It is hard to believe that nearly two thirds of this school year has passed. Next week report cards will be sent to you via email at the end of the week. It is good to stop and take notice of accomplishments and to see if we are attending to the goals that have been set earlier in the year. Third grade is the year where most children are developmentally able to accept responsibility for their own learning and learning behaviors. They realize they are making choices to focus and accept responsibility for their own learning.

SEL – Responsibility for Self and Others

 This week our social emotional learning focus has been taking responsibility for self-management. Building on author, Tim Green’s, message last Friday of always doing your best and being kind, we’ve revisited books about including everyone. Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson sparked conversation about regret and learning from mistakes. We reread Don’t Laugh At Me and explored the message of Horace and Morris, but Mostly Delores and wondered why sometimes we make clubs that keep others out. It is easy to notice how to be responsible when talking about book characters. We are working to notice how we can each be responsible for ourselves in our everyday interactions. We’ve been exploring way to be mindful and to take that extra second to reflect rather than react. “Is it the right thing, at the right time, for me and the people I am with?” I can see many of the children doing just that and I am proud of them. They are catching themselves at chatting, or making a distracting comment during a lesson or noticing when they’ve spent more time finding a place to read than reading.

This week our challenge with Mr. Caron required focused teamwork and true awareness of self-control and self-management. The class rose to the occasion – everyone was able to complete the challenge. There was a real sense of pride and accomplishment in the room because everyone had made choices to stay serious and to care for each other as they walked across the sticks held as a ladder in the air.

Place Value – Problem Solving

            For the past eight weeks we’ve been exploring efficient ways to solve problems and working with amounts up through hundred thousands. These are amounts that are challenging to visualize but we’ve learned how to keep the amounts organized in our thinking. You can see from your child’s work that he or she is working to solve problems as efficiently as possible. All through this process we have been creating our own math land. We built house with base ten blocks and then found their value in hundreds, tens and ones. We also created ourselves and found our personal number by finding the total of our birth date, age, address, phone number and family size. That was an adding challenge to be sure.

We complete our third round of fact checks. We’ve not been focusing on fact work as much in the classroom as we were in the fall.   For many of the children scores have remained the same or gone down slightly. Games and some of the eboard links offer repetition and the practice needed to make fact knowledge automatic. Thank you for your weekly help with this. I know we’ll be on our game for the remainder of the year and doing the best we can.

Trees and Growing Things

            In our new science unit we will be learning about seeds, growing and the importance of plants around us. We’ve begun by learning about trees – different types, how they change impact our environment and how we can care for them. We’ll be adopting a tree in our schoolyard and observing how it changes as spring approaches. We’ll be comparing the growth of trees with the growth of broccoli. We’ll be starting our seeds next week and getting ready to move our plants out to the greenhouse in mid-March. This is our part of the school square foot garden project. We are in the spring group and are excited to see how different plants develop and grow. Preschool is planting sunflowers. First grade is growing a variety of greens. Third grade is growing endive, kale and broccoli. Fourth grade is growing onions, beets and peppers. Sixth grade is growing Brussels sprouts, cabbage and kale and eighth grade is growing tomatoes.   It is a great project to be part of.

Bits and Pieces –

• Our book clubs have started. Children have calendars and know what chapters they are responsible for reading by our meeting date next week. Some of the children are bring their books home. You may want to ask them (or remind them) if they are reading for their book club at home.
• We have been learning the formation of the capitals in cursive. We’ve learned the first nine letters and the kids are feeling excited about being able to write more and more in cursive.
• As of yesterday, Eben had collected 5 wonders in his town. We are enjoying The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs and are looking forward to seeing if we can discover any wonder for ourselves in North Hampton.
• Next week, Caleb’s grandfather is coming to school to share what he does with the 3rd grade. He is a state police officer and part of the K9 unit. He’ll be doing a demonstration of us as he works with his dog.