Newsletter for September 27, 201

Important Dates & Reminders

*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.

October 8, 2013 - Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment (Please avoid scheduling appointments and absences on this date).

October 11 - Fall Family Night is from 6 till 8. This is a great evening for families to reconnect and enjoy the beautiful fall weather. 

October 18, 2013 - Local author, Mark Walter, will be visiting Windermere to share the craft of writing.

October 25, 2013 - Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park for Earth Science. Thank you volunteers! Students should wear good hiking/walking shoes that can get muddy, pack a sack lunch and wear something they can zip and unzip as it is usually cool and the morning and warms up throughout the day.

October 25, 2013 - End of the first quarter. Please avoid appointments this week as I'll be assessing.

October 28, 2013 - No school, teacher grading day.

October 31, 2013 - Halloween party (extended lunch from 12pm till 1:30pm, most students go home to change into costumes). Please note it is district policy that no costume may include any weapons or facsimiles.

November 4 - 7, 2013: Parent conferences. If you have not signed up, please contact me. I will send reminders of your date and time in your student's progress report.

November 5, 2013: No school for students: Professional development. 

November 27 - 29, 2013: No school - Thanksgiving.

December 11, 2013: Early release: Professional development. 

December 23, 2013 - January 3, 2014: Winter break - no school.

January 6, 2014: First day back to school.

January 16, 2014: End of the second quarter. Please avoid appointments this week as I'll be assessing.

January 17, 2014: No school, teacher grading day.

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
We memorized our high frequency word, "ready." using several kinesthetic, auditory, and visual methods to increase the likelihood of retention and retrieval.

Spelling patterns were long and short i sounds. We first listen for our sound. If it is a short i sound, we know it is generally a closed syllable, where an i is followed (or closed) by a consonant (e.g., sit). If we hear a long i sound, we focused on three spelling generalizations (VCE, e.g., ice; -igh, e.g., night; -ind, e.g., kind).

This week's spelling assessment is a bit different. In an attempt to emphasize the importance of linking a phonological generalization to a word, I've asked students to list the spelling pattern. Do not be alarmed if they do not do well on this (I'll send them home on Monday.). It will take some time for them to develop proficiency in doing this, but it should benefit them a great deal over time as it shifts their spelling practice from memorizing words to applying generalizations.

You will also notice on the spelling assessment a short paragraph which I dictated. It is often easy for parents to have a feel for how their students are doing in concrete and easy to assess areas such as math and spelling. In order to show you how your students are doing with convention and neatness, I will be using the dictated paragraph to measure progress and will use conventional editing symbols to show errors. Your student should be familiar with these errors at this point in the year, but please let me know if you have any questions once you receive their new format assessment on Monday. Some of this is subjective, e.g., neatness, but after teaching third grade for so many years I believe I can make fairly consistent judgements. The short paragraph will also illuminate students' high frequency word spelling.

I've determined through assessment that many students do not possess secure phonological awareness so I am teaching them consonant sounds and to listen for sounds in words, (e.g., do you hear the d sound at the beginning or end of a word) to support spelling.

Reading
We continued to focus on determining just right books. Having such a small class is affording me time to conference with all of my students on their specific needs. Some students are working on fluency, while others are working on expression or non-fiction text elements, depending on where they are on the reading spectrum. A few students are still struggling to find a just right book that is interesting. This can be modeled, but is often more a situation of looking, but hoping not to find, a just right book. This can be a year(s) long challenge for reluctant readers, but research shows letting students have say in what they read can be very motivational.

Main ideas/summaries and comparing and contrasting continue to be our whole class focus. Summaries link to our writing by distinguishing between main ideas and supporting details.

Writing
We began planning for our second personal narrative and we are beginning to think about friendly letters. Please help your student begin to think about a pen pal who is dependable, neat, and will write back to them quickly. We will plan to mail our pen pal letters the week of October 25th.

We did a few organization/sequence activities to help us begin to include helpful transition and linking words such as first, next, then, and finally.

We are also editing pre-written paragraphs with intentional errors. This week's errors focused on capitalizing the beginnings of sentences and proper nouns, ending punctuation and using apostrophes for possession, e.g., Steve's hat.

Math

We are beginning each lesson with mental math and a challenging word problem. 

Students represented decimals as a decimal, a fraction and money. We also worked on a quarter-past, half-past and a quarter-till the hour.

We hit math fact fluency strategies hard this week. We have covered zero more, one more, two more, sums to ten, doubles, near doubles and make ten.
- Zero more: start with the larger addend and add zero more, which leaves you with the original addend.
- One more: start with the larger addend and add one more. This is easy to do, but you might be surprised by how many students need to learn to start with the larger addend.
- Two more: same as zero more and one more.
- Sums to ten: all of the sums to ten (0 + 10, 1 + 9, 2 + 8, etc.).
- Doubles: This will transfer to doubles or X2 in future multiplication fluency strategies.
- Near doubles: Whenever two addends are different by one, the double of the smaller addend can be relied on and simply add one more (I make it more clear than this to students, but I do try to introduce them to this important vocabulary.), e.g., 4 + 5 = (4 + 4) + 1 = 8 + 1.
- Make tens: Whenever you have an addend of 7, 8, or 9 and your sum is greater than a sum to ten, you can borrow from the other addend to "make ten" and add on, e.g., 7 + 5 = (7 + 3) + 2 = 10 + 2 = 12. This strategy is relied on heavily by adults for mental math and can be used for larger numbers easily, e.g., 28 + 13 = (28 + 2) + 11 = 30 + 11 = 41.
Some facts have more than one strategy, e.g., 5 + 5 = doubles and sums to ten. Students worked on the strategies (versus the facts) by sorting dominos by strategy and organizing them and playing strategy baseball. Your student should be able to explain both of these activities.

Social Studies
I introduced geography this week as morning work to be done before the Pledge. I find it is helpful to teach this slowly throughout the year, rather than rushing through it. Too it gives students a concreted activity to get them focused and settled each morning.

I introduced globes, maps, continents, equator, and the North and South poles. 

Science
We ended the week by exploring matter, part of our physical science and scientific ways of knowing content. We explored water's properties, focusing on water molecules' strong attraction towards each other. We used this learning to understand how bubbles form and rise as well as how we can fill a glass above the rim of a glass without any water spilling. We then used soap to break apart the water molecules and spill over. We then studied the properties of water in bubbles using two solutions, one with glycerin and one without. The glycerin essentially insulates the water and allows one to blow bigger bubbles that are less likely to pop. Here's are two Steve Spangler videos on these concepts. I apologize in advance if you discover your student making a joyful mess at the sink with bubbles this weekend:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAzPfm-0onI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPC3HmOcyY8

Please send in one or two old socks for cracking open geodes by next Friday. Many thanks!

Newsletter for September 20, 2013

Important Dates & Reminders

*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.

October 8, 2013 - Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment (Please avoid scheduling appointments and absences on this date). This test is administered in the fall to determine student needs and to serve as a baseline. It will be taken again in the spring to measure annual student growth. It is one of many assessments used to determine student reading instruction and needs.

October 11 - Fall Family Night is from 6 till 8. Three separate fliers were sent home on Friday. Please see them for more details. This is a great evening for families to reconnect and enjoy the beautiful fall weather. 

October 18, 2013 - Local author, Mark Walter, will be visiting Windermere to share the craft of writing.  He is well known for his Buckeyes A to Z book. He will be signing books if your student would like to purchase one. Order forms were sent home on Friday. You can visit his website here: http://markwalterbooks.com/about-author.html.

October 25, 2013 - Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park for Earth Science. Please email if you are able to chaperon. I would like to have at least three more chaperons.

October 25, 2013 - End of the first quarter

October 28, 2013 - No school, teacher grading day

October 31, 2013 - Halloween party (extended lunch from 12pm till 1:30pm, most students go home to change into costumes). Please note it is district policy that no costume may include any weapons or facsimiles.

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
We memorized our high frequency word, "probably," using several kinesthetic, auditory, and visual methods to increase the likelihood of retention and retrieval. 

Emma demonstrates our approach. We do each of the steps modeled three times.

Spelling patterns were long and short e sounds. Long e sounds were represented by vowel teams /ee/ (e.g., sheep) and /ea/ (e.g., speak) and the Vowel-Consonant-E (VCE, e.g., these) syllable type. Short e sounds were represented as closed syllables (e followed by a consonant, e.g., bed).

Reading
We focused on creating a summary statement with a subject and predicate. We utilize the 5 W's (who, what, where, when, and why). I prefer teaching students "subject" and "predicate" because "who" suggests a person and "what" can also be confused for the subject. We add when, where, and why when they benefit understanding.

Students are meeting with me in individual conferences where we work on a specific skill or strategy to enhance their reading in one of four areas: comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary. I am also working on non-fiction comprehension with a few students. I know I've stated it before, I can't over-emphasize the importance of sustained reading of just right books.

Students are working on fluency by using poetry because it demands attention to pace, meter, and emphasis of punctuation and rhyme, all essential elements of fluency.

Lauren shares I'm Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein

Writing
We started the writing process in earnest with our first personal narratives. The writing process is: planning, drafting, rereading, revising, editing and publishing. We will work on planning, drafting, and rereading for the remainder of the grading period simply to get students into the habit of rereading their own work for complete sentences. We use a kinesthetic device to remember the writing process:

James demonstrates the writing process

Students use writing folders that have commonly misspelled words and a thesaurus to improve our descriptive language.

Math

We continued with numeracy, introduced decimals (tenths and hundredths), and time to the quarter past, half-past, and quarter-till. I use money to support students understanding of tenths and hundredths (ten dimes in a whole dollar, hence "tenths" and one hundred pennies in one dollar, hence "hundredths"). We emphasize the "whole" or the "one" and decimals and fractions represent two different ways of showing less than one. I find having students represent our decimals as fractions helps them in naming them and it is a good introduction to understanding fractions (e.g., 0.3 = 3/10 and it is equivalent to 0.30 = 30/100). This takes a while to grasp but is a great foundation for several future math concepts.

Science
We reviewed the following big ideas for earth science: rocks are made of minerals, minerals can be classified by characteristics (we compared hardness, color, and translucence). We also drew comparisons to our tree study where we classified trees by leaf shape, leaf arrangement, bark, branch arrangement, and seeds/fruits.

 

Math Resources

Dear Families,

I will be sending home two flyers for online math resources. These are intended for the family who wants additional math to either challenge or reinforce concepts for their student.

XtraMath 

XtraMath flyers will have a student user name and password. You will need to follow these steps.

Go to XtraMath by typing http://xtramath.org in your browser. Once there you will see a page that looks like this.

Click on the "Enroll" link on the right side of the screen (enlarged below).

You will be taken to the following page. To enroll your student you will have to provide XtraMath with a parent's email account and enrollment code. Your student's unique enrollment code is at the bottom of their flyer. 

Once you have enrolled your student, they can begin exploring the site. It will start your student with fact fluency practice.

Think Central

Think Central is a resource for the district's chosen math program, Math in Focus. Your student can access the library section to print off workbook pages for additional math practice. 

Login at https://www-k6.thinkcentral.com. 

Choose Ohio, Upper Arlington, Windermere and type in your student's user name and password (on their Think Central flyer).

Once you are logged in, go to the My Library section.

Click on the Math in Focus Workbook, G3.

Your student should not work ahead of the curriculum. Most students are ready for Chapters 1 & 2. I will try to update periodically as we progress through the standards. If you have questions regarding how far your student should work, just send me an email. Too, there are a few questions which may be confusing as they are unique to the prescribed approach in Math in Focus. I suggest steering clear of these. If your student is confused, please have them bring the paper in and I will help them.

Newsletter for September 13, 2013

Important Dates & Reminders

*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.

October 8, 2013 - Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment (Please avoid scheduling appointments and absences on this date). Please read the following letter.

October 25, 2013 - Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park for Earth Science. Please email if you are able to chaperon. Thank you!

October 25, 2013 - End of the first quarter

October 28, 2013 - No school, teacher grading day

October 31, 2013 - Halloween party (extended lunch from 12pm till 1:30pm, most students go home to change into costumes). Please note it is district policy that no costume may include any weapons or facsimiles.

What We Learned This Week
If you have time, explore some of the links to the right under Favorites with your student.

Word Study
We are tackling three ideas in word study: high frequency words (those that have been identified as the most prevalent from a wide selection of a range of third grade reading material), spelling generalizations and syllable types. We do not apply phonemic understanding to our high frequency words, but simply use multiple strategies to memorize them. I only introduced one word this week, "several," but will increase this to two words per week as we gain familiarity with the process. After I have written the word on the board, given a definition and asked for student sentences utilizing the word, I use the following process:
- Students write the word at the top of their dry erase board. I check to make sure they have spelled it correctly so we aren't practicing incorrect spellings as it is very difficult to un-learn material.
- We read the word letter-by-letter, tapping under the letters on our dry erase board, and then say the word, clapping its syllables. We do this three times.
- We tap the word down our arm from the shoulder to the wrist, spelling it out letter-by-letter. We then glide down our arm from shoulder to wrist saying the word. We do this three times.
- We use the pad (not the tip as the pad gives more friction) of the finger and "write" the word as we say it letter-by-letter. We do this three times.
- We then write the word, saying each letter and then underlining it as we say the word.We do this three times.
- Finally, we erase our board and, with closed eyes, write the word.
Once we have this process down, it should take no more than five minutes a day. The benefit of what may initially seem to be a curious approach to spelling is that we are using a broad approach of kinesthetic, verbal and auditory methods to put this information into our brains (and provides multiple ways of retrieving it).

We then develop phonemic awareness by applying a spelling generalization to our weekly spelling words. While students are given words that represent the generalization, these are not necessarily the words they will be assessed on. Rather than memorizing words, they have to show they can apply the generalizations. This should remove the burden of practicing spelling words at home in the traditional, memorization approach. Next week's spelling generalization will be on short and long e sounds. If you would like to extend your student's phonemic awareness, you can try any of the following suggestions:


- See it, say it, spell it (three times for each word ensuring practicing correct spelling)
- Sort by pattern
- Write additional words with the same patterns
- Write the words in alphabetical order
- Count syllables
- Use words in sentences
- Word ladders
- Identify parts of speech, often multiple
- Practice lists of words: colors, days of the week, months, holidays, states, countries, etc.
- Keep a list of words you miss to practice
- Family spelling bee
- Research word origins
- Have fun with palindromes (e.g., never odd or even)
- Introduce a new vocabulary word or idiom each night at dinner and see who can use it correctly most often.

We are also supporting our spelling generalizations by applying syllable types. Open syllables end in a vowel and produce a long vowel sound (e.g, ba/by). VCE syllables end in a vowel-consonant-silent e and produce a long vowel sound (e.g., cake). Closed syllables end in a consonant and produce a short vowel sound (e.g., cat).

Finally, as we begin paying attention to interesting and rich language, here is a good article on teaching vocabulary, Doing it Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/vocabulary-instruction-teaching-tips-rebecca-alber?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=blog-vocab-tips

Reading
We are working on fluency. While some students struggle with decoding unfamiliar words because they have not developed grade level phonemic awareness, the vast majority of struggling readers' focus is fluency. My explanation of fluency is "we are not reading word-by-word, but are reading smoothly so our reading voice sounds like our natural speaking voice." It is truly a combination of rate and accuracy and has increasingly become an indicator of struggling readers.

I am encouraging most students to develop their fluency by having them "glide" their finger under the line they are reading as they read. This is different from tapping each word as many Kindergarten students do. Gliding helps students to read smoothly, avoid skipping words, and most importantly, avoid skipping lines.

I am also asking students to tap punctuation, specifically commas and ending punctuation. Many students who are still in the "learning to read" phase ignore punctuation, which can lead to confusion.

For example, ignoring the comma in "Let's eat, grandpa," creates a very morose dinner. Additionally, many third graders will begin a following sentence with the last word of a preceding sentence, e.g., "Stewart finished his dinner. It was cold outside." can easily become, "Stewart finished. His dinner was cold."

To support comprehension we are working on summarizing short passages. Students must identify the subject and predicate (the who and what) of our reading selection. They can further support their summary (aka "main idea," "central theme") by adding where, when, and why.

We started note taking with our read aloud to further support our ability to summarize our reading. Students are encouraged to write down what they consider to be "note worthy" information. As we share we can model noting characters, setting, and sequence of events.

Writing
We wrote our first persuasive essays on running for student council. These included a strong (and indented) topic sentence, supporting details, and a conclusion. I'm grading these in more detail this weekend, but I was very pleased with initial efforts. Students who wanted to run for student council positions shared their writing.

We spent a lot of time developing complete sentences by focusing on subject and predicate.

Math

The third grade teachers are continuing to review and expand numeracy. I gave a short quiz today which will help me to determine which students need additional support. It covered:
- Rounding to the nearest ten
- Rounding to the nearest hundred
- Putting numbers on a number line
- Expressing numbers in expanded and written form
- Place and value
- Inequalities
I will send these home next week. I will also send information (supported by a blog post) on additional math resources.

Science

Our Thompson Park Tree Trek blog (see link under Favorites to the right) is up and running. A few photos were in the wrong order and so they are not on the blog at this time. Many thanks to Mrs. Carmichael for helping the students upload their photos and observations. The UA City Forester shared, there is an active link to our site from the City Parks and Recreation Department as well. I'll share it as soon as he sends it so you can show your student. They'll be very proud of their work. 

Newsletter for September 6, 2013

Important Dates & Reminders

*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.

September 11, 2013 - Early Dismissal for professional development at 1:15pm

October 8, 2013 - Ohio Reading Achievement Assessment (Please avoid scheduling appointments and absences on this date)

October 25, 2013 - Field Trip to Highbanks Metro Park for Earth Science. Please email if you are able to chaperon. Thank you!

October 25, 2013 - End of the first quarter

October 28, 2013 - No school, teacher grading day

October 31, 2013 - Halloween party (extended lunch from 12pm till 1:30pm, most students go home to change into costumes). Please note it is district policy that no costume may include any weapons or facsimiles.

Windermere Restaurant Nights: This year, the Windermere PTO will be sponsoring several “restaurant nights.”  These fundraising events promote local businesses and support the Windermere P.T.O.  The first restaurant night is at Graeter's on Bethel Road next Wednesday, September 11th from 7:00-9:00 p.m.  Your child will bring home a flyer that must be presented when you place your order.  Windermere receives 20% of the proceeds.  Come have some ice cream, visit your Windermere friends, and support the Windermere PTO!

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
We studied the three first syllable types (open, closed, and VCE) in conjunction with the long and short a vowel sounds. I had intended to assess these understandings, but have decided to postpone our first spelling assessment till next Friday as students are not yet secure in these concepts. Students should have a reference word they associate with long and short vowel sounds: e.g., short a says apple, long a says ape.

Reading
We are still working on choosing Just Right Books (JRB). It really does not benefit students to have them reading too difficult a book. A JRB is a book they can read independently at 98% accuracy or higher. We are also working on building stamina, on becoming "Real Readers." We continued comparing and contrasting as well as being organized and systematic in our approach.

Writing
We are continuing towards mastery with identifying and/or editing towards complete sentences. Students are getting much better at identifying the subject and the predicate. I introduced sentence variation using linking or transition words (e.g., and, because, then, etc.).

Math

 

We are reviewing many second grade math standards with a focus on numeracy. I introduced our second fact fluency strategy, doubles, when both addends are the same. These will be helpful as we introduce related fact fluency strategies in the future, e.g., near doubles, when one addend is greater than the other by one.

 

Students practiced telling time using only the hour hand. I start students reading clocks using only the hour hand to support their understanding that the hour hand moves along with the minute hand. I've found this has been very helpful in the past.

 

 

We started rounding to the nearest ten on Friday. To do this we create a number line by writing the number we want to round in the middle of our board, with the ten we would round down to on the left and the number we would round up to on the right. We then look at the value in the ones place as it determines whether we round up or down. Finally we circle our choice. For example, if we are rounding the number 367 to the nearest ten...
                    360   367   370
Because the value in the ones place is 7, we round up to 370. Students should be secure in knowing we round down when the value is 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 and we round up when the value is 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9.

We start each lesson with a quick mental math exercise. These problems represent a lot of what adults do on a daily basis. Students share the many different strategies they have for solving these problems and we then discuss which are the most efficient strategies and what knowledge and skills we need to develop to use these strategies. For example: 42 + 36 could be solved many ways. We can sum the tens (40 + 30 = 70) and the ones (2 + 6 = 8) and then put them together (70 + 8 = 78). Alternatively we could preserve 42 and add it to 30 (42 + 30 = 72). We then add the six from 36 (72 + 6 = 78). We could also preserve 36 and add it to 40. (36 + 40 = 76). Finally (76 + 2 = 78). It is very beneficial to show students there are multiple ways to solve a problem. Students will be encouraged to "check their work" by solving problems multiple ways this year.

Students have been learning efficient strategies for identifying the possible combinations in problems ranging from possible numbers made from a set of digits (e.g., the digits 3, 5, 2 can be combined as 532, 523, 352, 325, 253, and 235) to clothing combinations (red shirt, blue shirt, green shorts, white shorts can be combined as red shirt:green shorts, red shirt:white shorts, blue shirt:green shorts, blue shirt:white shorts).

 

Students began translating data tables into bar graphs. This is a challenging task as there are many steps: determine the appropriate scale (1's, 2's, etc.), categories, title, category labels, and most importantly, sharing specific numerical facts about the chart (interpreting the data).

Science

Field Trip to Thompson Park was a huge success. Thank you to all of the volunteers. We'll be posting our photos next week.

We will head back to the park as soon as the leaves change.