Hayden Hero Herald
September, 2014
Welcome!
Dear 3 Hayden Families,
Welcome to third grade! I will communicate classroom happenings and curriculum highlights through monthly newsletters. We had a super start to the school year. Thanks so much for helping your child to be successful this year.
Building Classroom Community
Reading
We enjoyed sharing powerful pictures books about learning, listening, respect, and friendship as a class. Each story teaches an important lesson and connects our class as a community of readers.
In addition, I'm striving to teach the children about Metacognition, thinking about your thinking. We made a "Reading Salad" as we read Thank You, Mr. Falker. Just like a tossed salad is a colorful mixture of lettuce and tomatoes, a reading salad is a colorful mixture of text + thinking. I'm inviting my readers to share what they are thinking.
The children also learned the expectations for developing their independent reading habits. We read our poem of the week, The Reader's Oath, reviewed the "Rules for Reading Right", and learned how to record our reading each night in their homework records.
Thank You, Mr. Falker
Classroom Library
Library Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
Exploring the Library
Real Reading
How Full Is Your Bucket?
First Day Jitters
A Fine, Fine School
Social Studies: Geography
Me On the map
We read Me on the Map and will complete a powerpoint about our Global Address. Ask your child to tell you where they live: planet, hemispheres, country, state, county, township and street address.
Geography
We launched out first Social Studies unit, Geography. We are learning more about world geography, including locating the 7 continents, 4 oceans, and 4 hemispheres on a globe and world map.
Social Studies
Math Unit 1
Math Power
Student Reference Books
Marvelous Math Partners
Writing
Writer's Notebooks
We learned that our Writer’s Notebooks are very special notebooks which will help us to “Live our Lives Like Writers” this year.
Our first entry in our notebooks is a list of phrases to describe our unique selves. Each child designed and published a Rainbow poem with the six phrases. Most importantly, we learned how to “publish with pride” and how good it feels to produce our very best work.
We are writing sophisticated sentences, using details to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our thinking. We are striving to remember to use capitals and periods.
We are in the midst of our first spelling list, short vowel sounds.
Heart Maps
The children have been introduced to good writing habits as we build our classroom writing community. Through one of my favorite read alouds for teaching writing, The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli, the children learned that the best stories come from the heart, hence the heart maps! Thank you for helping the students brainstorm the best stories for their heart maps. We are taking those topics, creating heart maps, and planting them in our writer’s notebooks. Throughout the year, some of these topics will be published into “the best stories”.
Building Classroom Community: Sharing Bag-Its
Bag-It Presentations
What a wonderful way for us to get to know each other well! The children were so attentive as they shared their bag-its with the class.
Bag-It Gallery Walk
We created a Bag-It Museum and had a lovely Gallery Walk.
Bag-It Compliment Circle
Quiz Me Questions
1. What is your favorite Back to School Book (Recess Queen, Officer Buckle, First Day Jitters)?
2. What is your street address? Practice writing your address.
3. How can you be a Real Reader? How do you pick a just right book?
4. Tell me 5 names for the number 36.
Reminders
The Book Fair (Sir Read A Lot's Castle) is next week.
*Tuesday, September 30: Class buying time during school
*Monday, September 29 & Tuesday, September 30: Family Evening Hours 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 29: Pumpkin Patch Trip (details in next week's Thursday Folder)
Friday, October 31: Halloween Parade in a.m. & Class Party in p.m.