Newsletter for October 31, 2011

A brief post...

Word Study: This week's spelling words are: knew, knife, knotted, wrinkle, wrist, writing, knitted, knock, unknown, wren, knee, and wreck. Each word has either the sound /r/, spelled wr, or the sound /n/, spelled kn. In each pair (wr and kn) the first consonant is silent and the second consonant is pronounced. Additional words you may choose to work with (see earlier post regarding at home spelling activities) include: knot, knuckle, wrong, wrap, know, wrapping, write, kneel, knight, knob, jackknife, written, wriggle, writer, wring, penknife, knapsack, knob, wreath, wrench, wristwatch, wrestle, and knuckle. Optional letter formation and spelling practice sheets follow.

 We've been working hard on fluency, utilizing Shel Silverstein poems. Here are a few examples.

Math: We are beginning our third unit in math and will focus on linear measure. Please see the Everyday Math Family Letter below.  

Progress reports will be sent home (mailed for dual households) on Friday. Your conference date and time will appear on your student's progress report. I will also post the schedule on our door. Please note: when it is your conference time, please knock and enter.

Thank you to all of our wonderful room parents for a successful Halloween party. I hope everyone had a safe "howliday."

Please begin collecting items for the Ohio Wildlife Center's visit in February (see earlier post).

Newsletter for October 23, 2011

What We Learned This Week

Word Study: There are no new spelling words or patterns this week. I will be assessing students on previously studied words and patterns for the end of the grading period.

Reading: We continued to work on substitutions. I also assessed students comprehension for NF texts. We will begin learning strategies for asking good questions and making evidence supported predictions that support comprehension.

Writing: We reviewed the writing process using our kinesthetic practice (see below: planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing).

 Planning (We point to our brain.)

 Drafting (We write on our hand.)

  Revising (We mimic erasing as we think of descriptive vocabulary and sentence variation.)

Editing (We look closely at indenting, capitals, and punctuation.)

Publishing (We mimic typing or writing neatly.)

We also learned the parts of a friendly letter (see below: heading, greeting, opening, body, closing, signature).

Heading (Address and date)

Greeting ("Dear Pen Pal,")

Opening (We state the purpose of our letter.)

Body (The most important part of our letter, our paragraphs)

Closing (We "close" our letter with instructions, e.g., "Write back soon.")

Signature (We stamp our foot.)

Math: We reviewed for our end of the grading period assessment which covers:

- Numeracy (place value, estimation, equivalent names).
- Computation (multi-digit addition and subtraction).
- Patterns, functions, and algebra (tables, rules, unknowns).
- Data analysis (interpreting data and graphing).
- Measurement (time, money).
- Mathematical processes (problem solving, reasoning, communication).
- Basic fact fluency.

We are continuing to explore STMath. I have been in communication with STMath regarding your challenges logging in from home. Please let me know if you are still having difficulty. This voluntary program offers great benefits in math.

Science: We took a virtual field trip in science this past week in preparation for our upcoming field trip. We looked at erosion, Ohio's rock story, sedimentary rocks and concretions. We also looked at a map of Highbanks Metropark. 

Here is an image of our bean plant. I will be sharing this with the class next week. You can see it has gone to great lengths to grow around the maze, towards the top where we have a small hole for light. The bean plant is very pale, but it is remarkable in it's ability to snake through the box towards a light source.  

Our salamander, Hobbes, has graduated to medium sized crickets and has grown a full 4 cm since school started.

There will not be a newsletter next week as I will be assessing throughout the week.

Important Dates and Reminders

Students began learning C7 and F chords and the song "Skip to My Lou." We will have Ukulele Orchestra every B and D day from 11:05 until 11:25. Please help your student to remember their ukuleles on these days.

October 24th: No school for students - Teacher in service day.

October 26th: Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park.
I have the following six chaperons:
- Mrs. Mitchell
- Mr. Harpster
- Mrs. Johnson
- Mrs. Hargraves
- Mr. Westhoven
- Mrs. Brown.
Please bring a camera if you have one. Thank you in advance for your help!
Please remember sack lunches, layers and good walking shoes that can get wet.

We currently have a high probability for heavy rain. If the 3rd grade team decides to cancel the field trip due to weather, I will email you by 8:15am.

October 28th: End of first grading period. I will send reminders of your conference time with your student's progress report.

October 28th: Halloween Party. See separate post.

October 31st: No school - Teacher grading day.

October 31st: Trick or Treat Night in Upper Arlington.

November 4th: Progress reports sent home.

November 6th: Daylight Savings ends.

November 7th - 11th: Conferences. I will put your student's date and time on their progress report.

November 8th: Election Day - Early dismissal at 11:05. No lunch on this date.

November 23rd - 25th: No School - Thanksgiving holiday.

Newsletter for October 14, 2011

What We Learned This Week

Word Study: Next week's words are grain, railroad, aim, chain, sneak, sailboat, afraid, teacher, reading, faith, laid, eastern. Our patterns are ai, ea, and oa words. Words with oa also have ai and can be sorted into both groups. In these words, two vowels are together. The first vowel sound is heard as a long vowel sound and the second vowel is silent. This builds on long vowel sound words with silent e in that these are all words with two vowels.
Additional words with these patterns for at home spelling activities include: beach, dream, claim, rain, clean, wait, aid, gain, speaker, raisin, creature, snail, paint, bead, cheat, each, available, disease, knead, straight, praise, wait, leash, and plea.

Optional practice pages are below for spelling and letter formation.

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We also reviewed common nouns, proper nouns, adjectives, idioms and analogies.

Reading: I am introducing future literature circle jobs with the whole class and modeling them. Our first job was "passage picker." Passage pickers choose a paragraph, passage, or selection and write the reason why they chose it (descriptive, surprising, scary, Ah-hah moment (figured something out), prediction, confusion, connections (text to self, text to text, text to world), etc.) on a Post-It note. I am using our read aloud, Secret of Zoom, to model and am meeting with students to hear their passages and why they chose them. We are also studying context clues to improve our understanding.

Writing: We added conclusions to our writing this week, using one of three strategies:
- Ask a question (not to be overused)
- Learn/Observed
- Feelings or emotions
I conducted a modified Developmental Writing Assessment (DWA) to identify student needs this week. I am looking at convention (indenting, capitals, ending punctuation), topic sentence that introduces the paragraph, sufficient supporting details (who, what, where, when, why), and conclusion. I've asked students to track their topic, supporting details and conclusion at the top of their paper with T, D, and C. We also reviewed the correct orientation of paper when writing. We will write our first pen pal letter next week. I'm very pleased with student progress and invited them to compare today's DWA paragraph with their first "paragraph" from the first day of school. I find this is very inspiring to even the best writers to see how far they have come.

Math: In math we continued our study of partial sums, the traditional algorithms for multi-digit addition and subtraction (without borrowing, borrowing, and borrowing across zeros). We used base ten blocks to model each of these operations and algorithms. We also reviewed time, fact fluency strategies (sums to ten and make ten), how to use an addition/subtraction chart. Some of you had difficulty with STMath (Jiji appeared with a thought bubble, a gray cone and question mark). I think I've fixed that. Please check again from home. Email me if your student can't get into STMath from home and I'll see if I can help.
Science: We continued our Earth Science study this week. We modeled how caves form stalagmites via leaching and evaporation. Crystal gardens will be sent home by the end of the month.
Social Studies: During our daily geography lesson, we were sequencing city, state, country and continent. I discovered that most students do not know their home address and/or phone number. Please review with them.

Important Dates and Reminders

We had our first Ukulele Orchestra practice this week and it was great. Students began strumming and learned their first chord, C. There are many songs they can play in 4/4 time with this one chord: Frere Jacques (Brother John), Twinkle Twinkle, Row Your Boat, Kookaburra. There are also songs you will be familiar with possibly: Bob Dylan's Ballad of Hollis Brown, Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue, Harry Nillson's Coconut and Aretha Franklin's Chain of Fools. We will have Ukulele Orchestra every B and D day from 11:05 until 11:25. Please help your student to remember their ukuleles on these days.

October 20th: School Picture Retakes. I do not have any information on student photos. Please see the envelope that came home regarding retakes or photo packages.

October 24th: No school for students - Teacher in service day.

October 26th: Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park. Please let me know if you are able to chaperon. See separate post. I have the following chaperons. Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Hargraves, Mr. Westhoven and Mrs. Brown. Please let me know if I have left you off the list. It wasn't intentional:)

October 28th: End of first grading period. I will send reminders of your conference time with your student's progress report.

October 28th: Halloween Party. See separate post.

October 31st: No school - Teacher grading day.

October 31st: Trick or Treat Night in Upper Arlington.

November 4th: Progress reports sent home.

November 7th - 11th: Conferences. I will put your student's date and time on their progress report.

November 8th: Election Day - Early dismissal at 11:05. No lunch on this date.

November 23rd - 25th: No School - Thanksgiving holiday.

Newsletter for October 7, 2011

What We Learned This Week

Word Study: Next week's spelling words are player, Thursday, story, anybody, ready, family, snowy, eyebrow, reply, away, myself, and firefly. Additional words you may want to use when sorting and doing other spelling activities include: gray, today, cry, they, why, try, fly, play, cranky, spray, obey, sway, shy, stray, lay, worry, survey, birthday, horsefly, playground, rainy, everybody, heavy, and money. Our patterns are groups of words where y represents long a, long e, and long i sounds.

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Reading: The fall Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment is complete. I will probably not receive feedback until after Thanksgiving. While this is an important and thorough assessment, it is only one of many tools teachers use. Students who do not pass will retake the test in the spring.

Writing: We finished our first friendly letter and began short writings that incorporate our idioms from word study. Students are doing a fine job and seem to enjoy this.

Math: We continued to review addition strategies: zero more, one more, doubles, near doubles, sums to ten, and make ten, which left only two facts without a specific strategy. I present problems and have students record their strategy and I also present a strategy (or multiple strategies) and ask for an example number story (e.g., a near double that is is also two more is 2 + 3 = 5). We continued to do higher decade facts with an emphasis on basic facts (e.g., If I know 7 + 8 = 15 then that helps me to know 70 + 80 = 150). We also built on higher decade facts with extended facts (e.g., if I know 3 + 5 = 8 then that helps me know 13 + 25 = 38). Both require focus on place and value. We reviewed equivalent names as that was a consistent area of difficulty on our unit math assessment. I introduced rounding and estimation, part-part-total problems and partial sums. Here is a great link to understanding partial sums. (Click on link for animation of partial sums.)
http://media.everydaymathonline.com/em/student/algorithms_in_everyday_mathematics/3/addition/partial_sums_addition/online_resources/2-Digit_plus_2-Digit/M1_C02_P030_F1.swf

I do this a bit differently than Everyday math because I start with the ones and then move on to the tens place. I find this makes it easier to move on to the traditional algorithm. Many students are excited to solve multi-digit sums problems using the traditional algorithm (the way most adults solve addition problems on paper), but partial sums allows us to demonstrate understanding of place, value, higher decade facts, and we check our work with rounding and estimating. Partial sums is much more about strategy and understanding than just a right answer.

Please see the Unit 2 Everyday Math Family Letter below. This will give you a good idea of the key vocabulary, concepts and strategies we will cover over the next few weeks.

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We also started STMath. Please see earlier post for more information.

Science: We continued our rocks and soil earth science unit, focusing on erosion. We looked at gravel closely and found different size rocks and even sand as the rocks rubbed against each other. We next looked at sand and found small rocks in the sand that were in the process of being broken down. Finally we looked at dry clay. Students noticed that the clay's smaller pieces still appear as "rocks" under a magnifying glass, but there smaller size makes them "softer." It also allows water molecules to bind them together more easily, whereas sand grains are too big and break apart water molecules, which is why we sculpt with clay and not sand. We added all three rocks to a clear plexi container with water and a lid. We looked at the sand particles that were suspended in the water when we added the gravel. After adding all the rock and soil types, we shook it up and are waiting to observe what we find when the particles all settle. We predicted that larger and heavier particles will fall out first and make layers. I bet we were right:)

Important Dates and Reminders

My sincere thanks for all of the hard work PTO put into planning, organizing and executing a very successful Fall Family Night (my family enjoyed it immensely). Thank you for your time, energy and support! You help to make Windermere what it is.

We will begin Ukulele Orchestra on Thursday, October 13th. We will have Ukulele Orchestra every B and D day from 11:05 until 11:25. Please help your student to remember their ukuleles on these days. If you still do not have your ukulele and need assistance, please email or call and I'll try to provide some local resources.

The PTO's Scholastic Book Sale is going on all next week.

October 20th: School Picture Retakes. I do not have any information on student photos. Please see the envelope that came home regarding retakes or photo packages.

October 26th: Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park. Please let me know if you are able to chaperon. See separate post.
I have the following chaperons. Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Hargraves, Mr. Westhoven and Mrs. Brown. Please let me know if I have left you off the list. It wasn't intentional:)

October 28th: End of first grading period. I will send reminders of your conference time with your student's progress report.

October 28th: Halloween Party. See separate post.

Ohio Wildlife Center Wish List

Dear Families,

The Ohio Wildlife Center (OWC) will be visiting the 3^rd grade for our Valentine’s Day Party on February 14,  2012. The OWC does not charge us to bring the many wonderful indigenous animals they rescue and rehabilitate (snapping turtles, owls, opossums, etc.). Instead they ask us to make a collective donation of items.

Please begin collecting any donation items you see below on the OWC’s wish list below and plan to deliver them to school on February 14^th. (We do not have room at school to store wish list items.) Your donations will help to maintain the wonderful reciprocal relationship we have the OWC.

Thank you,

Mr. Hudson, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Meyer

Food Items

-         Dark leafy greens

-         Untreated dandelion and clover

-         Fruit (no citrus), bananas, grapes, apples, watermelon, berries, cantaloupe

-         Bagged carrots

-         Corn

-         Dog, puppy, cat, kitten chow (dry and canned)

-         Unsalted nuts

-         Pedialyte (grape and unflavored)

-         Cracked corn

-         Grits

-         Smooth peanut butter

-         Jars of baby food (meat varieties)

-         Baby cereal

-         Waterfowl pellets

General Supplies

-         Paper towels

-         Toilet paper

-         Newspapers (no glossy inserts)

-         Carpet powder

-         39+ gallon trash bags

-         Duct tape

-         Pens, pencils, highlighters, markers

-         Large towels

-         Batteries

-         Laundry detergent (high-efficiency)

-         Sponges

-         White 8½” x 11”  paper

-         Stamps

-         Tissues

-         Dish soap

-         Floor cleaner

-         Ziploc baggies

-         Latex and non-latex medical gloves

-         Tongue depressors

-         Cotton swabs

-         Isopropyl alcohol

-         32 oz. spray bottles

-         Light bulbs

-         Windex

ST Math with Jiji

Dear Families,

I want to share a wonderful math learning opportunity with you. I have established a free semester long ST Math trial for our class.

ST Math is a visual math program that takes language out of the mix to truly support visual math learning. Students will develop mental math and personal references to support their math skills. You can visit ST Math to learn more at http://www.mindresearch.net/cont/programs/prog_iis.php.

We began ST Math this week and it was a huge success. Many students asked for instructions on how to try this at home and SACC. All your student needs to do are the following steps:
- Go to web.stmath.com/entrance on any computer with Internet access.
- Click on "Allow local data storage."
- Click on the small "Allow" button that appears on the small gray box.
- Click on Jiji (the penguin).
- Enter their password.

Disc Golf from Mr. Moore

Dear Windermere Families,

Come join us on Saturday October 8th from 12noon - 2PM for a round of disc golf at Griggs Reservoir. We just finished up a disc golf unit in class and many of my students wanted to play a "real" course. Griggs has one of the nicest courses in central Ohio and it is only a couple miles from school. Parents are required to walk with your child/children through the course for safety reasons. I will have a number of discs available to use. For those that would like to purchase your own, Dick's Sporting Goods has a great selection and most are only about $8 -12 each. Feel free to bring the entire family. The weather is supposed to be great so come on out!

Please click on the link below for additional information and directions.

http://www.discgolfcolumbus.com/courses/griggs.htm

Thanks and hope to see you there this Sat.

-Mr. Moore

Newsletter for September 30, 2011

What We Learned This Week

Word Study: This week's spelling words will be: plus, trust, mule, punch, cube, skunk, June, blue, plum, tune, trunk, glue. We are continuing our vowel-consonant-silent e long vowel pattern that we saw with a, e, i and o. We will explore common short u vowel patterns of -unch and -unk as well. Additional words you may want to practice sorting at home include: mug, much, just, us, cute, use, due, rude, fume, true, tube, music, ugly, unlock, lunch, stuck, truthful, confuse, cupid, youth, usher, rummage, rubbing, and buffet. For hearing students, they should first recognize the difference in the long and short u word sounds. Then they should identify the patterns as specifically as possible. I have posted handwriting/letter formation practice pages below for this week's spelling words. Print these off at home and support your student's letter formation as well as spelling as an optional study strategy.

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We studied prefixes and suffixes this week. I gave students mnemonic cues to remember prefix with "previews come at the beginning of movies" (alternately, "preschool comes before elementary school")  and "suffering comes at the end." (I then limped around for them as a demonstration.) We are using sign language to kinesthetically connect to synonym  and antonym as well as the natural rhymes of synonym/same and antonym/opposite. See if your student can show you these signs. We reviewed contractions by constructing and deconstructing them. I introduced adjectives in conjunction with common nouns.

Reading: I exposed students to the format, vocabulary and length of the upcoming Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment. We also practiced test taking strategies: read the question, read with your finger, and underline evidence. OAA practice tests are available online through the Ohio Department of Education. Students who do not pass the test will retake it in the spring. This test is simply one of many assessments utilized to identify students who need additional support and students who need extended instruction. Its purpose is NOT to determine retention, as many third graders have worried over the years.
http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspxpage=3&TopicRelationID=240&ContentID=4348&Content=108226
We are continuing our reading comprehension skills: main idea, compare and contrast, supporting details, and fact versus opinion. We are still reading The Secret of Zoom. We will begin mapping this story as a way to understand our read aloud more deeply.

Writing: We are publishing our first friendly letters and still focusing on convention (indenting, capitals, punctuation). We will begin our pen pal letters soon. "I'm finished" is a significant obstacle in 3rd grade writing. We avoid this by giving students both freedom and responsibility of choosing a new writing, (e.g., poem, fiction story, letter, research project, prompt response, persuasive writing, etc.) when they finish their assigned writing. This allows students to develop more interest and value in their writing. The author's chair provides an invaluable opportunity to share writing and it also helps students begin to realize the benefit of rereading their work as many of their words do not make it to the paper.

I have been successful in establishing a once a week Type To Learn time in our very busy computer lab and schedule. If your student works on this at home, their progress will be stored and allows them to continue with where the left off. I handed out Type To Learn downloading instructions and user name/passwords (type) at Parent Information Night. I am also going to start a half an hour each week of a wonderful new visual math program. By removing language from the program, it truly teaches and assesses math skills. It also develops visual comprehension of math. I'm curious to see how students progress in math using the program. I'll be sending more information home soon as we begin. Please send your student to school with a pair of earbuds (please no headphones as we do not have room to store them). Thank you.

Example of earbuds.

Math: The initial math assessment's greatest "Ah-ha" is that most missed questions are the result of not reading questions carefully, rather than not comprehending the math skills and strategies or simply rushing. As I shared at Parent Information Night, I mark incorrect questions and give students the opportunity to fix their work. This ranges from completely redoing a question to simply writing their numbers more neatly or adding a label for the unit of measure (e.g., feet, hot dogs, gallons, etc.). I do not indicate what they missed, only that there is an error. I've found it very beneficial to provide this opportunity to students to both accurately assess what they know and to develop test taking strategies. It really provides them with a tangible lesson in checking their work too. We added our final fact fluency strategy, "Make tens." Anytime a student sees a 7, 8, or 9 as an addend, they borrow from the other addend to create a 10. Most students are very fluent in adding on to ten.

Example: 8 + 6 = (8 +2) + (6-2) = 10 + 4 = 14

Unfortunately, I do NOT have a green thumb and having over watered our classroom garden, we lost many of our plants. We do have some strong carrots, spinach and pumpkins still growing for observation and future life science. We continued our earth science by comparing minerals by color, hardness, shape, and texture. Classification is a continuous theme throughout science and it is a skill we will also see throughout our reading studies this year.

Important Dates and Reminders

We will begin Ukulele Orchestra on Thursday, October 13th. We will have Ukulele Orchestra every B and D day from 11:05 until 11:25. Please help your student to remember their ukuleles on these days. If you still do not have your ukulele and need assistance, please email or call and I'll try to provide some local resources.

October 3rd - 7th: Box top collection
October 4th: Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment (Please do not schedule any appointments for this date)
October 5th: Walk to School Day

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October 7th: Fall Family Night 6:00-8:00pm. This is a great family event. I hope you can make it.
October 20th: School Picture Retakes. I do not have any information on student photos. Please see the envelope that came home regarding retakes or photo packages.
October 26th: Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park. Please let me know if you are able to chaperon. See separate post.
October 28th: End of first grading period
October 28th: Halloween Party. See separate post.