Each week I cannot believe when Friday afternoon arrives – we’ve done so much, but there is still so much to do.  While working to complete a second draft one student was worried he wouldn’t get everything done and asked if it would be okay.         “So if I don’t get it done, will it be okay if I have to finish it tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I replied.  “What time do you want to meet?”

“Oh, yeah,” he smiled.  “I guess I mean Monday.”

There’s so much we want to read and write.  There’s so much we want to learn about and research.  We could keep working for hours more, but we are all very glad when the weekend comes.

Steps to Success

SEL – working to achieve our goals

            We have begun searching for ways to share our learning growth and ready ourselves to present that to you in our digital portfolios and our student led conference.  It is pretty amazing to remember what has happened all this year and to describe what has been discovered.  We have the artifacts that show what we have written and solved.  We have photographs that capture moments throughout the year – but finding ways to describe and share what has been growing in our minds is a huge challenge.  How can you answer questions like – How have you changed as a learner?  What strategies to you use to understand?  What abilities do you have now that you didn’t have before?  Can you remember?

We read Walk On:  A Guide For Taking Your First Step by Marla Frazee and If I Never Forever Endeavor by Holly Meade this week.  We used these books as a starting point to talked about how we feel about learning, mistakes or not getting it at first.  We all agreed if we were always right, we probably weren’t learning – we already knew it.  We also agreed that sometimes it can be scary to try when others are around.  One page in Walk On shows the baby having a tantrum when the walking thing just isn’t working out.  We laughed at that, and then tried to think about what we do instead.  We don’t throw tantrums, but sometimes we give up, sometimes we don’t try, sometimes we ask for help, sometimes we just watch and hope for another time.  Next week we are going to write down what we are going to endeavor to do – something we are not sure we can but that we will try.  At least one will be something to accomplish in the classroom and another will be something to do outside of school.  I am looking forward to discovering what each of the children’s endeavors will be.

Writing Long and Well

Vacation Stories

            We worked through a process of writing and experimenting.  First we listed five things we had done over vacation – some special and some ordinary.  Next we chose one topic from that list and through the use of a graphic organizer identified six subtopics related to the first.  We turned those subtopics into paragraphs that told the story of that one event.  In our first draft we were working to add details and some description.  We experimented with different leads – finally selecting our best of the four we had.  We looked for 10 words we could polish (change an ordinary word into something more descriptive) and one paragraph we could change with dialogue. Next we shared our writing and got feedback from our partner.  We know what we did well and have a suggestion that we might use to improve our next draft.  With those steps completed the children are working to complete their second draft.

As I watch the children work through this process I can begin to see how the children are coming to understand that writing is something that grows and changes. They see that there are choices to make along the way.  Many of them tried different things – adding questions, switching up sentence lengths, looking at sentence beginning.  Many of them realized that their writing improved as they tinkered with it and tried new things.   Next week when all the second drafts are done, we’ll do a final polish – examining sentence beginnings, looking at word variety and lastly checking for conventions – and then move on to publication.

When we started this process our goal was to see if we could “easily write at least two pages on any topic” as the new standards expect third graders will.  One student said, as she put her writing in the finished work basket, “I didn’t think I could, but I did.  I guess I have conquered that goal.”  A nice feeling.

Math Work

Noticing What We Have Learned

            We worked more with fractions and equivalence this week.  The children seem to all know what a fair share is and isn’t.  They understand equivalence and many have even noticed how knowing skip counting patterns and multiplication help with this understanding.

Children have been revisiting different strategies and patterns.  As we work with many different operations and multi-step problems the children are working to select the strategies that are most efficient, while at the same time allowing them to be accurate.  For the next few weeks we will be keeping math work at school so each student can build up a body of work so they can identify the strategies that work for them and what next steps might be.

I think math is one of those places that some of the “endeavoring” goals may be set.  It is easier to use a number line and add up, than it is to subtract when comparing amounts.  Subtraction with trading remains a challenge for many but we still have time.  We’ll see what we can do.

State Work

            I hope you have all had a chance to see and read the float requirements.  I know I sent them home a bit early as the children do not know what their state or national park wonders are, but several of the children were beginning to approach this work as if they were going to present it at our next classroom museum.

The float plans do not need to be completed until the end of the month.  Thank you for your support with this project.  As always if you have any question please let me know.

Have a fabulous weekend celebrating your family.  Happy Mother’s Day.