There’s a lot going on in 3E. We’re learning about food chain and food webs, making our zoo habitats and working to complete our informational paragraphs. We’re planning to set up a new “art gallery” featuring our animals so you’ll have a preview of what you’ll be seeing as you enter our zoo. We’re reading and writing and doing science and math projects most days. We’re also working very hard to behave in thoughtful ways to support learning for everyone.

SEL – Self-Awareness and Responsible Decision Making

We’ve gathered together our reflections and set learning goals for the year. We’ve set goals as a class, and the children have set their own. They have an idea about what they would like to achieve as readers, writers and mathematicians. They know what their strengths are and what their challenges are. Each child has chosen work to show who they are as beginning 3rd grade learners.

It is challenging to write about thinking and learning. Some of their reflections and goals will make you smile. They are beginning to realize that they are in charge of what they accomplish. They are growing each day and working to positively impact our learning community.

Pushes and Pulls All Around

This week we’ve continued learning about invisible forces – pushes and pulls – and how engineers use what they know about lines of force to create and build. We explored pushes and pulls by creating “Hopper Poppers.” We learned how to launch them and then tried to think of ways to modify them to change or increase their lift. Next, we learned about bridges and how they are built. We learned about pillars and arches. We learned about suspension bridges and about trusses. We learned some about the story of how The Golden Gate was designed. Later, we used our information to build a bridge with two sheets of paper. At first, “that’s impossible” was heard throughout the room, but then we discovered how folding (making trusses) makes the paper stronger. We learned how arches change the lines of force by pushing up. Our strongest designs used pillar to support the span of the bridge. It was fun to see how the groups worked and persevered. Our next challenges involve learning about friction and gravity.

Hands-on science is fun. You may notice that your child is coming home with unfinished papers related to these topics. At this point in our study the class is quick to make and build, to do and create. Planning and recording are low on the priority scale at this point and that’s fine. When you talk to your child about these projects you can hear what they are learning and thinking and discovering. We can tell their curiosity is growing as well as they understanding and that’s what science is all about – developing a sense of wonder and asking, “what if…”

Rounding Numbers and Learning More About Problem Solving

This week we learned about rounding up and down. We are comfortable rounding to the nearest 10. We are learning how this process extends toward rounding to the nearest 100 and 1,000. Larger amounts are challenging for the children to think about and organize. They can easily picture how tens group into hundreds. Beyond that is a challenge, but they are working to feel more secure about the rules of mathematics – 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 round up; 4, 3, 2, 1 round down whether ones, tens or hundreds.

We’ve also been working to solve problems as efficiently as possible. You’ll notice changes back and forth between adding and multiplying. We need to practice different fact sets. In class we’re working to bring automaticity to 2’s and 5’s and we’re exploring the power of 10.

Bits and Pieces –

We all participated in the Trust Fall Challenge with Mr. Caron. It was scary and exciting. Even though we have a very talkative class and one that jokes when it might be nice to be serious, we all realized we can count on each other. That’s nice.

We began our fourth chapter read-aloud, School Days According to Humphrey. We are looking forward to what happens in Room 26.

We are looking forward to our conferences and sharing our work with you.

We are also looking forward to setting up our zoo. We’ve been creating our habitats and writing about our animals. We’ve explored a variety of leads so you’ll be encouraged to stop by and read our information posted with our exhibit.

 

Exploring Invisible Forces

What a week! Even with so many starts and stops, we’ve quite a list of accomplishments. We completed our paper airplane competition – ask your child about the difference between a hard, fast push to launch the planes and a slow, gentle push. Ask your child if he or she has an idea about what shape makes a paper airplane go straight and fast. Ask your child if he or she has ideas of the forces that make an airplane go once it leaves a hand. We know about the push of thrust and the pull of gravity. We know the air provides lift if the wings are just right… We are going to continue our exploration of Invisible Forces over the next few weeks and then we will have another go at folding planes to go straight and fast. I wonder what we’ll discover.

Writing Letters of Gratitude

We spent some time writing letters to soldiers for the 500 letters for the 50th day of school. The class took time to thank our service men and women for their time and effort to keep each of our families and us safe. We are grateful to be living in a country with so much. The class expressed its appreciation of the risks taken to grant us freedom and safety. Our class was excited to be part of this project. We look forward to writing more letters to service men and women in the future. It felt good to take a moment to think of the many things we have to be grateful for.

Habitats and Food Webs

We are continuing to research and write about our zoo animals. We are getting ready to create our “zoo exhibits.” As we learn more about habitats and ecosystems we are thinking more about the interconnectedness of all creatures in our world. We first wondered what would happen if there were no more mosquitos. Some said it would be a good thing, while others were not so sure. Once we’ve explored the idea of food chains and food webs more, we’ll go back to that question – perhaps mosquitos have an important place after all.

Self-Awareness – Learning to Set Goals

We are putting together our work samples and reflections for our student led conferences. We are thinking about what we are doing now as readers, writers and mathematicians. From that starting point, we are thinking about what we hope to be able to do and what we’d like to accomplish throughout this 3rd grade year. It seems amazing that a third of it is nearly over!

Our week has been full of research, multiplication, small group challenges and whole class challenges. We also had the opportunity to meet Greg Trine, author of the Melvin Beederman, Jo Schmo and Willy Maykit series. It was really fun to meet an author that most of the children knew through his books. He shared how he came to writing and how many years of writing and rewriting and rewriting again it took (12) before he had a story published in a magazine. It took six more years after that before he had a story long enough to become a book and then a series. Mr. Trine drew for us, held an evil laugh contest and had members of the audience act out a super hero story as he told it to us. Later on some in our class had the opportunity to meet in the library for lunch with the author. They learned about his upcoming books – a new series with a dog and a cat. We’ll have to look to see when that will be published.

S.E.L. – Self-Awareness

We added Self-Awareness and its three “I can” statements to our Social Emotional Learning chart. We are growing our understanding of how learning about ourselves can help us achieve more, while also creating a more peaceful learning environment for everyone. We shared books and tried to discover how feelings affect behavior and the choices we’re making. We are exploring our strengths and challenges and connecting this back to the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Additionally, we are learning how a positive outlook helps us meet challenges. We learned to add “yet” to statements when are not working out. “I don’t get it…yet.” “I can’t do this…yet.” One little word changes everything because it encourages us to see failures and mistakes as opportunities to learn.

At the end of last week during our discussion about Responsible Decision Making and Self-Management the class decided they would like to do something to reduce disruptive behaviors interfering with learning. Many shared management systems that had been used before to encourage students to be more mindful and respectful. And so we have come up with a process of keeping track of behavior. Talk to your child to see how s/he feels this process is helping make more time for learning.

Invisible Forces

We have begun a study of force. We began our week by flying the three different types of paper airplanes we’d created the week before. One was designed to go fast and straight. The second was designed to glide gracefully and stay aloft for a long time. And the final plane was designed to spin and turn.

From those experiences the class has worked in small groups to design a plane to represent their group in a competition.   Looking at how those four planes fly will help as discover more about the invisible forces that impact our lives – the pushes and pulls that effect every movement.

Learning to Use the Distributive Property

Last week we discovered how many multiplication facts we already know – they were as easy as doubling or counting by 5’s and 10’s. We may need to practice a bit for them to be automatic, but we can figure them out. Using this knowledge we’ve been working to solve problems that ask us to multiply larger amounts and to do this by using the distributive property.

Here’s one of the problems that was a choice this week:

Mackenzie decided to read the Clementine books.

There are seven books in the series.

Five of them have 160 pages.

Two of them have 176 pages.

How many pages will Mackenzie read to finish the series?

Using the distributive property it would be solved like this:

• 5 x 160 =                                             2 x 176 =
• 5 x 100 = 500                                    2 x 100 = 200
• 5 x 60 = 300                                      2 x 70 = 140
• 5 x 0 = 0                                             2 x 6 = 12

The final answers to the two parts come by adding the products of each equation. The class has been trying to practice using multiplication rather than adding or counting. It’s tempting to add because it is more comfortable and familiar. Because of that, it is also easier. In the first part of the problem 5 x 60 is a place value challenge – could it be hundreds? Almost as much as five hundreds? They begin to doubt themselves when multiplying where they wouldn’t when adding 60+60+60+60+60+60. When you review your child’s work with them this weekend, compliment him or her for effort made. Some have become very comfortable with the process, while others remain hesitant – they haven’t used the distributive property “yet”, but they will. All of them should feel proud of how they are each working to understand multiplication.

Bits and Pieces

• We’ll be working to write letters to soldiers next week for the 50 Letters in 50 Days project. If you’ve decided to do that with your family as well, please send them in with your child next week so they are ready to send on Veteran’s Day.
• The class is preparing for student led conferences. Please find a sign up for those to be held before, during and after school in Monday and Tuesday, November 21 and 22.
• Our Zoo will be opening on December 1 from 6:00 to 7:00 pm. We are excited to be sharing our animals in their habitats and our first pieces of published informational writing. Save the date. More details will follow.
• Report cards will be coming home on December 2. We will meet the following week for parent teacher conferences. We will use the work your child shared along with other work and assessment samples to set learning goals for your child’s year.

It has been a week full of exploration, multiplication and choices. We’ve had some changes so we’ll see Mrs. Fremeau during lunch Mondays and Fridays, but she’ll spend the majority of her time in 2I (Mrs. Ibey had her baby) and 3CL. Miss DiPietro will be joining our classroom. We met her yesterday and enjoyed having her in our classroom.

S.E.L. Focus – Responsible Decision Making

            This week we focused on the decision making pillar of S.E.L. We discussed what being responsible means and ways we could show we were responsible. Some of the children were surprised that putting things away, taking care of supplies, or walking quietly through the halls are all ways of showing that we are responsible. We talked about not blaming others or saying that our behavior was caused by someone else. That is a challenge.

The three statements that are guiding our self-evaluations are:

• I am accountable for what I do and for how I act and behave.
• I do the right thing at the right time.
• I know others can trust and depend on me.

The class did decide that we should have a behavior plan of some kind. We had a long and important conversation about how this could work. The class was very candid and didn’t want those who find it difficult to manage themselves or make responsible choices to be blamed for that. “If they feel bad and disappointed, they’ll never learn.” Each of the children wrote down what they thought we should try. Next week we’ll develop a plan and set some reasonable goals to see if we can become more aware of our decisions and more self-managing.

Managing Mastery of Multiplication

            We’ve been learning how multiplication is a quicker way of adding equal groups or sets. It’s repeated addition. We’ve been reading and creating arrays. We know about the commutative property and are sure the 6×5 is the same as 5×6. We began to develop our fact chart so we can keep track of the facts we know and the facts we still need to work on. At first it seemed that learning 100 facts would be impossible and then we began to fill in our chart. We all know the 1’s facts. We all know the 2’s. We all know the 5’s and the 10’s. That’s 40 known facts. And because we know the commutative property we know all the “turn around facts” as well. It turns out we know 64 of those 100 facts already and that doesn’t include things like 3×3. We decided it was a doable project. We’ll begin with the 3’s next week.

This week we also learned about the distributive property so we could tackle using multiplication with larger amounts. We looked at large arrays and discovered ways of breaking them apart into manageable groups – blocking off rows of 5 or 10. You’ll see some examples in your child’s work this week. We also practiced using this property in problems – if there were 6 pumpkins and each pumpkin had 123 seeds, how many seeds would there be altogether?

As you go through your weekend, challenge yourself to see how many places you can find arrays – in windowpanes, floor tiles, food packaging… It’s surprising how many you’ll find when you begin looking. It will be a great way for the children to see that multiplication is all around them.

Bit and Pieces –

• We are continuing our animal research and are planning our classroom zoo. Paper mache is so much fun!
• We’re learning about geography, continents and habitats.
• Each week since the beginning of school we’ve been learning to look at our world as a scientist We observed, drew and painted leaves. We followed the scientific process from hypothesis to conclusion with our Raisin and Soda experiment. And we looked at shells to document what we know and what we wonder. Asking questions is something that drives innovation and creation. We are going to grow from those experiences as we begin a science unit about Invisible Forces.
• Enclosed is our next book order. If you’d like to order books please send to order in by next Wednesday.

Thank you for connecting with what we are doing in our classroom. Thank you for checking 3E News and your child’s blog. Thanks for commenting. It means the world to them to know they’ve made connections with you. Also, thank you for talking with your child about the positive ways he or she can add to our classroom community. We can feel the difference. Our classroom feels more like a place where learning can happen. Hopefully we’ll keep growing so we can work together to do better and better things.

Self-Management – our S.E.L. focus this week

There are five areas of social emotional learning. They are called pillars because all academic learning stands upon their framework.   They are self-management, self-awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making, and social awareness. Of course they all work together and are closely intertwined, but we’ve been focusing our discussions on self-management this week. That means we’ve been trying to be more aware of our own feelings. We’ve listed good and bad feelings and the in between feelings. We tried to think about making choices that lead to positive outcomes. And lastly we’ve tried think about goals we’d make for ourselves in this area that would help promote both social and academic growth.

I think many of you would be proud of the effort your son or daughter is making to think about how his/her choices affect others. We certainly can and will make more growth in this area, but this week more and more children are choosing to stay focused on the task at hand. More and more of our class are working at transitioning smoothly from one activity to another. And more and more of our class are feeling proud of changes they are making.

Global Geography

We’ve begun to learn about the continents and how varied, and yet, similar they are. We’ve been reading about them and looking at them on maps. We’re learning terms like equator, hemisphere, and peninsula. We’re also learning how people fit into geography and create neighborhoods, towns, counties, and countries. We’ll combine this learning with what we are learning about our animals.

Reading and Writing Like a Scientist

We’ve been researching and learning to take notes about what we understand as we read. Learning from informational text is a challenge. There are many words that we can pronounce and read through that we do not understand. We are learning what to do in this case. Scientists are specific, so we need to be as well. We are practicing observation. We are learning to be more descriptive and precise, but that takes time.

This week we all did an experiment with seltzer and raisins. What happens to the raisins when we put them in a cup of seltzer? Some of the children had done this before. For others it was a first time. Their descriptions of the process will serve as our jumping off point for learning how to record observations with detail and data. Experimenting is fun!

Bits and Pieces:

• How is homework fitting into your life? I mean that sincerely. In 3rd grade we are hoping to instill in children the need for quiet time and focus on assignments. We hope that homework is completed in 35 minutes or less a day . We want kids to relax. We’ve chosen “due on Friday” to insure that families can enjoy their weekends. If you find a “due on Monday” time works better for your family – by all means do that.
• We worked to understand the difference between the set (repeated addition) model and an array with multiplication. We are all pretty sure of the commutative property with multiplication.
• We met with Mrs. Marriotti this week to learn more about mindfulness and dealing with frustration and disruptions.
• At the end of last week we met with Deputy Fire Chief, Jason Lajoie. He spoke to us about Fire Safety and gave us calendars created by the state. He encouraged our third graders to participate in this coming year’s contest. It would be great if that is something your child would like to do. The artwork must be completed by February 24th. If you’ve misplaced that information I have another copy and could send it home again.

 

Our week has been full of reading, writing, research and discovery. We’ve been learning to research and write on the computers. We’ve been working in centers to observe as scientist and to develop logic and a sense of fair play. We’ve been exploring the practice of mindfulness and considering ways to work more effectively together to maximize learning.

Self- Awareness and Self Management

– our S.E.L. focus this week

            Thank you for talking to your child about the choices s/he is making with regard to behavior. We’ve been talking about it a lot in class. It seems that when it is on our minds all the time, all of us are able to assess ourselves and monitor how our choices affect others. When we stop talking – many lose their self-awareness and then their self-control. Please keep checking in at home. Ask your child how s/he did with talking during lessons or trying to be funny at the wrong time or doing the right thing at the right time or staying focused.

One of the things that came up though our discussion of how feeling calm helps us learn was the idea that all learning grows. “I Messages” were mentioned as something done in first grade or kindergarten. It was surprised many of the children to hear that they should still be using them. If it works and it’s efficient, it’s a strategy that should still be used.

We talked about what it means to be present. We know if each of us adopts this habit, we’ll all be better able to learn. We’ll be more successful. Here is a list of things the class said they would choose to be more present and to help our classroom became a place where everyone feels successful.

• I will have peace in my heart.
• Cleaning up trash at the beach.
• I will listen when others talk.
• I will do my work correctly.
• I will have more love and peace in my heart.
• “This is a good book.” “Thanks.”
• I will fold my hands so I’m not distracted.
• I will sit down.
• I will be calm.
• I will not laugh when others are talking.
• I will sit calmly on the rug.
• I will raise my hand instead of yelling out.
• If you see someone is hurt, get some help.
• Listen to others and don’t interrupt them they they’re talking.
• Listen.
• Listen all the time.

Arrays and the Commutative Property

We have continued our exploration of multiplication this week by learning about arrays. We know that arrays are rectangles made of columns and rows. We’ve learned that you read them down the left side and across the bottom. So

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would be read as 3 by 5 or 3 groups of 5 or 3×5.

We used what we are learning to create arrays showing the commutative property. 3 of 5 makes a long, low array, while 5 of 3 makes a taller more narrow array. You can see our work in the hall outside our classroom on Multiplication Main Street.

Bits and Pieces –

• We have continued to work on blogging and blog posts. Some of the children have submitted second posts while others are still working. We have a 45 minute writing session dedicated to blogging each week and then the children have the choice to write in their journal or work on their blog during the independent writing block. Some have chosen to blog, while others have chosen to write in their notebook. That is the reason for the difference. Please keep checking and leaving comments as often as you can. It is very motivating.
• We’ve begun work on our zoo. The children are researching both in books and from online resources. We are learning more about online research in both technology class and in the library as well. With Mrs. Wyman’s and Ms. Schmidt’s help we are learning about many different information resources and about ways we can use them to learn more about our animals and their habitats.
• Fire Chief, Jason LaJoie came to the classroom this week to talk a bit about Fire Safety. He talked about “Stop, Drop and Roll” and what we need to do in cases of emergency. He talked about when to listen to your inner voice and make choices that you know are right. He sent home calendars featuring last year’s Fire Safety contest winners and encouraged children to participate in this year’s calendar project. If your child would like to submit and entry and you need any supplies or further information, please let me know. It would be fun to have some North Hampton artwork in the 2017 calendar.

 

This was a full and busy week. We had pictures on Monday, and the Shelter in Place Drill on Tuesday. We worked on our informational writing prompt, worked through a “3 minute” reading assessment and gave our best effort in a basic fact check for addition. Those things were a bit different and stressful for some. On the exciting side of things, we began our animal research project and began building our animal models for our zoo exhibit. We also were able to get all children started on their blogs. Many have completed their first posts, while others are still in the drafting process and will post soon.

Writing Process

Writing grows in so many ways. This week the children completed their informational writing prompt. This, combined with the narrative prompt they completed a few weeks ago, and the persuasive prompt they will be completing in another few weeks will establish their baseline expectation as a 3rd grade writer. We’ll grow from there. There is a lot to do as a writer in 3rd grade and so we write in many ways.

One writing opportunity is blogging. These pieces are designed to be short and illustrated with photographs and scanned images. The children have been working toward posting on their own blogs since the beginning of school. First we looked at our class blog and the blogs of past students to learn about what blogs are and could be. Next we wrote a blog post on paper.   These were illustrated and are ready for comments. This practice will be done with post-its. In the computer lab our next step was to learn about commenting. There are five parts to a quality comment: be positive, be specific, ask a question, add some information and use proper grammar. We practiced commenting and finally this week, Mrs. Wyman helped us set up our individual blogs. Our goal will be to submit a post for review every week so please check out our blogs often and leave a comment. These comments are concrete proof to the children that there is an audience beyond themselves and their teachers. It is motivating.

A second writing opportunity comes in artist-writers’ workshop. This is a designed as a quiet reflective time to create. At this point in the process, children have selected a small ceramic animal to copy and put in a setting four times. Each time they used a different medium: crayon, colored pencil, marker and watercolor. The goal was to make each image identical and to discover how each medium worked in our sketchbooks. Then next step was to select an image to copy. We’ve been sticking to animals at this point. Some children have created one picture, in the same time that others have created three or four. We are at the place where we will look at our work and write about it in two different ways. First we will write about the creative process, what we see and the choices that were made. And second we will use our pictures as a springboard for a story. This could be a personal narrative of how the picture was created, or it could be a fictional narrative inspired by the subject of the picture.

Learning about Informational Writing

We spent time this week reviewing and examining the features of informational texts. Now we have both organizational choices to make, as well as selecting the text features we wish to include in our writing. We looked at headings, captions, tables of contents, and indexes. We looked and emboldened words and glossaries. We looked at how illustrations, diagrams and charts add even more information to the words. We also looked at different examples on informational writing. We read many books, but we also looked at the trading cards designed by the Franklin Park Zoo. We began to design our own Zoo Trading Cards. We are looking forward to beginning our research process so we will be able to create and share our own informational pieces to teach you all about the animals in our zoo.

Learning How Multiplication and Division are Reciprocal

This week we learned more about multiplication and examined the patterns of repeated addition. We made function or ratio charts to see how the patterns grow. We also connected multiplication and division.   We looked at sets of things and broke them up into equal groups to show what the process of division. We’ve begun to look at sets of dot stickers to see if we can discover which operation is represented. When there are many groups that have the same amount of dots, it is multiplication. When there is one large group broken into smaller groups, it is division. When there are many groups of various sizes it is addition and one a portion of a larger group is shaded over it is subtraction. As I write this to you, it seems obvious, of course that is what we see and know. But for the children, this understanding is growing along with the strengthening number concepts. You can help by pointing out how math is all around. For example, if you purchase yogurt in fours or applesauce in sixes ask your child if he or she can figure out how many you’ll use in a month, if you use one or two packs in a week. If you know how many miles it is from your house to the practice field, ask your child to calculate the miles you’ll travel in a week or a month. At first they may be drawing out or tallying each thing, but later they’ll become more efficient. Thank you for helping bring math to life and showing that it is all around us.

Bits and Pieces –

• We’ve been reading The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. We’ve met both Sam and Louis at this point. We are excited to look back at the predictions we made at the start of the book and update them now that we have more information.
• We’re continuing our conversations about the Theory of Multiple Intelligence and learning more about how we are smart. We are learning about pie charts and a working to graph how we are smart.
• Mrs. Haight helped us began making our paper mache animals for our zoo. We are excited about that!

In an around all of this work, we also talked a great deal about expected behaviors for 3rd grade. There is a lot of interrupting, to the point of interfering with learning and safety. We would appreciate you have a chat about this. Please don’t let your child tell you tales of what other children are doing. Please encourage them to think of how to do their best work when things are challenging. Continual shushing or asking others in the middle of a lesson to stop is as distracting as the distraction. Deciding to argue rather than ignore or physically move is a distraction too.  Walking through the group rather than around. Choosing to become angry and argumentative during table work, rather than allowing someone to believe something that may not be true is a disruption too. There are things we can all (me included in this) do to make our classroom more peaceful and successful. I know we can. We have a wonderful class.   We will grow in self-control and social awareness, just as we grow as writers, readers, artists, scientist, explorers and mathematicians. Thanks for your help!

It was so nice to see many of you at Curriculum Night. We appreciate your support in making this a great year. Thank you.

Naming Habits that Lead to Success

and Discovering the Many Ways We Are Smart – S.E.L.

We’ve continued on with our exploration of how we are smart and habits that lead to success. We read about Henri Rousseau. He painted because he loved to paint and though he never left the city of Paris the jungle fascinated him and found its way into his art. He painted as he thought it must be and entered annual exhibitions where he was horribly ridiculed over and over. We all agreed we would have either given up painting, or only painted in secret. We decided his habits for success were believing in himself, practicing, having courage and risk-taking.

We also read about Michael Jordan as a boy. He loved basketball, but he was short and could never get the ball past the tall guys. He stopped playing in games for a while, waiting to grow. While he waited, he practiced and practiced. Eventually he went back to the game and… we know where that took him. His habits for success were determination, practice and focus.

Finally we read Junkyard Wonders, a continuation of Patricia Polacco’s school learning story. If you haven’t read this book with your child, please do. There is so much to think and talk about. It can be read over and over again. We talked about how schools have changed and become more inclusive and more aware of learning differences and needs. We talked about friendship and determination, exclusion and fear of difference. We admired the “Wonders” for their support and caring of each other and for moving forward despite all they faced.

We can see parts of ourselves in the biographies we are reading. We can feel what courage and determination it takes to keep going. We also know that it is sometimes hard to believe in ourselves or ignore teasing and unkind taunts. We can also (when we are honest) recognize our less than kind selves. We all have choices – how do we want to grow our intelligences? What habits of success do we want to foster and practice?

Exploring Informational Writing

Over the last few weeks we have been reading a wide variety of informational books. We’ve explored the choices that authors have made of organizing their information. Some information is told sequentially. Some information is shared in categories and sub-topics in a more descriptive manor. Other information is shared in a compare/contrast or cause and effect format. In addition to the organizational choices for writing, we’ve explored some of the craft choices authors make. Sometimes authors make characters to share the information. We read I Fly! where the information is shared through the voice of the fly as he teaches the children in a classroom that he is a fascinating as a butterfly.

This learning is launching our global geography, habitat and animal research project. We are looking forward to

Many Models For Multiplication

We’ve been learning various models for multiplication. We’re exploring repeated groupings, arrays and the relationship between addition and multiplication. Multiplication seems like it must be hard – it’s new and many of the children feel that they don’t know it. But we’ve come to realize that it is not that hard – in fact at the beginning we already know a lot. When we count by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s that’s a first step. You’ll see some papers in the folders this week where the class was challenged to think about repeated groups and what models represent addition and what models represent multiplication. Each week the concept becomes clearer.

Bits and Pieces –

• Don’t Forget! – 3rd grade school pictures will be taken October 3, in the afternoon.
• We’re beginning our 3rd chapter read-aloud, The Trumpet of the Swan. This fits with our science inquiry of habitats. It connects to our 3rd Grade Zoo project and will help us as we learn more about how to document our thinking while reading.
• Mrs. Mariotti is starting a weekly luncheon with 3rd grade. She’ll be inviting four children each week to lunch for small group conversation. Everyone will have a turn and then we’ll begin again.
• Ask your child about The River Runner challenge. It requires a great deal of self-management and self-awareness, while at the same time being socially aware as well. Ask your child they remember most about the activity? What was his or her biggest challenge within the activity?