It is so nice to be back with the class. They are doing wonderfully, working hard, engaging in their learning and are a great community.
There will not be a newsletter next week. I hope you all have a safe and relaxing holiday.
What We Learned This Week
Word Study
I introduced spelling patterns to each group this week. Students sort words by visual patterns (e.g., vowel-consonant-silent e, represented as VCe) and auditory clues (e.g., long vowel sounds).
Within Word Group (Yellow Group):
- VC (closed syllable, produces a short vowel sound, e.g., hat)
- VCe (vowel-consonant-silent e, produces a long vowel sound, e.g., cake)
- CVV (consonant-vowel team, e.g., clay)
- VVC (vowel team-consonant, e.g. brain)
Syllable Juncture Group (Green Group):
- VCV (vowel-consonant-vowel, produces a long vowel sound, e.g. tiger)
- VCCV (vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel, produces a short vowel sound, e.g., dinner)
Derivational Constancy Group (Blue Group):
- Recognizing related words in which a vowel sound changes from long to short (e.g., mine to
mineral, revise to revision)
Here a student demonstrates seeing a visual vowel-consonant pattern
and hearing an auditory vowel clue.
Reading
We continued to work on Venn diagrams to compare and contrast. Serendipitously, Ms. O'Keefe, our guidance counselor, taught a lesson on bullying and advocacy that also utilized Venn diagrams.
I switched books to find a more engaging title to captivate the imaginations of more of the class. We are going to read (and finish) The Luck Uglies by Paul Durham.
Writing
Students continued to do fantastic opinion pieces. They are ALL producing a lot of writing in a short period of time, which is fantastic at this point in the year.
Math
We continued our study of multiplication. We have learned fact fluency strategies for zeroes, ones, doubles, fives, nines and tens. Students should be able to recognize an "anchor" number that directs them to use a specific strategy. Many facts have more than one strategy (e.g., 5 x 2 could trigger using doubles or fives).
Click to watch our nines strategy.
See if your student can explain it.
We reviewed the definition of multiplication, "Efficient addition of same sized groups."
Students are able to represent addition expressions of same sized groups as multiplication.
3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 4 x 3
Students can represent multiplication expressions as addition of same sized groups.
2 x 5 = 5 + 5
Students can represent multiplication expressions as arrays.
Students differentiate between groups and size of groups.
4 x 3 = 4 groups of 3 (not 3 groups of 4)
Students can generate their own authentic problems to represent multiplication expressions with an emphasis on what we are solving for.
5 x 4 = There are five tables with four chairs each. How many chairs are there?
We are also learning about the distributive property to solve multi-digit multiplication.
4 x 32 = (4 x 30) + (4 x 2) = 120 + 8 = 128
Science
We took advantage of the weather to create "snow." We examined how energy can be released through a chemical reaction (breaking H2O2 into H2 and H2O). This exothermic reaction is very dramatic for young scientists and they can clearly see the change. Please see the following video. I used 30% hydrogen peroxide and potassium permanganate, but you can replicate this experiment with grocery store hydrogen peroxide, about 3% and yeast as a catalyst.
To turn this demonstration into an experiment, you can
manipulate the variables, make predictions and test them.
I suggest leaving out the food coloring.
I want to share a great website I just learned about, Future Engineers. I know many of the parents in our class are in the science fields. I have just begun to mine this site for ideas, but it may offer some great inspiration for snowy cold days indoors. Have fun and please share if your student does any of these activities.
Click this image to visit Future Engineers.
Social Studies
Please let us know if you immigrated to the US and are willing to talk to the third grade community about your story. We would like to focus on motivations to move to the US, sacrifices in doing so and contributions made to the US by your culture.
I introduced a great game called Timeline that develops an understanding of time lines and relative dates for inventions. You can find this game in the App store and download the electronic version to your student's iPad.
Guidance
Ms. O'Keefe visited us to talk about bullying, advocacy and homelessness. Here is a link to the powerful video she shared.
Click on this image to view the video.
"This week I came into your child's classroom to talk about being an "Upstander" at school and in their community. We talked about bullying, what this means (hurting someone intentionally and repeatedly by someone with more power or who tries to take power from someone else). Students shared that anyone can be a bully and anyone can be the target of bullying. They discussed the importance that bystanders and upstanders play (bystanders give the bully more power when they stand by and watch it happen and upstanders are heroes who help save someone from being bullied). We then connected being an upstander in a bullying situation to being an upstander in their community. They watched a video about those living in poverty and how this can happen by circumstance and there are upstanders in our community who become heroes to those who don't have the resources to get help themselves. Hopefully they left feeling empowered about being helpers, not only to those at school, but in our community." - Ms. O'Keefe
Important Dates & Reminders
Testing dates are in bold. I will highlight changes and new dates in red.
A Days: No specials
B Days: Music and PE
C Days: Art
D Days: Library
E Days: Music and PE
December 20 Sing Along (1pm) & Holiday Parties (2pm)
Please click on the following link to volunteer and/or donate to the classroom parties. Thank you.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040f4da8aa29ab9-windermere1
Please click on the following link to volunteer and/or donate to the classroom parties. Thank you.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040f4da8aa29ab9-windermere1
December 21-January 2nd Winter Break
January 3 No School for Students: PD (AM) /Work Day (PM)
January 4-25 STAR Reading and Math Assessments
January 4 School Resumes after Holiday Break
January 4 School Resumes after Holiday Break
January 10 Student Group Activities (e.g., Recycling Team, Orchestra, etc.)
January 13 Town Hall Meeting 12:30pm
January 16 No School for Students & Staff: MLK Day
January 18 Interim Progress Reports Home Today
January 25 Parent/Teacher Conferences
January 30 State of Schools at UAHS 5 - 8pm
February 6 - 10 Boxtop Collection Days
February 6 - March 31 Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessment
February 20 No School for Students & Staff: President's Day
February 20 No School for Students & Staff: President's Day
March 1 Early Dismissal 1pm
March 9 3rd Grade Musical
March 10 Town Hall Meeting1:45 PM
March 10 End of second Trimester
March 13 - 17 Spring Break - No School
March 20 No School for students - Teacher Workday
March 28 Progress Reports Home Today
April 5 - 6 Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessment
April 5 Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon
April 5 Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon
April 6 Spring Picture Day
April 10 - April 28 STAR Reading and Math Assessments
April 12 - 15 Ohio Mathematics Assessment
April 14 No School for Staff & Students: Good Friday
April 12 - 15 Ohio Mathematics Assessment
April 14 No School for Staff & Students: Good Friday
April 24 - 28 Scholastic Book Fair
April 28 KID FEST 5 - 8pm
May 8 - 19 Terra Nova & Inview Gifted Screener
May 15 - 19 Diagnostic Writing Assessment
May 24 Field Day
May 15 - 19 Diagnostic Writing Assessment
May 24 Field Day
May 26 Town Hall Meeting 8:25am
May 26 Last Day for Students; End of third trimester
May 26 Early Dismissal 1pm
May 26 Early Dismissal 1pm
