Mrs. Kirchner's 3rd Grade Leaders
January 11, 2016
Leaders in Our Classroom!
Reading Focus
What Is It?
A cause and effect analysis is an attempt to understand why things happen as they do. People in many professions—accident investigators, scientists, historians, doctors, newspaper reporters, automobile mechanics, educators, police detectives—spend considerable effort trying to understand the causes and effects of human behavior and natural phenomena to gain better control over events and over ourselves. If we understand the causes of accidents, wars, and natural disasters, perhaps we can avoid them in the future. If we understand the consequences of our own behavior, perhaps we can modify our behavior in a way that will allow us to lead happier, safer lives.
CauseEffect
Earthquakes
Erosion
Heavy Rain
Poor Drainage
Deforestation
Steep TerrainMudslides
MudslidesFlooding
Property Loss
Injury and Death
(Teacher Vision, 2016).
Why Is It Important?
One of the primary goals of education is to create empowered, analytic thinkers, capable of thinking through complex processes to make important decisions.
Whether students recognize cause-and-effect relationships or not, they are affected by them every day. Students experience them in their own lives, see them occur in the lives of others, read about them in both narrative and expository texts, and are asked to write about them. To be successful, students need to be able to clearly recognize these relationships so that they are able to think analytically in their personal and academic lives. Without the ability to identify these relationships, students are at risk socially and academically. They will not understand actions and consequences or be able to understand or describe phenomena at a deep level. (Teacher Vision, 2016).
Math Focus
Also, we will be beginning division at the end of the week. Please note that it helps (a lot) to know multiplication facts when discussing division.
We are doing a "quick" multilication assessment daily. I am hoping that this will help strengthen their fluency!
Overall, they did a fantastic job on their spiral review this past Friday. There were a lot of simple mistakes, so we discussed double checking our work.
Writing Focus
A few things that we foused on this last week:
1. Writers have to think about their audience. Who are they trying to teach? Are they teaching to a person with little background knowledge on a subject. Or are they trying to teach to an audience that is an expert. These questions are important because it helps us focus on the information we provide in the text.
2. Writers need to conduct research for areas of their books that need more information. Sometimes it is during these times, we discover our misconceptions about a topic, or we learn an idea we had never thought about previously.
Writing and reading are connected, so this has been an exciting journey writing these books! It helps us to be better readers when we have had to look at it from the perspective of the writer.
Next Week's Homework (Week of January 18th)
The homework discussed below will go home this Friday (January 15th), but I thought I should address it now.
Classroom Jobs
Assistant Manager: Johnnie
Line Leader: Alicia
Messenger: Reese
Lunch Count: Kenzie
These students worked exceptionally hard this past week!
Who Is Bringing in Snack?
Tuesday: Kyleigh
Wednesday: Peyton
Thursday: Baylie
Friday: Alicia
Just in case it has been mentioned at home... (Sorry!)....I brought in a Keurig coffee machine, so I told them IF they brought in a cup with a lid and hot chocolate I would allow them to make a beverage during the day. I figured it was only fair that if I got to enjoy a warm drink during a cold day, they should be able to as well!
What is for Lunch?
Tuesday: Chicken Fingers or Salisbury Steak
Wednesday: Macaroni and Cheese with Grilled Franks or Diced Ham
Thursday: BBQ Quesadilla or Hamburger
Friday: Cheese Pizza or Chicken Nuggets
PE
Tuesday, Jan 12, 2016, 09:30 AM
1111 Plott Creek Road, Waynesville, NC, United States
NO SCHOOL
Monday, Jan 18, 2016, 08:00 AM
1111 Plott Creek Road, Waynesville, NC, United States
NO SCHOOL
Tuesday, Jan 19, 2016, 08:00 AM
1111 Plott Creek Road, Waynesville, NC, United States
Mrs. Kirchner's Contact Information
Email: lkirchner@haywood.k12.nc.us
Phone: 828-577-0688