We are hopeful the weather settles down.  We’re having trouble fitting everything into our already too short days. Little by little we’re finishing our weather forecasting project and our Holiday Palooza work.  We’ve begun our family story writing, but have not gotten far.  We’ve spent a bit more time learning about maps, mapping and the seven continents this week.

There’s so much we want to do, but so little time in our classroom to get it done.  Oh well, we’ll just keep doing all that we can and little by little it will all get done.

The Holiday Palooza

For the last few weeks I’ve been writing about what the children are able to understand as they’ve researched the national holidays.  They have little background knowledge to help them understand the changes in history and what it all means.  I’ve been worried, but I shouldn’t have been.  As the children organize and write their information and plan their displays and games, their learning shows.  Yes, there are holes in their understanding and a few misconceptions, but they have learned a lot.  The children are excited and proud of their work.

This week we’ve been building an introductory hall display with photographs, labels and speech balloons – their interest in teaching others shows there as well.

We are looking forward to sharing on Monday, February 4 from 2:00 to 2:40 and again from 5:15 to 6:00.   Please be ready to tour all the displays, asking the children to share what they discovered in this research process, and then be ready to choose a game or two to play.

Grade 3 Physical Education News from Mrs. Yeaton

This month students in 3C and 3E are learning about the components of fitness (cardiorespiratory, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility).  We are playing games and wearing pedometers.   The number of a team’s total steps determines the winner of each activity, not the score.  They are loving it!

I am also introducing them to the Fitnessgram fitness tests that they will be taking part in when they are in middle school.  I want them to learn the correct way to perform the tasks so that they will do well on the tests in the future.  The Fitnessgram is really a way to show students where they are fitness wise. There is a Healthy Fitness Zone that they will try to attain.  If they don’t attain that then we conference and talk about what they can do to increase their cardiovascular fitness, for example.  I talk with them about walking/jogging/riding a bike/swimming to increase their fitness level in that component.  It’s important for students to become familiar with their fitness levels and what they can do to increase them or maintain them.

I have added a link for you to check out regarding kids and exercise. (The link is live on the blog.)

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/exercise.html

Bits and Pieces –

• Huzzah! To the 5^thgraders for their amazingly wonderful United We Stand performance. It was exciting to notice connections between the history we’ve been learning during our National Holiday Research project and what was shared in the musical.
• We finished The Sasquatch Escape and were able to sort through the images of the important event in each chapter to decide which scene was a favorite to illustrate.
• We spent time talking about friendship this week.  I hope you’ll have time to read some of the blog posts made by children who chose to think about this topic.  Being a friend is important.
• The read Let the Children March, a recently published picture book about an important moment in the Civil Movement.  This event took place in 1963 and really changed the world.
• Thank you to all the families who’ve been able to contribute to the 100^thday of School service learning project.  Grade 3 is collecting Dish Soap.  At this point in the project we’re nearing 50 bottles.  With only 32 students in the grade it is quite a commitment.  We’ve got four more days to meet our goal.  Thank you for your support in this amazing school-wide service project!

Doesn’t it seem as though we just returned to school from our holiday break?  Here we are nearing the end of January and approaching our 100^thday of school!  Holy-Moly – time flies by so quickly

Come to the Holiday Palooza

I trust that you received your invitation (save one due to an absence) and have been able to save the date and time for our holiday celebration.  The Holiday Palooza will be on Monday, February 4^th.  It will be open twice:  once during the school day between 2:00 and 2:40 and again in the evening between 5:15 and 6:00.  It is our hope that the children will be present at both to the “Palooza” times though we understand if that is not possible.  The children will set up their displays and games in our classroom and classroom hallway.

Right now the room is full of busy, creating excitement.  The children have the expectations for both the displays and their games.  It is interesting to watch how differently each student approaches his or her work. Some of the children gather all the pieces  – the paragraphs about the history of the holiday, why it is celebrated and how it’s observance has changed over time, fun facts, their timeline and illustrating images first before creating.  Others begin creating right away and get lost in the process.  As they pick up, they realize they’ve forgotten what their research questions were or to plan how the game will teach players about their holiday. Regardless of their approach, the class is excited about the event and the opportunity to share what they have learned.

As you tour the displays and play the games, please ask the children why they selected the holiday they did.  Some have specific reasons, but others do not.  Ask the children what they think is most important or interesting about their holiday.  Others would like to share what they had the most fun creating.  You can ask the children what was challenging and what they’d do differently if they had the chance.  We hope that everyone who comes to the Holiday Palooza has fun and learns something new about our national holidays.

Growth Mindset Project

We continued to sort behaviors and have had some important discussions about who is the most important one in a relationship – is it you or the person you are with.  I think we’ve decided, that though it isn’t always easy, if we think we should be more aware of the other person and helping him/her feel happy and supported. It seems as though everyone is happier that way. We’ve talked about name-calling and teasing.  One of the situations a student wrote was about having someone say, “You’re such a jerk.” We had a great discussion about that. We decided that before we called it bad or good we’d need to know what happened before it was said.  What happens if it was said to protect someone who was being picked on?  Is it different if it is an argument between siblings?  We’ve been talking more about positive self-talk too.  We’ve decided that we’ll see if we can find a way to remind ourselves to refer the “Developing a Growth Mindset” chart in our classroom more often.  We’ll try to look for the silver lining, because it’s always a little easier to succeed when we’re feeling positive.

Summarizing

This week we’ve been thinking more about what makes a complete summary. We know that a summary is a shortened version of what we’ve read and tells the basic ideas from the reading.  We’ve been following a five-step guideline for summarizing fiction.  Somebody(the main character(s)) wanted(what does the main character want or hope) but(what was the problem) so(how did the character try to solve the problem) then(what was the resolution of the story).  We gave this format a try on our blogs.  Each student chose a book with a growth mindset theme to read and review.  We made sure not to include the last “then” step because didn’t want to give the ending away.  We’ll practice some more, but it seems as though everyone is off to a great start with summarizing fiction.

Bits and Pieces –

• Thank you to Mrs. Zavez for helping us gather supplies for our Holiday Palooza hallway introduction.  What fun!
• We’ve begun to learn about mapping.  We know the five features that all maps should have: a title, symbols and label, a key or legend, a scale and a compass rose.  We’ll be learning more about this as we read and create maps.  We’re reading about the seven continents and are beginning to think more about what it means to contribute positively to a global community.
• We were super excited to find comments on our blogs from  tudents who live St. Thomas, Ontario Canada this week.  They are part of the Growth Mindset Project too and found our blog.  They are nine hours away and would love to come visit for the beaches and the lobster.
• We’ll be finishing The Great Sasquatch Escapenext week. We plan to create a map of Buttonville that pops out from the wall and shows where some of our favorite scenes from the book happen.
• We’ve continued to explore linear measurement.  We’re getting better at reading lengths that include fractions.
• We keep hoping to get to the family story project – it’s there in our minds, but we’ve not given it the attention it needs. …yet.  We keep running out of time.
• Today first grade launched their annual 100^thDay Food Drive for Gather (formally the Seacoast Food Pantry.) Be on the look out today for the notice about what 3^rdgrade is being asked to donate.  Today is our 91^stday of school so we only have two weeks to make sure we collect 100 of our item.

We’ve been enjoying The Great Sasquatch Escape and learning how to identify main idea.  We’ve begun to explore global geography and to think about how interesting people are in all parts of the world.  We’re working to put together our national holiday research into interesting and informative presentations and games.  We’re learning about fractions and measurement.  We’re organizing our family stories and learning how to use elaboration strategies to add interest to our writing.  There’s a lot going on in 3E.

The Holiday Palooza

This week we chose the name for the event (see above) where we would share what we’ve been learning about our country’s nine national holidays.  We chose the day, Monday, February 4 and the times 2:00 – 2:40 and 5:15 to 6:00.  We hope everyone in the class will be able to attend at both times to share his/her thinking and learning.  We understand that the later time may be challenging for some families – we hope you’ll be able to fit this event into your full schedules.  Please look in the front of your child’s folder for your personal invitation.

This project has been challenging.  Some of the holidays are rather obscure, while others require a lot of background knowledge to fully understand.  That is something 9-year olds don’t have unless they’ve listened to lots of family stories or are historical fiction readers.   I know I’ve written about this before, but I want you to be ready for what you read and see when you attend the palooza.  The facts tend to be sparse and some are misrepresented, but all has been written with their best effort to connect to the information and understand.

As you tour the children’s displays and play their games, please keep this in mind.  I think it will be exciting for them when they explore more US history in fifth grade.  Then they’ll really put all the pieces together.

Growth Mindset – Considering Others

We have continued to participate in the Growth Mindset Read-Aloud project.  We’ve shared some of our thinking about the books in the project and some others as well.  This challenge fits well with our Open Circlediscussions about behavior.  This week we talked about teasing.  We know that teasing hurtful, and yet it still happens.  We talked about why we tease and how it feels to be the teaser or the teased.  We also talked about what to do, when you realize an intended joke wasn’t received that way.  We’re trying to stand in our classmate’s or our sibling’s shoes and think before we speak. It’s not always easy, but I do think the class is becoming more aware. Logan came up with a great idea to help us think about consequences of our behavior choices.  Talk to your child about what we did and what we realized through the activity.

Measuring Length

We’ve been learning how to read measurement and to write mixed numbers in the proper way.  It seems as though most of the class has mastered that.  We are also learning by example how 2/8 equal ¼ and how 4/8 and 2/4 equal ½. It’s fun to learn about fractions and part of a whole.  We’re learning that sometimes a fraction is one thing cut into smaller equal parts and sometimes a fraction represents a smaller portion of a group. For example, if a class has 16 kids and we say ¼ of the class played on the swings at recess we can figure out that 4 kids were on the swings.  We’ve discovered when we work to answer questions like that we are also learning about division.

Bits and Pieces –

• We’ve participated in the second week of the Growth Mindset Read-Aloud Project.  We hope to get lots more comments on our blogs through these connections.
• We are working make responsible book choices so our reading abilities can grow.
• We’ve not found the time to work on our family stories more this week.  We will spend more time with them next week.
• We continued to share books that show lots of different people and places in the world.  It is interesting to see different houses, traditional clothing, foods and even different school experiences.  It is amazing to realize how diverse and wonderful the world is.

 

This week we decided to take the opportunity to join with some other classes across the United States and Canada in a project designed to connect us around the idea of Growth Mindset.  We’ve only just begun so there is little to report right now.  We’re excited about the possibilities.  For four weeks we’ll be reading picture books and answering a series of questions.  Our goal is to learn more about choosing behaviors and habits that lead to success.

This project connects to the work we did at the beginning of the school year about the Theory of Multiple Intelligence and goal setting.  It also connects to our current Open Circle unit about different types of behaviors.

Math and Measurement

Before the break we had been exploring time and solving problems to help us understand how to calculate elapsed time.  Over the past two weeks we’ve been exploring money – finding totals and comparing amounts. Both of these measurements have helped us practice multiplication of 5’s and 10’s.  We’re getting more efficient in knowing the amounts of halves and quarter hours and dollars as well.

Now we are moving on to linear measurement.  We’ll learn about inches, feet and yards.  We’ll also explore halves, quarters and eighths of an inch to add to our growing understanding of fractions.  I am looking forward to tracking the growth of amaryllis during this measurement unit.  I think the kids are going to be amazed.  If you have any projects that require measuring, please ask your child to help you out with them.  Measuring is always lots of fun, but authentic projects are best.

National Holiday Celebration

We are wrapping up our study of national holidays.  The children are finishing their research and are beginning writing, creating timelines, illustrations and a game to teach others about the national holiday they chose curious research. Through this project, we’ve learned a great deal about our country and its history.  It has often been challenging to understand how likelihood for fair treatment and equal opportunity has changed throughout our country’s history. There are some misperceptions.  You’ll see that as you view the tri-fold displays the children are putting together. These are honest mistakes.  They will open the door to further learning and increased understanding.  As with all things, once you begin thinking and wondering about a topic, the more you are able to notice the information that helps you understand.  We have a curious class.  They are interested in history and in the ways of people.

We’re excited to plan our museum event and to name it.  Please be on the lookout for an invitation to this event next week so you can be sure to save the date and time. The museum will be open in the afternoon while school is in session and again in the evening so parents can come after school.  We realize children have after school commitments and may not be able to attend – but we are hopeful that as many children as possible will be able to present their research and understanding both times that the museum is open.  This is an important part of Speaking and Listening and Communicating Learning.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

This week we’ve begun The Great Sasquatch Escape– the first book in the Imaginary Veterinary series.  We’ve also begun the daily practice of keeping track of the important events from each chapter.  We are using what we’ve learned about Narrative Story Arcs in writing to discover what part of this read-aloud story we are in:  Beginning (introductions of setting characters and the inciting event), Rising Action, Middle, Climax, Resolving Action, or End (the problems is solved and we learn how the characters have changed).  During read aloud the children are creating quick sketches of important events and/or listing things they feel are important to remember.

At this point in the story it is relatively easy to recognize what is important.  There have only been a few extra details, but they will grow and we will learn more about the choices authors make by examining them.

Elaboration Strategies and Writing

Last week we began learning about four different types of elaboration strategies.  Over the course of the last two weeks we’ve had the opportunity to practice developing description, adding action, inventing realistic dialogue and adding emotion by including inner (unspoken) thoughts and feelings.  Thanks to Melanie Meehan and the lessons she shared on her blog, we were able to learn how to add more interest and vitality to our writing.  More and more of the children are trying to include at least two elaboration strategies on every page of their writing this week.  Some of them have even tried to use all four strategies on every page.  They are beginning to realize that using these strategies communicates more of what they’ve thought and imagined with their readers.  Writing is a dynamic process.  I am proud of the effort many these 3^rdgrade writers are making to intentionally improve the quality of their writing.

 

 

Bits and Pieces –

• Each week the children work to add to their blogs.  Some of them finish a post in one week – others do not, as is expected.  Thank you for your continued attention to their blogs and the tine you take to leave comments.  It is greatly appreciated.  Jack has been blogging from Colorado and we’re excited to look for his posts every week too.
• Most of the class began their plan for the “family story” they will write based on their interview.  This will be a first opportunity to apply their independent understanding the elaboration strategies.
• We completed our season pros and cons exploration. This exploration has been designed to give the children ideas for their first persuasive writing piece.
• We will not have our challenge with Mr. Guidi next week on January 16^th.  He is attending a professional workshop.
• Cursive begins next week!

 

Happy New Year! 

I hope you each had a wonderful break.  Judging from the bits and pieces I’ve heard from the children, it seems as though you did. Thank you for your time and attention with the family stories project.  We appreciate the support you offered the children in conducting their interviews and gathering information that will soon be turned into stories. We will begin that writing process on Tuesday – hopefully that will be enough time for everyone to collect their information.

Elaboration Strategies in Writing

We’ve continued to explore the elements within a narrative story arc.  This week we’ve learned different ways for making our writing even more interesting and detailed.  We’re exploring four elaboration strategies:  description (We’re trying to use what we’ve learned previously about adjectives, adverbs and the power of 3.), action, dialogue and inner thought.

We know that all pieces of writing have a beginning, middle and end.  We are trying to add enough detail to each part so readers are able to create a mental movie of the sights, sounds and actions.  It’s tricky!  This week it seems as though more of the students are realizing that intentional thought and attention to using these strategies will elevate their pieces of writing from “meh” to  “okay” to “interesting” to “WOW! Let’s hear that again.”

Open Circle – How to Sort Problems

This Open Circle unit helps us think about different types of social problems.  It helps us practice positive ways of dealing with them.  Over then next few weeks, we’ll be defining annoying, helpful, disruptive and respectful behaviors.  We’ll continue conversations about self-management and create strategies to help us behave responsibly and respectfully more than we do now by thinking more of the consequences of our actions.  Ella introduced us to the “butterfly effect” at the beginning of the year.  It’s time to consider this idea again to see how it can help us make different behavior choices to support growth and learning.

Rounding, Estimation and Measurement

Just before the break we explored the idea of estimation and how the skill develops.  We learned about rounding to the nearest 10 and the nearest 100. Rounding is a type of estimation and we thought about how this concept could help us every day.  We might be able to reduce waste. We might use time more effectively.

We’ve learned about time. Now we are tackling money.  Both of these types of measurement help us practice the 5’s and 10’s table.  Next we’ll be tackling linear measurement to learn our 12’s table and also learn more about halves, quarters and eighths.

Bits and Pieces –

• Mr. Guidi’s challenge this week helped us practice cooperation and develop our communication skills.
• We revisited our classroom goals and our description of what a cooperative classroom looks, feels and sounds like.  We still think they are important.  Most of the children have been actively working to help our class keep the behaviors that help us learn and reduce the behaviors that disrupt learning.
• We finished The True Gift– our 6^thchapter read aloud of the school year.  Ask your child about it.  What does s/he think a true gift is?
• Many of the children created blog posts that highlighted either a favorite memory from 2018 or set goals for things to accomplish in 2019.  We read Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution to discover what “resolution” means.  We are working on classroom resolutions that will help us become a stronger class and more helpful to others in our school.

Thank you so much for finding the time to meet with me to discuss your child’s progress and plan our goals for the upcoming term.  I truly appreciate your time and all the things you are doing at home to support and promote learning.  We have an eager and hardworking class – much of the time.  😀

This week we’ve done our usual reading, writing, problem solving and researching.   We spent time blogging with a winter theme.  We also had a challenge with Mr. Guidi, Open Circle with Ms. Vas and we planned, designed and created a decoration for our door. We are excited to be introducing Bamboo to the school.

Learning More About Place Value with Rounding

This week began a study of estimation.  We hope to answer these questions: What is an estimate?  Why do people estimate? When could we use estimation?  Can we find examples where estimation is used outside of school?

As we make estimates, we will be learning more about place value and rounding up and down to the nearest ten and the nearest hundred.  We’ve learned that to round you look at the digit to the right of the amount you are rounding and then use the rule – 5 and above round up, 4 and below round down.  We’ll be developing this understanding over the next few weeks.

SEL  – Strengthening Relationships

In Open Circle we have been learning ways to strengthen relationships.  We’ve been practicing giving and receiving compliments.  We’ve been learning how to speak up for things we believe in or feel strongly about.  We’ve been finding ways to share our opinions and to accept differences of opinion.  Through role-playing activities we’ve learned the difference between advocating and telling – safety is a big part of our decision making process.  We’ve practiced ways of being a supportive friend by encouraging and looking for the good in each situation and person.  We’ve spent time talking about what a cooperative classroom looks like, sounds like and feels like.

Our challenge with Mr. Guidi was one way for us to show we could apply what we’ve been learning in Open Circle.  Working together to make our gecko door decoration was another opportunity we had to show we could discuss and plan, compromise and collaborate.  We can’t wait to share it with you when we are finished.

Family Story Project – Narrative Writing

This week the children selected the questions they would like to ask in their interview with a family member or family friend.  They tried to create open questions that will lead to stories – they’ll have to see.

We went over the assignment, created copies of the questions and hope to organize all this work in a small notebook.  This information went home in your child’s communication folder on Thursday (a couple children still need to finish this.)  Please help your child, while also following his/her lead.  This is their project.  I hope we can help them step up and take responsibility for all the parts they can do on their own.  Thank you so much for you interest and support.  You may find you need to help your child understand that they don’t have to ask all of the questions on their list – one is fine if it leads to a story. It is also fine if your child gathers a collection of short stories to put together in a collection of memories.

The children will need help with the audio recording.  This is a “just-in-case” measure so the children can re-hear parts or can use exact wording if they choose to.  One of the elaboration strategies we will be learning is the use of dialogue – so the audio might be handy.  I don’t think we’ll need them in the classroom.  I’ll let you know if we do.  The plan is that the children will come back with their interview information when we return in 2019.  Thank you for your help and support with this project.

Bits and Pieces –

• I’ve not received signed slips from every family, so I am hoping you are all aware of our super important Secret Friend Project.  If you’ve not heard anything about this project yet, please email or call me this weekend.  It would be terribly sad if a classmate was left out or receive a gift that was obviously last minute!
• The wrapped gift should be brought to school between Monday, December 17 and Wednesday, December 19. Our Secret Friend Celebration will be on Thursday, December 21.  We’ll eat together in our classroom.  I’ll bring a special dessert for us to share.
• We’re nearly finished reading The Wild Robot Escapes. Roz and Brightbill are in a city and that’s not a great way for our robot to stay anonymous. Talk your child about what’s happening in the story and what they think might happen to Roz as she tries to get out of the city and back to her island.
• We learned more about the spelling rules used when writing comparative and superlative adjectives. To do that we spent more time with long and short vowel sounds.  We’ve learned a bit about syllables too.  We’ll continue this as we learn more about adding suffixes to words.
• Completed interviews and notes are due January 2.We’re hoping the interviews can be completed during the break so we can begin writing in the New Year.
• Our next challenge with Mr. Guidi is on January 2.  (If you’re looking for an updated challenge list, you can find it on the October 26 post on the blog.)

Phew!  What a week – snow, drizzle, warm, cold, wind. Thanksgiving exhaustion coupled with arriving elves excitement has made for a very rambunctious week.  Despite all this, we have begun our national holiday research, created interesting and diverse blog posts, and developed a long list of possible interview questions as we move into the next phase of our family story project.

I hope you noticed the Parent Teacher conference sign-up sheet that was sent home yesterday.  Please let me know if you need to meet at a time different from those offered.  I will be glad to schedule a different time with you.

Crafting Questions that Will Lead to Quality Stories

This week we learned about open and closed questions.  We want to plan interview questions that will inspire storytelling, not single word or sentence answers. We explored the difference between the answers we might expect if we asked, “Do you like pie?” versus asking “What was your favorite family meal when you were growing up?  Can you tell me that story?”

We spent parts of two days thinking about the stories we’d like to collect.  Would they be about things we already knew of, or would we hope to discover something surprising and new?  We created a first round of questions and then thought about them.  We found ways we might tweak our original questions so they could be more open ended to encourage storytelling.

In addition to thinking about how our questions could be answered, we tried to answer them ourselves by doing a quick write to answer one or two of the questions.  Next we will learn about interview protocols so that the children will be ready to conduct their interview sometime in December. Thanks for your help and support with this.

Using a Post-It Note Taking Strategy

Each of the children has chosen a national holiday to research.  There isn’t much information about many of the holidays, so children have to do a lot of inferential thinking to come up with the answers to many of their questions.

In addition to this, we are working to make sure we write our own original thought and understanding in this informational writing project.  The children are reading a page, putting the books aside and writing a post-it about what they think the author was trying to teach them.  It means the research process is slower, but because the children are working in teams they are able to help each other talk through what they understand.

Meeting the Challenge with Cooperation and Communication

This week we met with Mr. Guidi for a challenge.  We were given a rope and asked to make different shapes with it.  We had to make a circle, then a square and a triangle. Our goal was to work together to make the shape – if possible we’d work together as a team to make the shapes while we could see what was happening and then try the challenge over blindfolded to see how well we could cooperate and communicate.

We were able to work through the first step of the challenge, but struggles as a class with focus and behavior so we weren’t able to get to the second part of the challenge. Over the course of the school year we’ll see how our skills at self-control and self-management develop in ways that help our class become more successful so we are able to meet the challenges placed before us.

Bits and Pieces –

• We had a great trip to Strawbery Banke last week.  We learned about how the traditions of Thanksgiving have changed.  We learned about traditions in the 1630’s and later in the 1770’s and still later in the 1820’s.  It was interesting and fun.  Strawbery Banke gave us family passes so you can go as a family to enjoy another of their programs.  Ask your child what he or she thought was most fun – making the corn husk doll, preparing food as they might have done around the hearth, making the charity baskets to share with the needy, learning about harvest festivals from around the world that have influenced our holiday tradition or creating matzo meal for Mrs. Shapiro.
• Our nonfiction Thanksgiving themed book clubs have continued to meet.  I think we are all agreed; living at the time of the Pilgrims would have been hard.  Talk to your child about what he or she learned about this national holiday from this reading.
• We are glad to be reading The Wild Robot Escapes. Roz and the Shareef family she works for just survived a tornado.  We are wondering if Roz will ever see Brightbill again – we think she will and we are wondering how the children will help her escape.  Is she going to be able to leave the family she cares about?
• Thank you for your continued support in helping the children to understand how to calculate elapsed time. I am impressed with how well the children read the analogue clocks.  We’ll keep working through different strategies to record how the time passed.
• During some of our Word Study work we’ve been learning about suffixes.  This week we’ve been working with the rules for how to change a singular noun to a plural.  See if your child can tell you the four different rules we’ve learned about.

We’ve spent our week focused on portfolio preparations, beginning an inquiry into national holidays, learning more about elapsed time and stopping for a moment to count our blessings.  We’ve learned a bit about the history of Thanksgiving and how it came to be celebrated. It’s kind of cool to know that New Hampshire’s own, Sarah Josepha Hale was instrumental in creating American’s special holiday.  I am hopeful that by the time you read this note, each child will have completed his or her blog sharing a thankfulor gratefulacrostic.  Their thoughts are beautiful.  Enjoy them.

Student Goal Setting and Portfolio Shares

Thank you for spending time with your son or daughter as they shared what they are learning, their classroom and their goals for this year.  They are growing their abilities to reflect on their learning processes. Since we began this process, they can already see they have changed.  They realized how they grown as a mathematician by seeing problems from early October.  It is motivating to find proof of learning and to feel the rewards of focus and effort. The more actively the children participate in their own learning, the more they will grow.

It is exciting to see their thoughtfulness and their enthusiasm for sharing what they do each day. They deserve to be proud of their efforts and abilities to present their thinking and learning at this point in the year. I appreciate knowing what they are thinking.  They always surprise me.  Their ideas and approach to each task is totally unique.  They teach me something new every day.

Book Clubs – Keeping Track Thinking While Reading

Last week the children participated in book clubs. Our first book club choices were centered on the idea that everyone can write what they know and feel in their hearts.  All of these first choices were picture books and the clubs were designed so that everyone could meet the expectations of 1) completing the book, 2) writing a summary, 3) selecting a favorite part to speak to and 4) to make an inference about the author’s message.  All of the children met these expectations and had some great discussions about their books and reading.

Our second book clubs selections all have something to do with Thanksgiving.  They are nonfiction selections and have a wide range of length and complexity.  We’ll be learning more about note-taking and questioning during these book club meetings. We’ll use what we learn during these meetings to guide us into our second inquiry project about national holidays.

Bits and Pieces –

• We finished The Wild Roboton Wednesday.  There was a resounding “YES” when I asked if we wanted to read The Wild Robot Escapes next. Roz is an amazing robot.  We loved the book so much we’ve decided to build some robots of our own.  It will be fun to see the personalities of our robots emerge.
• Just a reminder – we’ve got a field trip on Monday to Strawbery Banke.  We’ll be there for the morning and will be returning to school around 1:00.  The children will need to bring their lunch – or order lunch from school as yesterday’s notice outlined.  We’ll be eating lunch on the bus while we return from the program.  Please be aware of the peanut and tree nut allergies in the grade.  Thank you.
• We’ve continued to learn more about simple and compound sentences.  We are learning more about the choices we make can add to interest to our writing.

 

Happy Veterans Day! We’re getting ready to develop our weather forecasts as we end of our weather unit of study.  This week we’ve begun exploring our nation’s history by learning some about our nine national holidays.  We’ve continued to discuss and plan for how we can each contribute to the creation of a successful learning community.  We’ve been learning about sentences and parts of speech – nouns, verbs and adjectives. And finally, we’ve been exploring time. We’re learning about elapsed time and how to use what we know about fives and multiplication to connect with telling time.  We’re always trying to get the most out of our time.

Building A Strong Classroom Community – S.E.L.

We’ve been struggling with behavior for the past two weeks.  Both of these weeks have been full of unusual schedules and events. Because of this, I waited to see if we could pull it together.  Some have, but others have not.  As a class, we mean well, but behavior choices have left much to be desired. This, along with little attention to personal best and/or thoughtful effort, is prompting me to ask you to have a chat with your child about what they might do to support their own learning. We’ve been reading about teamwork and cooperation.  We’ve had lots of examples and now we need to make some important choices. If you have a chance, talk to your child about what s/he could do put forth best effort?  Ask how can s/he contribute to creating a classroom community allowing everyone to succeed? These conversations will help us continue them in our classroom, so we can be sure that learning is what we are about at school.

In Open Circle we are exploring the importance in being encouraging and giving compliments. We’re learning more about cooperation and how to contribute to our classroom team.  Competition has its place, but it’s not often part of our classroom learning community.  We are working toward a cooperative classroom.  Here’s how we imagine it will look and sound when we’ve been successful. We decided that a cooperative classroom looks calm, relaxed, focused and helpful. We can see that people are making eye contact and listening.  It looks like everyone is working to meet the classroom goals and everyone is doing what is expected with what the task and materials are at the moment.  We also decided a cooperative classroom sounds quiet so each person can hear what he or she needs to hear.  There would be the sound of purposeful talk that is on topic and respectful in our cooperative classroom.  We’d hear compliments and encouragement.

Our outdoor challenge this week was about teamwork too.  The class was divided into groups and sent to three different stations.  We were told we had to listen carefully to all the directions, take turns and allow everyone to participate.  Our goal was to move all the objects from one hoop into another hoop. With those directions, the class began. Ask your child what he or she discovered working through this challenge.  Perhaps Open Circle and the challenge can help your child in coming up with ideas of how our classroom can be a place where everyone can succeed in the manner that makes him or her proud.

Exploring Adjectives and the Power of 3

We’ve been exploring different types of sentences.  We’ve learned about simple, and compound sentences.  We know each sentence has a noun that is its subject. We know that the subject of the sentence has to do something, and then we are hoping to elaborate on the basic sentence structure by adding adjectives to paint a picture of our meaning with our word choice.

We’ve discovered that it is a bit harder than it seems.  We’ve also discovered that writing we admire has all different types and lengths of sentences.  We’re trying to think about all our sentence choices when we are writing ourselves. Check with your child to see if she or he trying to fill it with adjectives and description.  Some of them are, and some of them are not yet ready. You’ll be able to see some examples of readiness in this week’s set of papers.

Bits and Pieces

• We’re nearing the end of The Wild Robot.This book has taught us about building relationships.  In the book, having friends Roz can help and that she can help in return is important. It is important in our classroom too. We are all learning how to be supportive community members.
• If you’ve not had a chance to read and comment on your child’s informational weather writing on his or her blog, please do.  This is their first published piece.  We’ll be publishing them as books to be placed in the classroom’s weather library in addition to posting them on the blogs.
• We’re exploring national holidays.  We’ve spent some time reading about Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Independence Day. We’ve read poems and shared our ideas as to why we have set these days aside.  It’s exciting to know that Thanksgiving became a national holiday through the efforts of a woman from New Hampshire.
• Student-Led Goal setting conferences will be on Thursday, November 15 or Friday, November 16.
• Our field trip to Strawbery Banke is on Monday, November 19.