Our Week – October 19

Thanks for supporting our reading museum and helping the children take note of he fact that learning continues on and on.  Thank you also for your attention to making time for homework.  Many of the kids were super excited about having that responsibility. We began our week by thinking about a series of precepts:  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”, “Practice makes perfect.”, “”Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”, and ”Practice makes progress.” We had some great conversation about what we can do to make sure learning grows.

This week everyone created a second blog post, more of the children were able to solidify and apply their understanding of the distributive property during daily problem solving and we defined the criteria we would use to create “great” pieces of informational weather writing.

Reading Grows

This week we shared books important to each of us as readers.  The class shared favorite books read when they were babies, read-alouds they loved hearing over and over and over again as toddlers and favorite chapter books shared as a family.  It was fun to tour the class’s reading museum.  Some children realized they had brought in the same book. (I discovered that Good Night Construction Siteis a must for our grandson, James.) Others were reminded of favorites from the past.  It was fun to revisit books that may not have been looked at for a while.

After the museum on Tuesday, we reflected on the reading we’d been doing in the first month and a half of school.  We thought about the books we’d been choosing to read and we considered the difference between “reading”, “skimming and scanning” and “looking through.”  All are important habits to have, but we agreed that much of the time we have in our classroom with books should be dedicated to reading.  The only way to grow as a reader is to practice.  We reflected on what we’d been reading so far and the school year, and what habits we’d been most focused on.  Are next steps will be to develop goals that will lead us forward and help us to grow.

Multiplying With Large Amounts

We’ve been learning how to use what we know about place value to help us multiply larger amounts. We’ve been trying to use the distributive property, because these steps more often help us with accuracy.  They remind use to multiply everything – not just the hundreds and tens, but also the ones.

The problems have been written to help the children practice using this skill to become more efficient. More and more of the children are feeling sure of themselves with this strategy.

Experimenting with Leads /

Establishing the Guideline We Plan to Follow for Our Weather Writing

We learned about four different types of leads: snapshot, question, dialogue and onomatopoeia.  We had a go at playing around with each of them. We’ve tried choosing words that paint a picture.  We’ve thought about the sounds we’d hear if we were to enter the setting of our piece of writing to consider if that would make an impactful start.  We’ve thought of creating characters to speak and introduce our topic or story.  And finally, we’ve wonder about the questions we hope our writing will answer.  See if your child can tell you about the lead he or she is most interested in using to introduce readers to weather.

In addition to leads we also agreed on the writing criteria we’d have for our weather writing.  We thought each piece should be at least five pages (have five subtopics), and each page should have at least five sentences. We decided that our writing should how our understanding of the topic so that readers would find it interesting. And we thought we should include one illustration.  Many of the students are continuing to research, but some of them are already at the writing phase.  Some are typing on computers, while others are choosing to handwrite their pieces. In addition to publishing them so we have a weather library in the hall for others to read, the children are excited about posting them on their blogs for all to read.

Bits and Pieces

  • We’ve posted our second blog post. This post features a personal favorite, hobby or interest. With this post we learned how to copy and paste text from one file to another.  It will take time but, with practice, this will become second nature.
  • We also learned about making quality comments.  We’re trying to begin with a specific compliment that lets the blogger know we actually read the post.  Then we’re trying to add a connection or question to get a conversation going. And finally we’re trying to remember to sign our names so the blogger knows we visited.
  • A HUGE thank you to those who have commented and shared the URL with family and friend.  Comments are motivating.
  • In Open Circle we’ve discussed positive self-talk and growth mind-set.  We are trying to be as encouraging to ourselves (and our classmates) as possible.
  • Our next field trip will be to Strawberry Banke.  It is on Monday, November 19.  Permission slips went home on Wednesday.  The cost of the trip is $5.00.  We’ll be learning all about Thanksgiving through the ages as we travel from house to house and learn how the celebration has changed.

There is an Early Release on Wednesday, October 24. 

Dismissal is at 12:00.

One thought on “Our Week – October 19

  1. Learners in 3E – Wow! It is so exciting to read of all you have been discovering and the decisions you are making to ensure your learning continues. I loved reading about your READING MUSEUM. Do you remember reading Pink is for Blobfish or Shark Lady last year in library? The author, Jess Keating, has a series of videos you can watch to help with developing your writing. Maybe your class would want to check these out! Here’s the address: https://jesskeating.com/write-with-jess/
    Keep up all the great work. It all sounds very rewarding!
    Ms. Schmidt

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