Four Day Week

Four days... but BOY were they BUSY! 

Cursive! We started today! 
So exciting! We started cursive writing in class today with the letter "i". Good thing we read Muggie Maggie so we know we need to slant our letters!  

Isabella works on her cursive! 

CHROMEBOOKS! 
Today we went to the computer lab and Mrs. Fromen, our technology specialist, showed us how to log on to our classroom chromebooks!  Each student was given a user name and password so that they can access a launch pad on my blog to get to learning sites. We will begin to use them in class next week! Yippee! 

Davis is logging into the chromebook today! 

Words Their Way

We have begun a new spelling/phonics program called Words Their Way.  Each week students will be given a list of words following a pattern to "study".  We are not testing students on these words in a traditional spelling test way. Instead we are, in fact, taking time to study the pattern and focus on phonics and vocabulary with our list of words. We will do unit assessments as the year progresses. Students will be placed in an instructional group based upon their current spelling needs.  I will share more about this at Parent Night. 

Peter S. writes his words in alphabetical order! 

STEM or STEAM

Each Friday since school has started we have been giving the students a STEM or STEAM challenge. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) or STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) are activities that foster problem solving AND cooperation within a group or partnership. We did our Paper Chain Challenge, Great Marshmallow Challenge, High and Dry Challenge, and today we did a science experiment with Water Drops on a Penny!  Students are enjoying the challenges each week. 

The boys are making predictions and testing them! 

MATH 
Hip, hip ARRAY!  Yes, we are spending time this week working on making and labeling arrays.  When we say that 3 x 1 is the same as 1 x 3, that is NOT entirely true. The product is the same, but the array is different. I explain it like this.  Imagine aliens...

One alien with 3 eyes is VERY different than

 three aliens with 1 eye. 

 The product is the SAME (3) eyes but...
 the picture is very different! 

















Students will continue their work on arrays and repeated addition equations as we continue to delve deeper into multiplication.

This week we also started to move toward a MATH WORKSHOP format in class. We are doing different activities and then transitioning to another. Today we did array cards, playing a game with a partner and doing a math SCOOT (which involved moving around the room solving problems). We did a FAIRLY good job with the transitions. Next week we will work our way up to 4 different activities!  

Math game... find the SUM and multiply by 2!

WOW WALL!
Did you hear about Mrs. Watson's WOW WALL?  I started it this week and there are already a few WOW papers up there!  I put up papers or work that shows excellent effort and understanding! Make sure you are doing your best third grade work. Your paper might be up there next! 

the WOW WALL! 

Reading Workshop
We are doing a great job with using our independent reading time to READ!  This week we also got our Reader's Notebooks! Students will use these notebooks to record the books they are reading in class (similar to the reading log), keep notes on mini-lessons we do in class, and write about their reading! I love the reader's notebooks. This week, we practiced writing our book titles carefully and correctly. Many students are still working on that skill on their nightly reading log. We also did a mini-lesson on what to include when we write about our reading. One lesson was on the difference between writing that shows your THINKING and FLUFF. 

a reader's notebook... 

You can see from the examples we did that there is a BIG difference in the THINKING sentences and the FLUFF sentences. Telling me what page you are on does not require you to THINK about what you are reading. Making a prediction or asking questions about the story or a character shows that you are engaging with and thinking about your book. 

We want to make sure we are writing THINKING sentences!