Team Third Grade
Mrs. Behm, Mrs. Komar, Mrs. Frye & Mrs. Marcks
October 2, 2020
Community
We are presently moving into the 6th week of school. What a celebration! We are so grateful for the amazing efforts of our students toward becoming fluid in our new way of learning. There are some slight challenges along the way but the will to persevere and do the best we can within our parameters just shows you the motivation and drive to continue on our journey of learning and growing together. We wanted to thank our families for your continued & consistent support of having your child read and complete their math practice on Dreambox every night. Your support makes a huge difference!
Language Experience
During our language experience, we have been working hard at intentionally adding on new conversational moves that helped to invite and encourage all students to share their thinking as we unpacked the books collectively. We are learning that together we know more. Therefore, the importance of encouraging all voices to be heard and learning to agree and disagree with civility are at the forefront of elevating and growing our thinking.
Our students are also noticing specific phrases as they are used in a text and attempting to analyze the meaning behind the author’s intention. The deep thinking that is unfolding in our language workshop is also being captured and celebrated on our anchor charts.
Grammar/Patterns of Power
During our language experience, we have also been focusing on identifying concrete and abstract nouns embedded in the our language workshop text. We noticed in this week’s mentor text, Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, that she used abstract nouns to show an idea . Thus, we will explore the opportunity to compose sentences of our own that utilized an abstract noun to stand for our own idea.
Reader's Workshop
In Reading Workshop, we have been working diligently on building effective reading habits and stamina both at school and at home. Hats off to our young readers who are making a consistent effort in choosing books that are just right for them. They are intentionally selecting books that they can read most of the words, books that they are interested in, and books that give them something to think and talk about. In fact, we have had our best promoters of books launch our book talks this week. Several students presented a “Book Talk” to their classmates in hopes of encouraging their peers to read a book that they themselves have found incredibly interesting, funny, heartwarming, or engaging.
Writing Workshop
Writers are continuing to collect seed stories and have discussed that writer’s include more details in their writing to “Show, not Tell”. This is a wonderful concept and something you should ask your writer to explain to you. Additionally, writer’s were also taught 4 different leads this week to help them get started on their story in a fun and unique way. Please ask your writer if they are coming up with good ideas to write about during writer's workshop. If they are hesitant, or unsure, maybe you both can brainstorm what good stories they could write about. Thanks for your support!
Word Study & Phonics
In our Phonics study this week, we have worked with short vowel sounds. It is fun to listen to your child emphasize these vowel sounds out loud. Next week we will work on the many different spellings of “Long a”.
Math Workshop
We just finished up the first part of our first unit on graphing and interpreting data. This week we have started rounding! We kicked off this part of the unit by reviewing place value. Starting to move into the rounding aspect, students are getting practice through task cards and a variety of other application time ideas. Students will be expected to round to the nearest 10 and 100 in a 3 digit number. Dreambox is officially up and running! A reminder that their username and password is their lunch code and students should be completing 10 minutes of Dreambox at home per night. We thank you for your help with this! Additionally, there was a study guide that was sent home yesterday, October 1st, for our next assessment on October 3rd.
Social Studies
This week we finished up our geography unit. Hopefully, you had a chance to see the world map study guide that your child brought home to study for their assessment throughout the week. If you would like to see how your son or daughter is doing, just ask them to show you their practice work, graded assignments/assessments, and teacher comments right on Google Classroom.
Science
We kicked off our first science unit this week called Motion, Force, and Models. Students have learned that pushes & pulls are forces and when something is moving then it’s in motion. They have had the opportunity to explore these concepts with wheels, cars, slinkies, balls, and ramps. Now we are working on multiple fixed variable experiments with pendulums to better understand how force and motion work.
Second Step
In Second Step, we just wrapped up our first unit on Skills for Learning. Kiddos learned how to be respectful learners, use self-talk, be assertive, and plan for learning. Our next unit is centered around empathy. Second Step lessons may have a home-link, which we encourage you to do with your child.
Conferences!
Mrs. Behm: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c084dacab23a2fa7-mrs52
Mrs. Komar: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c084dacab23a2fa7-mrs45
Mrs. Frye: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c084dacab23a2fa7-mrs51
Mrs. Marcks: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c084dacab23a2fa7-mrs58