We’ve had a busy week.  It began with Dot Day to celebrate working through difficulties and being kind to your self.  We made our marks and now we are seeing where that takes us.  (A line from the book.) On Tuesday we had picture day and then on Wednesday the children wrote letters to introduce you to some of their accomplishments so far.  It was nice to meet so many of you again at curriculum night.  We revised our classroom rules this week and had an assembly where we learned about school rules and expectations.  Landon did a great job representing our class and presenting these new rules to the school.  Thank you Landon.

S.E.L. – Collecting Habits for Success

Over the last few weeks we’ve read a variety of biographies to see if we can discover the habits these famous people have that are leading them to success.  We’ve read about athlete, Michael Jordan, artist, Henri Rousseau and farmer, Snowflake Bentley and scientists, Jane Goodall and Alan Rabinowitz.  We discovered that no matter what their passions, they all had certain habits that helped them succeed.  Here’s our list.

• They were determined
• They asked questions
• They believed in themselves
• They were kind to themselves and patient.
• They used imagination and creativity.
• They never gave up. They persevered.
• They tried hard.They practiced, practiced, practiced.
• They wondered.
• They kept experimenting.
• They had patience.
• They did what they loved.

We may add more to our list as we learn about other famous people next week, but for now we have a pretty good beginning.  What will we learn from Margaret Hamilton, Wassily Kandinsky, Billie Jean King and Rachael Carson?  How will we use what we learn to set goals for ourselves in third grade? We’ll see and share with you at our first student-led goal setting conference in late fall.

We’ve begun learning about Howard Gardener’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  We discovered there are lots of ways to be “smart” – eight, in fact. We know that everyone is some of all eight of the intelligences, but interests and experiences help us strengthen some more than others. We use some of the intelligences more than others because we find them interesting or we feel good when involved with those kinds of activities.  We’re trying to discover our learning styles so we can use our strengths to our advantage.

Learning More About Place Value

This week began to explore place value through expanded notation and base 10 riddles.  The children are thinking about how groups of ones can become tens, groups of tens can become hundreds and groups of hundreds can become thousands. They have been learning about the power of ten.

They have also been learning to choose just right problems.  There are six to choose from and making selections can be tricky.  Some of the children are ready for more of a challenge – but they are worried that they may not be able to deal with larger amounts. Some of the children are working to remember what to do when subtracting.  It doesn’t work to swap the amounts around.   It’s all good – there is a lot of math learning going on.   I am proud of their effort and determination to work through things that feel difficult.

 

Bits and Pieces

• We finished reading Word After Word After Word. The children selected their favorite main character and described them as a way to learn about character traits and making inferences.
• We began School Days According to Humphrey. This is our third chapter read-aloud and is one from a series.
• We selected books to begin our first book club next week. We defined expectation for book clubs so that everyone is able to participate and support one another. You may want to talk to your child about how important it is to listen to and learn from each other.
• Our field trip to Camp Lincoln is on Monday, September 30. Children will need snacks and lunches.
• If you were unable to attend Curriculum Night.  The letter your child wrote is in their folder today.  If you want to stop in to see the things they shared after school one day, please feel welcome.  I’m sure your child would be glad to show you around.