December Happenings

Classroom Updates

We have been working really hard in Room 102. What have we been up to, you ask?  We have enjoyed some great read alouds.  

We all fell in love with Mr. Mosely!

We followed Nicholas' journey from Stockbridge to West Tisbury and looked at a Massachusetts map to chart his travels! 

Natalie and Zoe are sixth graders looking to publish a book. 

I love read alouds. I am a strong proponent of children being read to and enjoying good literature. This class LOVES read alouds as well. They are eager to find out what happens next in each story we have read. Some have checked these books out the library to read ahead (the little cheaters!) and others are rereading some of these books on their own. One of my students went to Park Street Books and bought the next book in the Nicholas series.  And that, is really why I love read alouds. It inspires readers!  

Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood...

Our class discussed what we know or remember about the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. They knew different versions, but we agreed that the skeleton or frame of the story is the same. A young girl is heading to Grandma's. Mom warns her NOT to talk to strangers. In the midst of her journey she encounters a wolf who asks her where she is headed. Lo and behold, the wolf beats her to Granny's, eats Granny up, and disguises himself as Granny. There are some words like "My what big... you have". Then Little Red is eaten too. They are saved by the huntsman in the woods and they all live happily ever after. 

Well, we read some other versions of LRRH as we started calling her. Our first one was Lon Po Po, a Chinese version of the tale by Ed Young. It is very different as there are three young girl who stay at home while mother goes off to visit the grandmother, or in Chinese, their Po Po. Ask your child about the many different versions we read. We charted them and compared the similarities and differences. In many of them the hero or the heroine of the story is the Grandmother or even LRRH herself. 

Reading Strategies
We have been working on a variety of reading strategies. In my mini lessons, I always talk about what "good reader" do. Good readers read in a conversational tone with expression. Good readers stop when they lose meaning. Good readers make predictions. You get my meaning. We have been working with inference, predicting, and main idea.  We read our Scholastic News articles and found the MAIN idea and SUPPORTING DETAILS.  We recently met the FAB FOUR. They are our new friends that are helping us with our reading and thinking. 

Madam the Powerful Predictor

Sammy the Super Summarizer

Quincy the Quizzical Questioner

Clara the Careful Clarifier

Our friends remind us to STOP and THINK about our reading. Madam reminds us to use clues from the text or illustrations to predict what will happen next. Quincy reminds us to ask questions as we read. Clara helps us clarify tricky words or ideas. Sammy reminds us to use our own words to tell about the story using key details from the text. They are coming in handy in our independent reading. 



MATH 

We are moving right along with our multiplication facts and strategies as well. We are currently working on AREA. Students are looking at finding the area of regular shapes and irregular shapes. Last week we designed our own SPORTS COMPLEX and found the area of the space.

Caroline's Sports Complex... called Sports Mania!

This week we are making area robots. 

Each week we also work on reviewing other math concepts. We have worked on telling time, addition and subtraction with regrouping, and word problems. We are also discussing strategies we use when doing mental math. 

WRITING

How will you start your story?

We have finished up our unit on narrative writing. We worked on starting our story with an interesting LEAD.  That might mean starting with dialogue or an action. We talked about slowing down and telling our story BIT by BIT with focus on the most important part, or the heart of our story. Students worked on editing their work alone and with a partner. It is difficult for third graders to take the time to go BACK and really take another look at their work. 

SCIENCE

You may have noticed we didn't give grades for Science in Term I on our report cards.  As you can all well imagine, our unit on the PILGRIMS takes up an enormous part of our curriculum at the start of the year. Moving forward we will integrate SCIENCE and Social Studies for the remainder of the year.  

We read a book called What Are Scientists? 

And we learned that scientists are every day people and they scientists study EVERYTHING!  What like, you ask?

• cats and cuts
• fire and fog
• magnets
• earthquakes
• fire and smog  (etc.)

Some examples of scientists were: 

• pediatricians
• meteorologists
  
• chemists
• mathematicians
• botanists

But what they ALL have in common is THEY ARE CURIOUS and they ask QUESTIONS.  

We just started our unit on Forces and Motion. We had to do an experiment in which students had to get pennies into a cup without touching the pennies. Teams had to work together to come up with a HYPOTHESIS!  Then they tried their techniques.  

Working in a group is a SKILL.
It requires patience, reasoning and good listening. 

We will learn about Sir Isaac Newton and the three Laws of Motion as we continue. 

So, what else? Hmmmm..

• We have read some poems. We loved the one about homework!

  

  
  

• Taylor got new glasses!
  
• Mrs. Stover said we have lovely singing voices. 
  
• Students were giddy about PE this week! 
• Our ART WORK looks amazing in the art room! 
  
• Chase thought he was going to the orthodontist but really he was getting a dog!

• 

  Her name is Hartley. Can you guess why? 

  One morning, we learned was a PALINDROME is and we had a VERY strange coincidence with Caroline C.'s example of TACO CAT. I was like... "What?"  And then later that same day Bren Bataclan gave us a picture called.... yup, TACO CAT! 
  
• We all giggled when Michael Jackson was called to the office the other day! That then led to a conversation about the KING OF POP and how old he was when he died.  (FYI: The Michael Jackson being paged is a custodian in the Medfield Public Schools.) 
  
• Cursive writing is coming along nicely! 
  
• Our new mural upstairs is completed and has a second grade theme of land forms and butterflies. 
  
• I hope everyone has a wonderful vacation. And if you celebrate one of the many holidays this season... enjoy!