Things are getting rolling here in Mr. Liner's class as we are nearing the conclusion of our second week together as the students and I get to know more about each other, our strengths, our creativity, and everyone's fun personality they bring to the dynamic of the classroom community. They have been resilient with the baseline assessments, showing me all the wonderful things they already know so I can best craft engaging and challenging lessons in each subject. Here is a quick update as to everything going on in class: Reader's Workshop! Here in 3rd grade, we work to strengthen our Reading comprehension tools and strategies as seen in our Reading Toolkit. We have practiced and explored different ways to monitor our comprehension, make text-to-self connections to the thoughts, feelings and experiences of the characters in our books, and envision the story with our "mental movie" as we read. Currently the class has been working within the "C" column of our CIA approach to reading, working to gather information on characters, setting, problems and main events in our stories. Our goal is to form a good "case" in which to retell our story with. We also have created a Paper Ponderings Wall where we put our "I wonder..."'s and questions on sticky notes to help us track our thinking as we read. It has been a great way to connect to our stories but also spark interest in what our classmates are reading. As we begin building our reading lives and working on our independent reading stamina, I am independently assessing each student. These assessments take time and are critical to finding a students' just right reading level to begin the year. Once students have an established level, I encourage them to choose independent reading books that are on level, one level above, or one level below. Dessert books (or books not at their just right level) are important and kids should be dessert reading to explore their interests. There are two times that I expect students to be reading always at their "just right" level: at school during their independent reading time & at home during their reading homework time. Reading Homework: Reading homework will be discussed in class this week and will officially start on Friday. Students are expected to read for 30 minutes each night at home. Some students will read more. Some will struggle with stamina and interest. You can help facilitate this important time by helping your student find books they love. I am working on this in school, as well! If your student's stamina has not reached 30 minutes, break up the time in to two chunks, or, read aloud to your child. Reading higher level books to your student is a great way allow them to read higher books they are interested in and still be successful in their comprehension. At Home: Refer to the 3 reading toolkit strategies we are focusing on as you read at home. Ask your child to describe their characters. Ask them about their "mental movie" they are creating as they read. Ask them if they made a text-to-text, text-to-self, or text-to-world connection. Talk about reading. I'll be sending home more resources for encouraging deep reading at home once student assessment is complete :) | Writer's Workshop We have begun building our writing workshop routines and building writing stamina. We are also realizing that 3rd graders have a TON to write about! We are using strategies that help us to avoid the common "I don't have anything to write about" problem :) Our first unit is working on writing personal narratives. Today we realized that many of us have been writing like reporters! We had fun sharing our "report writing" and game planning strategies for becoming a storyteller. This is a big shift in writing style. Storytellers SHOW rather than TELL their story. We have been reading writing from some of our favorite storytellers to hear what that sounds like. At Home: You can help by practicing oral storytelling with your student. Also, brainstorm some real life small moments that have happened in your family life that could make great writing topics. Math: Place Value and Rounding Our math program, and our national/district math news in general, will be detailed during curriculum night. Our first weeks are about doing quick assessments of 2nd grade skills to find any skill gaps that need to be reviewed or retaught. Our first unit is all about place value and number sense. We have been thinking deeply about what place value means in our base 10 number system, as well as checking out the origin of numbers and even taking a look at other number systems! We have practiced writing numbers in various forms: standard, written, expanded, and place value model form. We also completed a fun Art activity using counting cubes, longs, and flats, which I am excited to hang up around the class! They worked hard and should be proud of their creativity! Rounding: Yesterday we launched into a rounding strategies lesson where I gave 3 different ways to attack rounding: a step by step process, a conceptual explanation, and a fun story. I also introduced a Rounding Rap! It not only was fun, but a great tool to help us remember the order of events in rounding numbers. See if your child remembers the rap and can perform it for you! We have many different math needs in our classrooms. There are times when whole group learning is necessary and valuable to all, and times when grouping is the best model. Mr. Liner and I plan carefully using data and best practices to design math time. On some days you will see us all working together. Other days, each group will be working on their own game or activity matched to their needs. I look forward to a deeper math discussion at curriculum night! Homework: We will not be sending home math homework. However, once our digital math programs are set and running, I will recommend learning time at home using these programs. At Home: Reason with numbers at home. Model real life applications of comparing, contrasting, adding and subraction, and rouding in support of the work we are doing at school. Math becomes deeply meaningful to students when they see the real-world application-especially by their parents! |
Social and Emotional Learning
We have been holding classroom meetings three times weekly. We begin meetings by gathering in a circle and allowing each student opportunity to give a compliment to someone in the room. We are talking about raising the quality of compliments. This could mean complimenting someone other than your best friend, giving more specific compliments, and responding to a compliment by making eye contact and saying "Thank you, _____." Our students are giving fabulous compliments to one another. It is building a positive culture in our classroom and starting our days with a great tone. We have talked about "flipping your lid" and "the brain in the palm of your hand." We have created a Peace Place, which is a safe space for students to cool down. Ask your student about all of this! Positive Discipline (PD) is a huge component of our successful classroom. I look forward to sharing more about the lessons we experience as well as resources that I use which can be used for parenting at home, as well! If you have the chance or desire to attend the PD parenting class series-I highly recommend it! Our staff all agree that PD has changed our teaching, changed our personal lives, and positively impacted our school in a grand way.