We have had another busy, full week. First the thoughtful Veteran’s Day assembly on Monday, an outdoor challenge on Tuesday and our 3E’s Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! Museum on Thursday. In and around that we’ve continued to gather fall work samples, set goals and begin action plans for meeting them. We’ve been reading and writing, exploring more books by Amy Krauss Rosenthal and solving lots to math problems too.

3E’s Bugs, Bugs Bugs!

Thank you all so much for coming to our museum and letting us share what we’ve been researching for the past month. The class was so glad to share during the afternoon with friends from other grade levels and parents who could more easily come then.  They were excited beyond belief to share with families at night as well. It was fun to answer questions and talk about how insects were chosen.  The students did a great job of describing what was interesting and unique about each of their insects. Thank you for understanding each child’s unique choice in how he or she chose to share and the level of adult involvement each wanted in completing the work. We are looking forward to the next round of research, writing and sharing to come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who Am I As a Learner?

Self-Awareness – Social Emotional Learning

This week we are looking through our reading records, our writer’s notebooks and our collection of math problems to select work that best shows what we can do. The children have been trying to describe what they see they can do in their work and to look forward to next steps in learning.  This is challenging, but we’ve been working together so the children can find ways to describe their thinking to be more aware of how they can grow. Thinking is something we do, but it is also something we can actively grow.  We are using an I See… I Think… I Wonder… protocol  to keep a record of thinking and a QAR protocol to help children develop and deepen their questions. It is a learning process for sure and we are excited to share what we are discovering in our goal setting conferences.

Developing Comprehension Strategies to Deepen Understanding

Most of the children are able to select books they are interested in reading from cover to cover. Most of them have read a wide collection of chapter and picture books with a smattering of information texts and poetry in the first few months of school. They are beginning to think about the genre they are most interested in reading. Some of the children are considering ways of challenging themselves to read genre they haven’t yet tried.

It seems like the class is ready to learn about summarizing. To do this they have to be able to identify the main ideas of the text and the important details. During this new chapter read aloud we’ve been taking notes and drawing sketches for each chapter trying to capture important actions and events. We’ve been recording our thinking to see if the act of choosing only three events from each chapter will strengthen our memory of events and the connections between them. We hope so. We’re reading The Sasquatch Escape by Suzanne Selfors. This is a first in a series that is quite accessible to our readers so I am hoping that we’ll be able to begin some book clubs in the next few weeks that will grow individual comprehension skills even more.

Wonderful Words

We’ve been looking at words in different categories. We explored compound words and made Puniddles inspired by Bruce MacMillan’s book of that same name. We’ve begun collections of contractions and synonyms.   We read The Right Word and have begun to learn what a thesaurus is and how it can help us find just the right word. It is fun to notice words and categories. It is interesting to notice letter patterns in words and to consider how words are related. We began the year making an alphabet of insects. Now we’re going to try to see if we can make an alphabet related to words and the alphabet. We’ll see.

Bits and Pieces –

• We’ve completed our first set of cursive letters – The Clock Climbers. They are a, d, g, q, and c.
• Confirmation notes went home on Thursday regarding your child’s student led conference. As more families select conference times I will send home another reminder. These begin on Tuesday, November 17 and are on Wednesday, November 18 and Friday November 20.
• Report cards will be sent home on Tuesday, November 24. Rather than receiving written comments on this report card, we will meet for a parent teacher conferences in the first week of December.  Conference sign-up (round 2) will come home next week.

Happy November! This week we have been exploring books by Amy Krauss Rosenthal, writing reflections about ourselves as learners, readers, writers and mathematicians, creating displays for our museum and studying words.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs –Our first research and writing project

There are so many different learning opportunities that come from preparing for and presenting at a museum. First is learning different research and note taking techniques. Next is time management so information is gathered and verified. After that the children worked to organize and present their information accurately and in an “eye-catching” way. We’ve been exploring different formats for organizing informational writing, looking at leads and uncovering the ways that illustration and information go together to teach.

The class is excited to share their work with you at our museum.  The children have taken the responsibility for creating their own displays. We’ve talked about planning, proofreading and decorating. We’ve taken time to read from each other’s displays as proofing partners. Some children are more concerned about details, accuracy and conventions than others. With each child we have focused on the things that seem most important for him or her. For some the focus has been on using resources to find understandable information. For others it has been on time management and meeting deadlines. For others the focus has been on building confidence and independence, or writing in complete sentences and being aware of an audience beyond themselves. There is great variety in our class as you will see when you “tour” our museum and talk to the children. Some children have much to share, while others have little. Some children have worked diligently to be accurate in all ways, while others are seemingly unaware that there may be mistakes in their work.

This is our stating point and we will build from here. The children will have several more opportunities to present their work in similar formats throughout the year. We will be able to see them grow and change as they become more skilled as researchers and writers. It is fun to be with them and to feel their enthusiasm grow as they prepare to share their work with you.

Taking Time to Know Ourselves as Learners – Social Emotional Learning

The children have been thinking about what they are learning now and how they may grow throughout the year. We’ve been making an effort to become more aware of our choices and more intentional in our actions. To begin the reflection process the children have been looking at their work – either the books that seem to be a good fits when reading, or the many pieces of writing they have been drafting or the math problems they have been solving. Using these as “anchors” they are trying to think about their learning process in each of those areas.

Some of the children are able to see what they are doing and seem excited to explain how they make their choices and why. Other children just can’t…yet. It is hard for them to find words to describe what is going on inside their minds as they work and learn and choose. This struggle is typical for 8, 9, and 10-year olds. They are in a transitional stage moving between concrete thinking to more abstract thinking. They are becoming more aware of their choices and the unique strategies they use for thinking things through. Metacognition (thinking about your thinking) is the way we all grow and learn. The children are each doing what they can and will be ready to share their reflections at their goal setting conferences in mid-November.

Becoming Flexible with Numbers and Amounts

This week we continued with our Numbers of the Week routine. It has been designed to help the children think more flexibly by asking them to do a variety of things with the same amounts. We hope this routine will also help the children develop understanding of different mathematical terms and vocabulary.

On Monday the children write the amounts in standard, word and expanded forms, along with representing the amount in two different ways with base 10 blocks. On Tuesday they find the sum and the difference and check their work with rounding to the nearest ten. On Wednesday they generate alternating patterns by adding and subtracting. On Thursday they write problems for others to solve, and on Friday they find two different ways to represent the numbers with money.

The numbers started small – 17 for the number of students in 3E and 46 for the number of students in 3^rd grade. These amounts helped us understand each part of the routine. The numbers will grow and the routines will grow in complexity as the children become ready for more and different challenges.

Bits and Pieces:   There is so much more to share – deeper understanding of multiplication and division, enthusiasm for blogging, photography in technology class, creating beautiful pictures and writing in artist-writers’ workshop, being caring friends – and the note is already too long!  Your children are hard working and fun loving. They are becoming more aware of using time wisely and making more skillful transitions from one activity to the next. They are considering how their actions affect success. They seem to enjoy their days and are growing in confidence. All wonderful things. 3E is a nice place to be.

• We finished Quinny and Hopper. Ask your child what advice they might give each of the characters about friendship and being accepting of differences.
• Our next challenge with Mr. Caron – outdoors weather permitting – will be on November 10.
• Our Student Led Goal Setting Conferences are planned for November 17 and 18 – please select a time on the schedule sent in your communication folder.
• Term 1 report cards will be sent home November 24. These will not have written comments. We will meet for parent – teacher conferences in the first week of December to review the goals your child presented and set some of ourselves as we work together to support his/her learning for the year.

It has been a week full of excitement and waiting – apple picking, haunted hayrides, pumpkin carving, costume planning and finally trick-or-treating. In and around all that excitement at home, we explored the aspects of strong writing and begun informational writing to share our insect research. Most of the children posted writing and art on their blogs. We’ve been multiplying with larger amounts and we’ve been learning about habitats. There’s lot going on in 3E.

Multiplying and the Distributive Property

The children have been working to solve their problems with efficiency and accuracy. We’ve been working to organize our problem solving steps and follow a natural sequence working from the problem through to the solution. The children are doing a great job with this.

I wish I had saved some of the problems the children did from the beginning of the year to show them how far they have come. In September they were drawing out each set and writing a repeated addition sentence to solve problems like this:

Logan got a book full of sticker moustaches.  There were eight pages in the book.  Each page had five stickers on it.  How many sticker moustaches were in the book at the start?

This week the children have begun using the distributive property to break amounts apart to solve for partial products that they then add together. Here’s a sample of a problem from this week:

Elias read for 23 minutes a day for 5 days. How many minutes did he read altogether? Over the weekend he read for 45 minutes each day. How many minutes did he read over the weekend? How many minutes did he read altogether in the week?

The class is becoming more confident when using multiplication. Many of them are surprised by how quick the work becomes – they are still checking, “do I need to write 20 + 20 +… or can I just write 20 x 5?” The class is being asked to use the strategy that is most efficient AND that leads them to accurately solving the problem.

Knowing Ourselves and Identifying Habits that Lead to Success

– Social Emotional Learning

This week we finished graphing our eight different intelligences defined in Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory. After thinking about how we are each uniquely smart, we began to consider how we best learn as well. We’ve been exploring different parts of school learning to establish a clear understanding of our different capabilities at the start of third grade.   We have been talking about how our habits and choices help us achieve goals. We have noticed from our shared readings that most people don’t do things easily the first time. Learning something new doesn’t usually happen in a snap or the blink of an eye. People work at things for a long time – years and years even. Snowflake Bentley didn’t get one picture of a snowflake in his first season of trying. We have noticed successful people try different ways and have help. Successful people have time, support and opportunity in order to achieve their goals.  We notice that, just like the people in the biographies we have been sharing, we are most successful when we are confident and optimistic, patient and understanding, hardworking and persistent, flexible, and finally creative and resilient. Over the next week or two we are hoping to complete our goal-setting work and collect samples of our reading, writing and math work to share with our families in student-led conferences.  One of the most exciting things we are learning is of our ability to grow and change our intelligence. We can do anything we want to do with effort, determination, confidence and time.

Team Estimation – Building Relationships

This week we had to work to solve two problems with Mr. Caron. First we had to use estimation skills along with cooperation to complete a bridge-like structure. The posts were in the ground and we had to figure out which lengths of wood fit between then. We had to complete that part of the challenge in a short enough time span so that we could find a way to help the whole class cross the bridge to the other side. We had to work quickly, but safely. We had to work patiently and cooperatively. We had to work logically and communicate our ideas so that all the parts of the challenge would be done. The class seemed to feel a real sense of accomplishment when they found a solution for each part of this challenge.

 

 

 

 

Bits and Pieces –

• We are enjoying Quinny and Hopper. It is realistic fiction with strong third grade characters that are helping us consider what it means to be a friend, what it means to treat others with respect and how important it is to talk things out.
• We are creating our insect displays, learning how to use print shop and preparing all our pieces to teach others about insects.
• We completed our first set of math fact checks. We tried all four operations. Division was hard!

 

How Writing Grows

This week we’ve spent time exploring how writing grows. We’ve identified qualities of good writing, whether narrative, informational, or persuasive, and are looking at our own writing to identify and understand what we do well now. From this we are going to set goals for ourselves. It is interesting to see how the children think about writing as both creative and informative. It is fun and challenging.

How We Are Smart

The children used the information from their multiple intelligences surveys to create both a bar graph and a pie chart of how they are smart. We read The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco to add to our discussion. It gave us a clear example of how understanding and intelligence grows. We are not fixed if we choose not to be. By thinking about what we do and becoming more aware of our choices and attitude toward ourselves we can do most anything we decide to. We are trying to reduce comments like, “I’m not very good at this” or “I can’t do this.” We are trying to add the word “yet” to those statements and come up with a plan to change that.

 

 

 

 

Artist-Writers’ Workshop is a time for that reflection. Twice a week we work at creating a picture while thinking about our choices and our reaction to the work. They write out this process too.  It is a time where if at first we don’t succeed, we can try again. We can make a picture over, using what we like from the first attempt and trying to change what we don’t in the next. Sometimes it works out great, other times not so much. It’s the thought and challenge that are the main goals.

Multiplication Arrays

We spent time this week making sure the class understands what an array is and how this way of understanding multiplication can help us understand area. An array is always a rectangle read as height by base for the multiplication sentences. We worked to see how arrays show themselves on a 10×10 multiplication table. At first we looked at the empty chart. We knew there were 100 empty squares and when hearing that we were responsible for knowing that many facts for both multiplication and division it seemed a lot! But then we began filling the chart in. We filled in the ones. We realized we knew 19 facts there. We filled in the fives and added 17 more facts. Next we filled in the tens and that was 15 more facts. In this way we’ve discovered that we already know half of the chart and we haven’t added the twos and some of the early threes and fours. It is a good feeling to know that breaking this large goal into small steps can make it manageable – it can even feel like a fun challenge to work on a bit at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Bits and Pieces –

• We completed our third chapter read aloud, The Trumpet of the Swan. The children each created a feather showing a favorite scene from the story. We’ll put these together on Louise’s wings so he can “fly” across our classroom.
• We are reading Quinny and Hooper now. We’ve just met the main characters and are trying to decide how they are going to fit together and how the plot will unfold.
• We are continuing to practice the clock climber cursive letter set.
• We are planning to create a classroom museum as a way to share our insect research information. We are brainstorming ways to create eye-catching and informative displays.  Be on the look out for an invitation sharing the date and time.
• How is homework going for your family? Some of the children are coming in saying they didn’t have time. I hope that their work takes them no more than 30 to 40 minutes each day. Please let me know if this is not the case for your child.

Again – zip, zing – and it’s Friday. We’ve begun learning our first set of cursive letters. We had a challenge with Mr. Caron that involved cooperation, support and risk-taking to develop trust. We are graphing “how we are smart” and beginning to set fall learning goals.

How Are You Smart – S.E.L. – self awareness

After reading seven+ picture book biographies and autobiographies we know we can find evidence in people’s stories of how they show their intelligences. They show up in their interests, activities and interactions with others too. We’ve also learned that how we are smart changes and grows. If we want to develop an intelligence more all we have to do is practice and try. Over time we all grow and change. You may want to ask your child what his or her four top intelligences are and why they feel that is true. Over the next few days we’ll be making pie charts and bar graphs to show how we are smart.

Trust Fall Challenge – S.E.L. – social awareness and responsible decision-making

This week’s challenge was a “challenge by choice.” One by one students climbed onto the table, stood with their backs to the zipper of classmates are behind them, listened and waited. “Ready?” they asked. “Ready,” the class responded. “Falling.” “Fall away.” And with arms crossed over their chests the students fall back into their classmates arm. A smile of surprise, relief, and pride showed on the faller’s face at the accomplishment. It takes a lot of courage to fall into your classmates’ arms. It take courage every day to try something new, offer a possible answer in the group or choose a new kind of book or problem or picture. You may want to ask your child what small risks s/he is taking each day to stretch and grow his or her own learning. The more the children are aware of the choice they make in growing their own learning, the more their learning will grow.

Multiplication – Division

This week we continued to explore both the set and array models of multiplication. More and more of the children are seeing the relationship between skip counting, repeated addition and multiplication. When you look at your child’s work this week you’re likely to see this growing understanding in their daily problem solving work. I can also see it in the classroom in the number of children who are choosing math activities like Circles and Stars and Tiguous so they’ll have more opportunities to practice multiplication.

We also spent time with fact families to explore the idea of inverse operations. The children are developing a mental picture of how multiplication and division are opposites. One being sets put together in a whole – likely building a regular geometric shape, and the other starting with the whole and breaking it up into groups of equal size. Some children “see” it easily and others remain uncertain. If natural opportunities arise in building, gardening, or crafting to point out how these operations help you figure area or repeated groupings, please do. If children come back into the classroom and share their stories we’ll all have a richer sense of math all around us.

Bits and Pieces –

• We are continuing insect research with paper and online resources. It is exciting to use laptops in the classroom and to learn how to manage our time to make sure our research is completed and then put together to be shared with others. Will we create a class magazine? Will we open a class museum? Will me post on our blogs? It will be fun to choose and plan what we will do to share what we’ve learned with others.
• We are nearing the end of The Trumpet of the Swan. In the book both main characters, Louis the Swan and Sam Beaver, are thinking about what will happen for them when they are grown. Louis overcomes his inability to speak. Sam discovers how he might follow his love of nature and animals to become a keeper at a zoo. We’ve also been thinking about our hopes and dreams for what we might do in the distant “Someday” so now we’ll… You may want to ask your child about that paper in their folders this week.
• We are working to describe ourselves as readers, writers, and problem solvers. It is not easy to find words for those actions. Each child is working to write a personal learning profile to set an anchor of sorts so she/he can more easily notice changes and growth.
• Thanks to the families who’ve had a chance to read your child’s blog and to share it with others. It is super motivation to open up a blog and read comments from family and friends. Many of the children were able to complete a post this week. This was their first personal choice post. There was a great variety of writing and illustrating. Fun!

 

This week passed in a flash! We’ve had lots of different reading, writing, and math opportunities integrated with art and technology. This is our third week of Artist-Writers workshop and our second week of blogging. The questions that come with all new things are beginning to lessen as the class becomes more confident in what they are doing. There are more and more times of quiet focus as the learning happens in our room. The class is learning more about the strategies readers use to understand. They are learning note-taking strategies to guide research both from print and digital texts. We are thinking about “how we are smart” as we learning about the Theory of Multiple Intelligence and growth mindset.

Multiple Intelligence Theory – Knowing Ourselves

After reading about many different people we feel we have a clearer sense of what the different intelligences are and how they looks. We read about Snowflake Bentley, Michael Jordan, Patricia Polacco, Alan Rabinowitz, Henri Rousseau and Jane Goodall. As we read about their lives we tried to connect anecdotes in the stories with the different ways we are smart.   We discovered it is more challenging to recognize some of the intelligences because they are ways of thinking. They don’t easily show on the outside. As we’ve been reading, we’ve been thinking about our interests and strengths. We completed a questionnaire that might help us see how we are smart in all eight ways. We are looking forward to discovering more about ourselves and all the ways we are smart.

Keeping a Record of What We Read

This week we began recording what we are reading. There is a group of children who take a new pile of pictures books each day. There is another group of children who have settled into chapter books series and are reading from 1 to 2 to 3… And there is another group who read a little of this and a little of that, not quite yet able to settle in. Over time the record will help children see who they are as readers and will help us be better able to make a plan encouraging them to choose wisely and to think about which strategies will help them understand more.

We also began to think about how reading grows. We learn new words and fancy vocabulary. We become more fluent and more accurate as we read. Understanding grows too. We are learning about “activating schema” (using what we know and background knowledge) so we are able to understand more by making connections.

Next week each student will be making a video of “a just right” book and set goals for how they would like to grow as a 3rd grade reader.

Numbers of the Week Routine

We have begun a math notebook as a way to explore different aspects of number work throughout the week, along with our unit of study, which for us happens to be multiplication. This week our numbers were 17 for the students in 3E and 46 for the 3rd Graders at NHS. We wrote and recorded these amounts in different ways. We found the sum and the difference using these amounts. We generated number patterns and found ways the amounts could be represented through coins.

We continue to learn more about multiplication. Each week the children are showing their growing confidence with this new operation. They are more often using it when solving problems rather than drawing out and counting. I can see their understanding of multiplicative reasoning growing as I review their daily work. “Do I have to write out 5+5+5? I just know 5×3=15.” We are ready to create a multiplication chart as a class to identify how many facts we already know and to discover the ones we must focus on so we are able to know they all automatically.

Bits and Pieces –

• We are nearing the part in The Trumpet of the Swan where Louis goes to the Philadelphia Zoo. We’ll use that connection to launch a second research project about an animal from the Franklin Park Zoo as we explore habitats around the world.
• In science we are learning about insects and microhabitats. We are learning how to research on the computer and note taking. We will be creating an insect museum as a way to share our research with you.
• This week the class worked to create multiplication riddles following the format shared in the book, Each Orange Had Eight Slices. Most of these got posted on the children’s individual blogs this week. Thank you to so many for checking out your child’s blog and for sharing them with family and friends from away. Children were so excited to find a comment from their parents, grandparents or friends. It gives the children a real authentic purpose for writing when they know they have a wider audience for their work.