What We Learned This Week
Word Study:
We will be studying plurals this week (y to i, regular and irregular forms) this week. All of this week’s words are plurals and end in one of two endings, -ies and other:
puppies, babies, teeth, armies, feet, cities, pennies, people, mice, children, berries, men
I will not be sending a paper copy of our spelling words home. Please retain this email for your student’s spelling words.
We are also continuing to study parts of speech and analogies. In conjunction with analogies I introduced memory strategies that can be applied to learning dates and events, cities and capitals, the periodic table (in the future), etc. by using mnemonic devices.
I introduced our “hills” pattern cursive letters, e.g., lowercase n and m this week.
Reading Workshop:
March is Women’s History month and we are building on our Famous African Americans research as we study famous women. We moved from single page encyclopedic sources to multiple books this time. Still focusing on noteworthy facts, students write a single fact on an index card and provide a modified citation on the back, including author, title and page number. Students studying the same subject then exchanged facts in small groups adding to their facts and checking for accuracy. We will sort and organize facts next week.
We are continuing our new read aloud, The Girl Who Could Fly, by Victoria Forester, a favorite at the last PTO-Scholastic book sale.
Writing Workshop:
We did one quick write on a time we were brave this week for a check on convention. We then began our poetry study based on a collaboration I had last year with Ohio’s 2009 poet of the year, Terry Hermsen, professor of poetry, composition, and literature in the Department of English at Otterbein College. Our focus is on creating an emotional connection to nature and objects around us and sharing them with highly visual non-literal descriptions. We also introduced haiku as a way for students to begin to practice word choice and parsimony in their poetry. This is a favorite unit of mine and is supported by our yearlong weekly poet responsibility. It is interesting to observe that most students choose silly poems, e.g. Shel Silverstein, until we introduce this unit. They then begin to choose to share much more symbolic and metaphorical poems.
Math:
We are nearly finished with fractions, but I will likely add this assessment to the upcoming end of the grading period assessments, rather than conducting a single unit assessment, to give students more time for understanding and a review after break. We have discussed fractions in terms of equal groups/parts of a whole, equivalent fractions for one whole, numerator, denominator, counting by fractions in a sequence, equivalent fractions, mixed number fractions, ratios (1/2 and multiples of denominator), fractions of a set, and determining the size of a set given a fraction. Understanding fractions has been shown in multiple studies to be one of the key differentiating mathematical concepts between math students. We have used manipulatives a great deal during this unit.
Science:
We began our force and motion study and developed a list of important concepts and vocabulary: force (a push or pull), motion (a change in direction), Newton’s first two laws (an object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by another force, an object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by another force), gravity, magnetism, pressure, friction, mass, momentum and inertia. We also did a number of experiments to illustrate these different topics: Newton’s cradle (transfer of energy), croquet (transfer of energy), dropping a large kickball with a super ball on top of it (gravity – falling at the same rates), transfer of energy), film canister rockets (pressure as a force), quarter-dime slide (mass and inertia), eggsperiment (spinning unlabeled hardboiled and raw eggs to determine which are cooked using Newton’s laws), tops (momentum), and oil on water spin (Newton’s laws).
Social Studies:
We studied UA's unique form of government with a City Manager serving at the pleasure of the City Council's elected officials, as opposed to an elected mayor. We attempted to balance a hypothetical city budget crisis (UA is actually very fiscally responsible) with different council members arguing for their departments. Each group also had concerned citizens who argued for and against different solutions, including raising taxes. Each of our three mock councils came up with a different suggestion for reducing the deficit and balancing the budget:
- Close one school and increase class sizes throughout the district. It was also proposed that the closed school could be used as a community center.
- Close our parks, pools and libraries as they are wants rather than needs (I shared later that our pools are actually a large revenue generator for UA).
- Reduce our public safety division and rely on a volunteer fire department as is common in many other parts of the country.
The students got to participate in a mock government that mirrors our local system and process as well as realize just how difficult it can be to come up with a political solution that works for everyone.
Important Dates and Reminders
Good luck to our many students participating in this weekend's Destination Imagination contest! I can’t wait to learn how you did and what you thought of the experience. Congratulations on taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity.
Your student should have brought an orange survey home. I usually do this activity later in the year, but Mrs. Adams is conducting an educator feedback survey as part of her masters’ program now and I decided to send mine out at the same time for grade level consistency. I greatly appreciate your feedback. I always learn from your insights and improve my teaching through this process. Please return these by tomorrow, Monday, March 14th. Thank you!
Daylight savings began this morning. Don’t forget to set those clocks forward an hour. This will impact some students more than others.
I will be out this Thursday for peer observation and continuing education. As a mentor to first year teachers I look forward to the opportunity to support new teacher’s development as well as my own. I have shared this with the class.
Please look through the lost and found before spring break. All items left after Thursday, March 17th, will be donated.
Our class is collecting aluminum drink tabs for Ronald McDonald House. Please send them throughout the remainder of the year. Thank you.
Please send your student to school with their ukulele on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
March 18 through 25 – No School, Spring Break
March 30 - Spring Picture Day
April - Windermere student art on display at Upper Arlington Board of Education
April 1 - End of third grading period
April 4 - No school for students, educator grading day
April 12 – Progress reports sent home
April 12 through 15 - Terra Nova and Test of Cognitive Skills (standardized enrichment assessment)
April 16 – Invention Convention at UA High School (www.just-think-inc.com)
April 18 – ***Date change*** 3rd Grade Musical Performance, “It’s Easy Being Green,” at 7pm
April 18 through 24 – NO TV week
April 22 – No school, Good Friday
April 25 – Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment retakes for students who did not pass in fall only
April 26 – Ohio Mathematics Achievement Assessment (scores back late spring)
April 29 – PTO Kidfest from 5pm-8pm
