Our Week – April 20

This week was full of special events.  On Monday we worked on a map reading challenge with Mr. Caron.  On Tuesday and Thursday we prepared for and practiced the Grade 3 all school assembly.  And also on Thursday we attended a Randy Armstrong concert.  We got to hear music played on instruments from around the world. It was incredible!  Of course, in and around those events, we read and wrote, updated our fact checks, solved a few problems and explored fractions.

State Wonder Research

This week the children researched their first three wonders.  They know quite a bit about their state’s symbols and why they came to be selected.  They also know about many famous people who are from their state.  They’ve chosen one they would like to learn about and feature on their floats.  They are using much of what they learned from their 2ndgrade biography project as they write about the life of their State Hero.  And finally this week, each of the children has chosen a Manmade Wonder to feature on their floats.

Thank you to the families who have read and returned the float criteria slips.  If you’ve not been able to do that, please take a minute for that now.  The project is an exciting one, but involved and I want to ensure that all of the children have what they need to feel proud of what they are presenting.  Also be on the lookout for the float blueprint worksheet on April 30th.  The children should be doing this work, but will certainly need your help talking it through.  Springtime sports and end of the year recitals, etc… make time a premium, so thank you in advance for your support of this project.

For our assembly the children presented their state and shared the artwork they’d created of their symbol.  They did a nice job sharing their information.

Writing Stamina

Writing lots and long has been our focus this week.  Many of the children enjoy composing on the computer, but what that means for many is lots of time searching for funny memes and images and little time actually writing text.  We’ve gone back to more frequent quick writes so the class can see how much text they can generate in a short amount of time.  We’ve been talking about what to do when the writing doesn’t seem very good or really have meaning.  We’ve been trying to work through that to discover a line or an idea that we might use the next time.

This week’s writing prompts have been about ideas like making a difference in the world or the feeling of spring.  These have been more challenging than personal narrative prompts like tell about your favorite meal or most memorable birthday.  It has been fun for the children to realize that while some people are writing 100 words and some are writing 32 and others are writing 56, all have some nugget that sparkles and can be shared.  We’ve been hearing some great phrases and sentences, some impactful poems and some creative stories.  We have a class of strong writers!

This week our blogging challenge was to leave comments on at least five other student blogs who are also part of the challenge.  They class learned how to copy and paste their URL into their comment as a live link. They are hoping they will receive comments for other places.  As always, they’d love comments from you as well.  Share their blogs as widely you can.

Bits and Pieces

  • We’re really into the story of Winterhouse. This week we listing a whole page of questions that we are interested in finding the answers to. It is clear that everyone is thinking about they mysteries in this story.  They are predicting and making inferences. It is interesting to hear all the connections they make and their attention to even the smallest details.
  • They’ll be using those abilities in our final mystery book club when they return from vacation.
  • State testing for Grade 3 will be May 8th, 9th, and 10thin the morning as the school day begins.
  • We are going to see a performance of School House Rock Jr. at the Palace Theater in Manchester. It’s a morning performance. We’ll be coming back to have lunch in our classrooms.  More details will follow.
  • The 3rdgrade celebration of our country, The Parade of the States, will be on Thursday, May 24thstarting at 4:45 and going no later than 6:30.