Room 102 Updates...

I took a hiatus last week from my blog since I spent Saturday at Medfield Day.  I walked with a younger teacher from the Medfield Teachers' booth to Starbucks and stopped to chat with people along the way. She said to me, "At this rate, we'll never get there."  I responded with, "This is what happens when you teach here for 20+ years."

Our Medfield Teachers' Association booth
Our class had 3 lucky winners!
Congrats to Lottie and Eily on winning book baskets and to Owen for winning the Warrior sign!
And to explain FAIRNESS I didn't pick the winners...
it was Mr. Mason from Dale Street who drew the winners! 

My triad- Mr. Kuehl, myself, and Mrs. Sheehan 

Thank you for stopping in with your children to introduce yourselves. It is nice to put parents and students' faces together!  

We finished our first chapter book read aloud, All About Sam.  If you are looking for a book to read together at home, I recommend Attaboy, Sam.  It is a sequel to the book we finished and is filled with more great Sam adventures! 

This is definitely worth a read!

Oh, by the way, our new book is called Jack Plank Tells Tales.  Jack is an out of work pirate looking for a new direction in life.  ASK your 3rd GRADER about the book and the CHARACTER!

In Writing... we celebrated our Writing New Year.  

Happy Writing New Year! 

Just like New Year's Resolutions... we made Writing Resolutions! Some students vowed to write more on a page. Others were going to use more interesting words in their writing.  Others decided they would work on the neatness of their writing.  

We started with writing about a person. Using our lists of people, places, and events will be SURE to have topics to write about when writing time starts.  We talked about building our WRITING STAMINA.  That means writing FAST and FURIOUS during our writing workshop time. 

MATH is going well.  We are working on reviewing concepts taught in Grade 2 and learning about multiplication and division! The other day we worked on SKIP COUNTING.  They didn't know it then, but when they were learning to skip count back in kindergarten, they were learning about multiplication! 

We have been building arrays, using repeated addition, and writing equations to solve multiplication and division problems.  

One way to remind your child about multiplication is that the "X" means "groups of".  So that means that 6 X 5 is equal to 6 groups of 5.  

6 X 5 = 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5

We also worked on writing our own STORY PROBLEMS.  Our lesson reviewed the idea that story problems can be written with 3 sentences.  The first sentence provides a piece of information.  The second sentence provides more information.  The final sentence asks a question.  

Writing their own story problems is a HIGHER LEVEL thinking skill and it isn't always easy.  We will be writing and solving these next week as well. 

SOCIAL STUDIES: 

There were many Native American tribes living
right here in Massachusetts. 

Wampanoags!  Did you love our wetus?  Did you ask questions about what they are?  Students learned that Native Americans, such as the Wampanoag tribe, lived their lives by the seasons.  Spring and summer were spent near the water.  When the fall came, tribes moved away from the water and into the forests.  Everything they needed they took from the land... the homes they built, the food they ate, and the clothes they wore.  But the Native Americans also showed great respect for the land.  They thanked the animals they killed for their lives and celebrated their harvest with song and dance.  

Wetus' frames were made from saplings of trees
and then covered with bark from trees. 

Up next... the PILGRIMS

We discussed what we ALREADY thought
we knew about the Pilgrims.  Our background knowledge
is called our SCHEMA. 

Here are some things we KNEW...

• They came from England.
• They wanted to be able to worship God in their own way.
• They came here on the Mayflower. 
• Someone knew they had another boat that leaked! 
• They came here in 1620.  

Then we started reading... 

The TABLE of CONTENTS in this INFORMATIONAL text is ALL QUESTIONS! 

We read about.... Who were the pilgrims?  Why did they leave England?  Where did they go?

Ask you child to tell you 3 things about the PILGRIMS! 

On Tuesday, we have an interpreter coming from Plimoth Plantation who will ACT as a pilgrim from 1627!  We will learn about the journey on board the Mayflower and what life was like in Plimoth for these early settlers!  

SPELLING

We have had two weeks of spelling.  We have looked at OPEN and CLOSED syllables.  We reviewed what a syllable is.  We listed vowels versus consonants and we spent time CLAPPING out syllables in words.  Some of our friends still need some practice with this.  One activity we did this week was a OPEN or CLOSED syllable sort.  Students were put in pairs to read, clap, divide, and sort the words.  Knowing syllables and listening for sounds in syllables can help students with their everyday spelling.  

Read it! 

Clap it! 

Divide it... and SORT! 

Many students were still working on their address this week. Those who CORRECTLY write their address, will get a congratulatory post card in the mail!

 

Check your mailbox!

We ended our day on Friday with a school wide assembly about being a bucket filler.  Mrs. Johnson, our school psychologist, shared the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? as a reminder to be the best person you can be... at school and at home.  

Finally, thank you for coming to our P.I.N. Night!  It was great to meet all of you.  If you any further questions about third grade, be sure to send me an email.  

That's all for now!  You can click at the top of my blog to follow us! 

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