Important Dates & Reminders
*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.
Happy New Year!
January 16, 2014: End of the second quarter. Please avoid appointments this week as I'll be assessing.
January 17, 2014: No school for students, teacher grading day. Our progress reports have been updated to be standards based. You will receive a letter from the district explaining the differences. Two key differences will be you will not see the first quarter mark's for language arts or social studies as they represent new Common Core standards. You will still see first quarter marks for math, science, and health. The progress report no longer states that standards left blank were not assessed this quarter. However, this is still the case. By the end of the year, all standards will be taught and assessed.
January 20, 2014: No school in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day.
January 27, 2014: Progress reports sent home (mailed home for dual households)
January 30, 2014: Early dismissal at 11:05. I have contacted families directly where I feel a conference is necessary. I will be seeing other families through our RTI process as well.
February 10 - 14, 2014: Drop off donations for the Ohio Wildlife Center
Ohio Wildlife Center needs include:
February 12, 2014: Early dismissal for professional development
February 14, 2014: Ohio Wildlife Center visit. You can learn more about the Ohio Wildlife Center at http://www.ohiowildlifecenter.org/dnn/
February 17, 2014: No school in honor of President's Day
February 19, 2014: Early release for professional development
March 27, 2014: End of the third quarter
March 28 - April 4, 2014: No school - Spring Break
April 7, 2014: No school for students, teacher grading day
April 14, 2014: 3rd quarter progress reports sent home
What We Learned
Word Study
We revisited a parts of speech game I call "parts of speech tennis." Students are given a part of speech, e.g., nouns and then they square off sharing examples in something like a tennis match. Their opponent has a count of three to respond with a new part of speech that is not in the same category as the previous part of speech. For example, Mr. Hudson and Steve are playing noun tennis:
Steve "pencil"
H "crocodile"
S "tricycle"
H "apple"
S "orange" - Steve loses because apple and orange are both fruits
The class is pretty secure in naming and identifying nouns. We distinguish between proper nouns as well (they're not allowed in the game).
We played verb tennis and adjective tennis, both of which show students are less secure in these areas.
Reading Workshop
I introduced my favorite read aloud of the year, The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, by Rodman Philbrick.
This is a wonderful piece of historical fiction for young and old readers alike. I read one chapter each day and students respond in first person as the story's protagonist, Homer. Like the Odyssey, this Homer goes on an epic adventure. However, his is a journey through the Civil War where he will encounter many famous people and events. Students will be developing the skill of reading beyond the text, where they will begin to fill in the unwritten parts of the story as they imagine Homer's hopes, fears, and emotions as the book goes on. Much of what we do in our reading homework is informational text where students are looking for literal or "right there" information. Responding to Homer helps them to move beyond the literal and develop a better understanding of their reading. Students share daily to support improving their writing and help fellow authors go from "good to great."
Writing Workshop
We jumped right back into our persuasive essays this week. The class was evenly split with this week's topic: Should third graders have homework? There were passionate essays on both sides of the argument. The two positions debated by sharing their essays earning points for topic sentences, non-redundant supporting details, and conclusions. Students have the opportunity to earn additional points for including vocabulary from our word wall, countering the opposition (e.g., The opposition may say we should not have homework because they want to play when they get home, but we all need to learn to manage our time well.), or sharing a personal perspective (e.g., My sister is in middle school and she has a ton of homework. If we don't learn to do it now, middle school will be a lot harder.). I was really impressed with their writing.
We will be publishing multi-paragraph pen pal letters next week.
Math
We reviewed all of the mathematics standards learned this year. I will be assessing these and fact fluency next week to see student mastery and progress for the end of the quarter. I was pleased with what students have retained and took pains to remind them how the material they consider to be "easy" was frustratingly difficult for many of them only a few weeks ago. It's an essential part of my teaching philosophy that we look back at our learning for progress and highlight the importance (and benefits) of making mistakes. The key for young learners is showing them we all make mistakes and provided they're not careless, a mistake is evidence of extending our learning.
