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.

Penguins!!

      This week we are moving beyond the whole class teacher modeling, partner practice and independent trials of reading non-fiction about Antarctica to some small group work about some creatures that can only be found in the southern hemisphere ...Penguins! Our work in comparing 4 books from our text set and video clips about Antarctica is nearing completion. What could be better for some additional practice with classmates, than learning about the seventeen types of penguins in our world, many which reside in the waters around Antarctica!
       Students are reading in their "just right reading group"with guidance from a Good Reader's Packet and my daily visits for discussion. Each book offers similar yet different information about penguins. Group work allows a whole different opportunity for students to shine. The comfort of a group allows students to take on the role as reader, discussion starter and response composer with the support of others in the group. Sometimes, new work is not as challenging when several classmates work together. Once reading is completed student will work in their groups to teach the rest of the class about the specifics in their book.
   

 

Antarctica!

This week we start a very exciting nonfiction reading study of Antarctica. We will focus on four texts about Antarctica to discover what the authors are teaching us as well as the way that they have chosen to share their message. We will notice the author's structure and the text features of the informational books we read, as well as the literary devices used in the literary nonfiction books we read. When we are done with reading and thinking with support of the class, we will move into reading with a partner to learn about penguins! This time the student partnerships will be responsible for doing the same type of noticing and recording of their thinking. State tuned for our thinking to be revealed in photos!
In math, we have begun the first of many multiplication units. This is what every third grader waits for! We are having fun so far with figuring out how repeated addition and multiplication are the same, but we quickly realized how much more efficient multiplication is! We've also realized that students already know many multiplication facts because they have been counting by 1,2,5,10s since kindergarten. We discussed the zero's family and recognize why those are easy as well. So when it comes time for your child to start the multiplication facts on Xtramath it should go quickly. I will include a link to Mr. R's World of  Math and Science for multiplication songs and poems to help students remember the facts. It's cute! Another resource with lots of math games for third graders is  ABCya.com
As you enjoy the week, don't forget to ask your child what he/she is learning about Antarctica!

Exciting Times in Room 24!

     We are entering a very busy time in the classroom! We finished last week with an outstanding turnout of pumpkin characters! Each student worked hard to create a cool character from a book that he or she had read. In class, each student wrote about the character traits of his pumpkin character as they were revealed in the book. Finally, I took a picture of the student, the book and the beloved pumpkin and attached it to the writing.  What an awesome display we had in the hallway! I hope you were able to come to Spirt Night and see the whole school adorned with hand crafted character pumpkins. At the end of the year, we create a 3rd grade scrapbook that features our 'project work' for the year. I will hold the pumpkin character writing and photo page for the scrapbook.
     I started by saying what a busy time it is in the classroom. It is hard to believe we are entering our third unit in reading and writing. From now through the winter holiday break, we will be reading and writing nonfiction. In class we will learn to identify text structure. This week we will begin with an introduction to nonfiction: what is the purpose of nonfiction text, the types of nonfiction, and how the reader must sit up and read with a pencil in hand which greatly differs from reading fiction text. We will then learn to read and analyze the text structure, starting with a focus on the most common text structure: main idea and detail. We will also investigate compare and contrast structure and read literary or narrative nonfiction.
      Since we are moving into nonfiction text reading and writing and students will be gaining 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 are doing 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.

We're Studying Words!

As I mentioned at Open House, we are working with a new word development program. All students have taken the same assessment which gave the me area of spelling patterns where each student should begin their own word study. The idea behind studying the patterns vs a finite list of words is that students will recognize and generalize the patterns in the English language. This program also emphasizes the development of vocabulary a bit more than simply looking at spelling.
Each week in class, we work on the same pattern as your child is focusing on for homework. In class, we complete 3 different activities that help to develop the sense of the spelling pattern and then use ipad dictionaries or the old traditional dictionaries or thesaurus to strengthen understanding of some of the words and possible meaning.
I hope the homework will not be too labor intensive and provided authentic thinking about your child's own words. Our first spelling assessments won't be until the specific spelling section is complete. Then the words could be any words that fit the spelling pattern the student has worked on in the previous weeks. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the program or homework.