like to ask you to take an 8 question survey to give me your feedback about weather or not the blog was a helpful tool in understanding your child's day of learning in room 24. Click on the the word "Survey" below and the link will take you right to the 8 questions.

Thank you for your participation!

SURVEY

We have just begun our last reading unit of study and it is a big one! Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and Fables is an interesting unit because there are literary references related to these early stories that occur in modern day literature. These old stories' lessons and morals crop up in today's reading, so a student who is familiar with the original story has a deeper level of comprehension.   We will read several Cinderella stories from different cultures. Each story has been adapted to reflect and teach from the point of view of the culture that is featured. We will notice the archetypes, character traits of the main characters, similarities and differences to the classic Cinderella and finally try to determine the reason the particular culture has told their version the way they did. Ask your child what he or she is learning through these classic tales.

 

Busy**Busy**Social Issues, Fractions and Native Americans**Busy**Busy

Yes, we are! Busy that is! It seems that since April vacation, the world is spinning faster! We have many smaller units in our math, science, and social studies programs, so it seems like we are moving through many topics at this point of the year.
In reading, we are currently in our Social Issues Unit. We have read fiction stories that you may recognize: The Hundred Dresses and Thank You, Mr. Falker. Both stories while having several small social issues share the the social issue of bullying. After reading and discussing the books in depth, we decided that we needed to gather some information about the topic of bullying. In order to do this we watched a video that explained exactly what bullying is. We learned that there are three types of bullying: physical, verbal and social bullying. We also learned that the easiest way to solve the problem of bullying is to be kind to everyone. After the short video we read a non-fiction article that discussed what to do if you experience bullying as a bystander or as the victim. The students in Room 24 are armed with a 3 step plan No!, Go!, Tell! The one word cues remind the students how to handle a bullying situation and how to turned it around sooner, rather than later. We finished off with writing advice to either Patricia, the character in Thank You, Mr. Falker who was bullied or Wanda, the character in The Hundred Dresses who was bullied. Students needed to include information we gathered in the video and the non-fiction reading in the advice response.
Additionally, we have read about the condition of poverty, homelessness, and the desire for education or a home of ones own in several different book clubs. All of these books had themes and sub-themes. Students read to recognize the characters longings, and  the way in which the characters reached his/her dream. It is fair to say that we have hit home the idea of "working long and strong is the best way to make life dreams come true!" Along the way we read non-fiction articles and watched TED talk video, CBS 60 Minute excerpts and agency informational videos to learn more about how these real people worked toward their dreams with the assistance of volunteers and specific organizations that supported their in need.

In math, students are currently learning about equivalent fractions by way of a nine day center rotation. These hands on centers are focused on comparing fractions to 1/2, identifying the fractional parts on a number line and placing fractions on a number line. These concepts are far more challenging than our introduction unit on fractions last trimester, so the time invested in these ideas is well worth-the-while.

We have completed a short unit on Native Americans. We had small groups read short informational articles on the tribes of the Plateau, and the Plains. Other groups read to understand The Inuit and The Aleut or the Pueblo. Each group focused on common cultural aspects such as food, clothing and shelter of the tribe. After completing art work and writing to show what we learned, the entire class did a museum walk to share our learning. Ask you child if he/she like the museum walk and what was learned by doing the museum walk.

As I said it has been busy around room 24 and there is no sign of it letting up until June!

Technology in Room 24

     To wrap up our biography unit, each student read a just right biography and created a slide show in Googleslide.  Each slide show had the same requirements: Tell the audience, who was this person, who was in his/her life, what was the time period like, struggles and major accomplishments. Also which text features were helpful in understanding the subject's life. While this was a fast paced creation, 3 days on computer, 1 slide per day, it took some time for all of the 24 presentations to be made to the class. We have finally concluded all presentations. They were awesome and many student's slide shows generated interest for classmates to read about the biographical subject! Who could ask for more?!
      I am thrilled when students really "get into" a project and that is what happened in our classroom! It is amazing how students in third grade learn and master a new concept using technology! We experienced some very creative presentation. In some cases, I hadn't seen this kind of interest and creativity with other mediums used previously for final presentations. I think we have some budding graphic designers!!
     That brings me to the main reason for this blog post....Please go on line and have your child show you his or her slide show. Follow up fun could be allowing your child to create endless slide shows. What better typing practice and learning and growing in an area that will be so useful in future schooling and life. My daughters loved making power-point shows (there was no Google slide show back then!) about any and every topic....All About Me, Getting To Know My Dog and My Summer Vacation were just a few. They learned to insert photos and create hyperlinks to related web pages. They really enjoyed showing off their shows to the rest of the family too!
     I can't tell you how many presentations they've each done in their school career and it all began on those long, hot summer days with nothing in particular to do!! This is truly a situation of getting better at creation by doing. Typing practice can be boring, but making your own slide shows adds the creative aspect and we are back to something interesting and fun to do. Just be sure your child uses the skills they are practicing daily on typingweb. Typing with all of their fingers in the correct spots! I have had a few students create a slide show of their own already! Also I always try to show off any work classmates do during snack time.

Math - Measurement and Data

       Recently, students worked to complete six different learning stations as part of our lessons on area and perimeter. Each math class began with a mini-lesson utilizing a video, followed by a brief discussion of the days teaching point.
       Then students were off to one of 6 stations that were designed with a video that focused on a specific skill. After the video, a practice page or game allowed the students at that station to apply the skill that was presented. Some videos incorporated a very structured note-taking page, which has added benefits because taking notes from a video is required for some parts of SBAC Performace Task. Other videos presented strategies that were then utilized with on-line practice. Again, a more intriguing way to incorporate what can be rather mundane practice. As students participated in the station activities, I circulated helping students practice, while observing and assessing individual's abilities with the tasks.
       This strategy worked particularly well for a unit on area and perimeter because students' video of the day reminded and retaught the skills and strategies in a slightly different way, avoiding the "talking head" in the front of the classroom.
       Incorporating technology for independent learning, working with other class members to complete tasks and applying skills to gain concepts are all jobs of a third grader in the world of the Common Core. We are working together to master these challenges!

Biographies!

As I continue to read a series of books about George Washington, we will look at the topic (s) the author covers. In other words, is this a full life biography or specific to a certain period in George Washington's life. We will look at  the text structure, author's style and tone and finally we will discuss how the artwork adds to the author's message and style! Wooo!, that is a tall order, but we will have fun doing it together!

The first book in the series is Who was George Washington. We have completed this full life biography. Our big take away from reading this biography is: Even though George Washington wanted to do other things, he let his beliefs about what he though his country should be guide his actions and his decisions about supporting a cause he believed in. We especially liked this book because we all saw George Washington as a real person with fears and insecurities, but one who persevered, learned and grew as an incredible leader. His life can be an inspiration to all our lives.

Farmer George, Plants a Nation is biography that focuses on the George Washington as an inventor, scientist, and visionary. This text has a very sophisticated style with diary excerpts and paintings on each page. We are discussing the way in which these paintings fit with the formal tone of the book. 

Our final comprehension check will be a look at George's significant accomplishments that are outlined in this book. We will  analyze the way in which they effected the new Nation.

Now for some fun! George Did It outlines the uncharted territory of creating the job of the first president of the United States. The road was filled with humorous stories and the cartoons fit with the funny style of writing! 

Our final comprehension focus for this book will be to reflect on Who was George Washington as a person and what can we learn from this portion of his life.

Finally, George Washington's Teeth is a very specific biography capturing the life long problems George Washington had with his teeth. The book is written in verse and yet another cartoon style of illustration completes the silliness with the unusual topic!

Our final comprehension focus will involve all four text. We will each determine a text that has helped us get to know George Washington the best and sight the author's style, artwork or text structure to support our feelings.

As I continue to read aloud George Washington books, students have complete their own biography group reading book. Ask your child who they read with and what subject they learned about. We had groups reading Ben Franklin, Harry Houdini, Sacajawea and Harriet Tubman books.
At this point students are choosing their own independent reading book. We have a wide variety to choose from, so each person can find a book with a just right reading level and a subject that he/she is interested in learning about.

Biographies and More!

While the beginning of the week is off to a slow start with yet another surprise snow day and more bad weather pending , we have plenty to keep us busy once we arrive back at school. We have completed our study of the Mystery genre. We will begin our next genre study, Biographies this week. This is an exciting unit that has something for everyone! Whatever a student's interests are, there is a biography for him/her to read.
For our mentor text, (A text that we read, discuss, analyze then constantly refer back to throughout the unit.) I have chosen Milton Hershey's biography. I've chosen this biography for many reasons. First, I'm sure you've heard of my love of chocolate! (I said there was a biography for every interest! haha!) Seriously, Milton Hershey was born into a farm family. He wanted something different for his life. The biography tells about this man's ability to hang in and steadily move toward his goals while overcoming adversity. His steadfast approach is inspirational. Additionally, he truly believed in "paying-it-forward" which teaches a valuable lesson in and of its self.
After our initial reading, students will begin biography groups, while our whole class lessons will focus on a four book comparison over the next several weeks. The subject is George Washington. One text is his full life biography and the other three focus on an area of his life such as George Washington the farmer and scientist, George Washington's blunder ridden inauguration and finally, a book mixing poetry and cartoon artwork discussing George Washington's dental problems. (Wow! isn't that the odd combination.....poetry and bad teeth????)
Stay tuned for biography anchor charts. As we progress through the unit, I will post my classroom anchor charts discussing "What Good Biography Readers Do" as they read. Hopefully, this is one more way to promote conversation about what your child is currently reading.
In math, we are reviewing and advancing our thinking about addition and subtraction with regrouping in thousand place numbers. Students have had whole class lessons, have broken into groups to utilize video lessons on the iPad with follow up practice and have used our SMARTboard technology for practice with subtraction across zeros and checking the answer with addition. Technology is a great way to help keep what could be repetitive practice a bit more interesting!
Finally, last week all third grade students completed the first official English Language Arts practice for the SBAC testing. We still have Math Practice, a practice ELA Performance Assessment and a practice Math Performance Assessment yet to work through. Scores are not reported on the practice assessments, but the practice helps to raise the students confidence and give experience with managing the demands of a computerized assessment. Third graders will take the real SBAC assessment in May.
Just think........May!

Mysteries!

We have completed the whole class read aloud mystery, Lucky Lottery by Ron Roy. The students loved the book and we had MANY opportunities for shared thinking and discussion about features of mysteries.
Students have now moved into just right reading groups to more closely read and discuss a mystery with the support of other classmates. We will work in these groups for about a week and then each student will take on his/her own mystery book to apply all that has been learned and practiced in whole group and small group reading. These are the five book that we are sharing in 6 groups.

I have copied 2 anchor charts. These serve as the basis for our discussion in whole class and small group.  These questions can help you "speak the same language" when you and your child are discussing any mystery! Happy Sleuthing!

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of my students and their families! May 2015 bring you peace and happiness in all that you do!

      Nothing like returning from vacation and hitting the ground running! We will be working at a fast pace this week finishing up our non-fiction independent book projects! Most students are at a point of having written his/her summary and having added information about the two most helpful text features. These students are ready to copy all of this over on to a flip book and compete the illustrations. Some of this copying and artwork may be coming home for homework as we are moving on to a study of the mystery genre!

     This week I will begin our mystery read aloud, modeling the appropriate thinking and think notes for the genre. I like to use, Lucky Lottery an A to Z Mystery by Ron Roy. It is a just right model for many of the mystery characteristics students will be expected to recognize in their future group and independent reading. Some of the genre characteristics that we will experience together are cliff hangers, red herrings,  and an integral setting. Ron Roy is a very descriptive author using many similes and idioms that we discuss as a class. We will also visit Ron Roy's website. Stay tuned for future blogs with pictures of our in class anchor charts. If you are interested in talking to your child about the genre study or asking questions as they are reading, you will both be able to speak the same language.

     During our mystery study we will also listen/watch some mystery books being read to us on Tumble books to gain experience with note taking while watching and listening, not just as part of an independent reading activity. This is really a very specific skill set that will be needed when students take the Smarter Balanced Assessments later this year! Practice in this area is beneficial!

     Finally, you will see information coming home today concerning keyboarding homework. As I mentioned to many parents at conferences in December, it is critical for our students to master basic typing skills in order to show what they know on future testing. Aside from this very immediate concern, typing has become a critical skill for simply getting along in today’s world. No longer is keyboarding something that can be put off until middle school or high school.

      In the interest of addressing this concern, I have taken some time to research and find a program similar to Xtramath. The program that I found, TypingWeb allows students to practice keyboarding skills as part of his/her homework. I will receive a report that allows me to see student progress and minutes practiced. I will begin including this as a part of the nightly homework assignment.

     Please feel free to check out the website, so you will be familiar with the homework expectations for your child. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to send me an email or call.