What's New in Room 102?

It was great to see so many of you yesterday at Medfield Day! It was a fun day and I saw so many current and former students. Did you get a SMARTIE?  

We just finished Week 3 of the school year. We are really off to a great start and we sure have been busy. 

Reading!  We are learning about our classroom library and we have been making some great CHARTS about how to do our best reading and thinking. This week we charted the differences between FICTION and NONFICTION and made lists of books we thought belonged in each category. 

SCHOLASTIC NEWS: We put Scholastic News under non-fiction on our genre chart.  Each week we will read an issue of Scholastic News. The students will read the articles and we will discuss them together. This week we did a reread of our cover story article. We talked about how REREADING helps us with our vocabulary and our fluency. The online version of the magazine has videos we can watch to gain even more knowledge about the topics. We will discuss non-fiction text features such as maps, vocabulary word boxes, captions, bold print as we read the articles each week. This CLASS SHARED reading experience gives us a chance to talk and discuss something we are ALL reading. 

Yes, we all were intrigued by this fad! 

Students have also been introduced to their BROWSING BOXES where they store books they are reading.  During independent reading, students are encouraged to choose "Just Right" books for reading. We do our best reading and thinking when we read books that interest us and are at the right level for us to read. 

Journals: Twice a week for morning work, we respond in our Response Journals. I ask questions or students share their thoughts on different subjects. Journals are a place to write with our "BEST GUESS" spelling. I don't correct journals. We use them to learn more about each other and work on building our writing stamina. 

Students wrote about where they fell in their family order.  

Read Alouds:  I am a HUGE proponent of class read alouds. I read aloud EVERY DAY. We finished our first chapter book Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary  It is the story of a third grade girl who REFUSES to learn to write in cursive!  Our class can't believe someone wouldn't want to learn cursive. 

We have now reached the middle of our second book All About Sam by Lois Lowry.  The class LOVES this book. It is very funny. We see Sam as a baby, then a toddler, and then a young boy in our story. Sam gets himself into some interesting situations when he doesn't truly understand the meaning of certain words. Ask your child about Frank, Anastasia's fish. 

MULTIPLICATION! Yes, we are learning about multiplication. Students have been doing many activities which ask them to look at "GROUPS OF" items. One game we played was Circles and Stars.  We roll a die to see the number of circles to draw and then roll again to see how many stars to draw inside each circle. Then we write BOTH a repeated addition sentence and a multiplication sentence to solve.

Multiplication is "groups of" things. 

We practiced that again when we did an activity called 
Sea Creature Multiplication. 

PICTURING MULTIPLICATION: We also looked at things in our classroom, drew pictures and wrote a QUESTION about what we were trying to solve. When I have 5 sets of paints, what can I use multiplication to solve?  "HOW MANY PAINTS ARE THERE IN ALL?"

Hadleigh draws sets of paints! 

WRITING! Our writing workshop is off to good start. Students are using their topic ideas to work on narrative stories. We put our writing binders together one afternoon. It includes resources such a Quick Word dictionary, our Topic Lists, and any papers from mini-lessons in class. We start the writing workshop with a mini-lesson each day. Students are learning that writing is hard work. We have to take our time and really THINK about how to tell our story with interesting details. One lesson we did this week was called "Reporter versus Storyteller". 

A reporter would say:  I fell off my bike and cut my knee. 

A storyteller would say:  Suddenly I was hurling over my handlebars. I landed with a thump.  "Owwww," I cried. When I looked down, I saw blood oozing out of my knee. 

See the difference?  Which one is more interesting to read?  

We practiced several sentences together. Here is one we did together. 

Students are encouraged to SHOW what happened and not TELL what happened!  

What else?  Well, we have been doing word sorts, playing PICO FERMI BAGEL, going to our specials, filling out our planners, working on walking QUIETLY in the hallway, and we even had a FIRE DRILL! 

Be sure to check out out Tweets each day!  

Start of the School Year 2017-2018

We just finished Day 2!  

How am I feeling?  

Mrs. Watson! 

We are off to a great start!  This class has been terrific! 

On Day 1 we took care of supplies and getting the "lay of the land". What time is lunch? Where is the bathroom? Do we have homework? When is snack?  Where's my mailbox? 

We read a book called How I Spent My Summer Vacation. In the story, Wallace Bleff tells about his summer in a very imaginative way!  We wrote about our summer vacation... one REAL fact and one IMAGINATIVE event!  

Wallace was kidnapped by cowboys! 

Today we continued on our learning journey!  Students started the morning with response journals. Check out our Tweet!  We learned new things about our classmates. I shared a few things about myself as well. Ask your child to tell you 2 new facts about Mrs. Watson! 

Thursdays are busy with 2 specials!  We enjoyed Spanish with Senora Marinelli!  We also went to the library and had a chance to check out some new books!  

We started Day One of our Reading Workshop today.  We added the first two things to our "Reading is Thinking" chart. 

1. Reading time is for reading ONLY! 
2. Reading time is quiet. 

Tomorrow we will continue with our mini-lessons and independent reading time! 

I read a book today called Charlie's Checklist. Charlie is a young puppy on a farm longing to live in a big city. He makes a list of his criteria or "MUST HAVES" for an owner and he sends it off to the paper. When the applications start rolling in, Charlie learns something about life on the farm. Ask your child about the book!

Charlie longs for big city life! 

This afternoon we played a math game! It was called Knock Out. We played the class versus Mrs. Watson (we each won a round) and then students played with a partner! (See our Tweet!)  After the games ended we talked about number strategies. We also spent some time talking about playing games and winning and losing. As we saw from our class competition, the class won one game and I won one game. It was about LUCK of the roll and not about skill! During the year we will win some and lose some. One of pairs even shook each other's hand at the end!  Great start to our year! 

Talking about SCHOOL...

Remember to ask you child open ended questions about school. 

• "What did your teacher read today?" will get a better answer than "How was your day?"
• What was your special subject today? What did you do/learn?
• Who did you sit with at lunch today?
• I saw you class "Tweet". Tell me about that. 

I hope everyone is enjoying the start to Third Grade!  We have a half day tomorrow!  

Summer Greetings!

April showers bring May flowers! What do Mayflowers bring? (Pilgrims!)

Prior to vacation we really enjoyed Wheelock Reads Week. Our visiting author, Suzy Kline, was amazing. We learned about her "story seed" ideas. Students got their own tiny story seed notebooks so they can write down any story ideas they come across. She uses many things in her own life in her stories. Harry is named after her dad. She gave her fear of heights to Harry and she shared her experience on the Tower of Terror. In her story, she called it the "Drop of Doom"! Even her one -eyed cat was an inspiration for a story. 

We also read at the "beach" that week.  It is so relaxing to listen to ocean waves as you sit reading!  We had 2 Mystery Readers... Mrs. Myers and Ms. Leblanc. So fun!

SCIENCE!  

The scientists in Room 102 have been so BUSY. First off, we had to help Ug and Grock with several problems. We designed a lever, a wheel and axle, a pulley, and an inclined plane!  These are 4 examples of simple machines! 

Students also worked at home to create their own version of a lever... a CATAPULT. Catapults have been around for thousands of years. They were used in feudal times as a way of attacking enemies. The class catapult launching was a HUGE success. All 23 catapults were able to launch a marshmallow. Sienna represented our class just before vacation. Her catapult launched a marshmallow more than 60 feet! A-ma-zing! 

SOCIAL STUDIES

We were lucky to have a visit last week from the Bay Colony Educators. Tim and Carol have been visiting Wheelock School for 25 years talking to third graders about life in colonial times. They dress in period clothing and explain what life was like in Medfield in 1750. It was much different! Work, play, chores, food, clothing, and school... we learned that life in 1750 was not easy. 

Did you know...

• once you lost your first baby tooth, you were considered a grown up?
• if you were left handed, you didn't go to school?
• embarrassment was large part of colonial punishment?
• laws in colonial America were very strict?
• baths were taken only 2 or three times a year? 
• making soap was a job that took all day?
• a man's best feature was his leg?

We are NOW starting to learn about the events that led up to the American Revolution. We learned that a REVOLUTION is when a battle is fought to replace one government with another. The first battles of the revolution were fought right here in Massachusetts! 

Today MAY 4th - we finished CURSIVE WRITING!  All letters have been completed! We will be reviewing and using cursive MORE and MORE. After Math MCAS, we will start taking our spelling tests in cursive! 

READ ALOUDS

This class loves read alouds. They moan and groan each day when I stop reading to head to our specials! We finished A Cricket in Times Square. Several students have picked up other books in the series such as Tucker's Countryside.  We are currently reading Poppy by Avi.  How can you not cheer for this tiny deer mouse?  

Upcoming Dates:

May 8 & 9 th - MCAS (Math) 

May 12th - 1/2 day Professional Development

May 19th - Museum of Science visits Grade 3

May 24th - Family Literacy Night

June 1st - Wheelock Arts Night Agenda

June 14th - Field Day

June 16th - V.I.P. Museum

June 19th - Transition Day

June 20th - 1/2 day... last day of school 

It's Spring!

It's spring!

Many thanks to all of you for meeting with me for conferences. It is nice to share your child's progress and hard work! And they really do work hard!  

MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System)

I shared the work we are doing for MCAS practice at our conference. For the ELA (English Language Arts) section of the test, students read and answer questions based on a variety of texts. The Practice Test we are using is the same format as the test they will take so it will look familiar when they take the test later in April.  As I told the class, they can't "study" for these tests. All I am asking them to do it get a good night sleep, eat breakfast, and try their best. 

MATH

We have completed our unit on addition and subtraction with regrouping. We will continue to practice these skills for the remainder of the year. Our next unit is fractions! 

We started on Friday with a lesson on numerator and denominator. We then played a game called Fraction Five in a Row in which students roll a die and match that digit with either a numerator or denominator of a fraction on their game board. Winners had to complete five fractions in a row. It was a fan favorite. The nice part is that it looked at fractions of a whole, a set, and on a number line. 

                                             

Games are a great way to reinforce skills.  We will continue with this unit for the next few weeks. Our work will look at identifying fractions, comparing fractions, and recognizing equivalent fractions.  

SCIENCE  

Have you heard about Ug and Grock? They're kind of a big deal in Room 102 right now!  They're cavemen and they needed our help. We have to help them solve problems. The first problem we had to help them with was how to get apples from high in the top of a tree. It was a challenge because the tree was too hard to climb because the branches were too high up. 

Caveman problems...

They had a log and rock that they found nearby and the students had to help them find a way to use them. The suggestions went from banging the rock against the tree to catapulting one of the men up into the tree. We then had a suggestion to make a "see saw" with the rock and log to lift one of the men. That was a great idea, but I told them that poor Grock, the smaller one, was afraid of heights. How could they lift Ug (who has more mass) up?  They figured out that moving the rock would help them lift the heavier person.  They found out that they created a lever. It consists of a bar and a fulcrum. It is the first of the six simple machines we will investigate. 

The next day we used what we learned about Ug and Grock's task to manipulate a lever. We used gram weights and replicated the scenario of lifting something with more mass. Students were asked to label the load, force, bar, and fulcrum on their work. 

Ellie, Grace and Cooper experimented with their lever
to lift a 20 gram weight. 

Stay tuned to see what Ug and Grock need help with next!  

ELA (English Language Arts)

We have been reading about the Puritans together as a class. The students are HORRIFIED by the punishments of these early colonists. Poor Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for sharing her own thoughts about religion and God. She and her family (of 14 children) moved to Rhode Island and later to New York. There they were killed by Native Americans, all except one child. 

The Puritans arrived 10 years after the Pilgrims. They were a larger group and had heard of the troubles of the pilgrims, so they were better prepared. John Winthrop, formerly a wealthy lawyer in England, led a group of close to 1,000 men, women and children on 16 ships to America. They first settled in Salem, and later spread out to other areas including Roxbury, Watertown, and Boston.

The Puritans left England for fear of religious persecution. Yet, when they arrived and settled their own colony, they had harsh punishments for those they felt disobeyed their laws. The class was mesmerized when reading about punishments such as the pillory, or branding. The one that got the most reaction was for the poor people whose punishment was to have a hole bored through their tongue! 

We are also spending some time looking at character traits and theme as I present a read aloud. Students have been doing a great job identifying theme in the books we are reading. We recently read Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco and students gave evidence from the text to show themes of courage, teamwork and kindness. This work will continue for the next few weeks as they turn to writing about themes in books we share. 

We have also started our newest daily read aloud A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. Written in 1960, it is the story of a boy, a mouse, a cat, and cricket, and it revolves around a news stand in the subway station of Times Square. We left off on Friday with Tucker Mouse sleeping in Chester Cricket's new pagoda house. He feels like the Emperor of China as he sleep on and under dollar bills. But, wait until students find out what happens on Monday!  

What could be better than this?
Tucker Mouse's idea of heaven!

ELA also includes writing and spelling and cursive. So here is an update on those topics as well. 

We have finished up our NON FICTION writing. Students will read the work of some of their class mates this week and comment on their writing.  

In spelling, students did a good job identifying the correct homophone on our test on Friday. We made a pretty extensive list of homophones earlier in the week. 

We are making our way through the CAPITAL letters in cursive. Students get very excited when we get to THEIR letter. 

Final thoughts...

• Use our Tweets to ask pointed questions about school.
• I saw you were doing science today. What did you learn?
• How's your non-fiction writing looking?
• What was that math game you played?
• Students should be completing homework primarily with independence at this point in the year. 
• Is your child packing their own backpack and snack?  Now might be a good time to start this practice. 
• For those of you looking for book suggestions, try Good Reads as a resource. Or, one of my favorite resources is Jim James at Park Street Books. 

Thanks for reading! 

March is marching by...

Mrs. Stover told me today that she loves my class! That was a very nice compliment. And, I agree, this is a very nice group. 

This is our second week back from vacation in February. Here are some things that have been going on in Room 102. 

We celebrated Read Across America last week with lots of fun events. Our DEFINITION DAY was fun. Our class had some AMAZING words! 
Check out some of the hats we had...

scrumptious X2

G.O.A.T. = Tom Brady!

bearish and cheerful

mythical and calendar

blizzard and French fry

witchery and imagination

fugue and expensive

chlorophyll and ancient majestic

bookworm and migrate

hemisphere and currency

One vocabulary-tastic class! 

They were all so clever! 

We also had CRAZY HAT and SOCKS day to celebrate Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss') actual birthday day. 

Here are some of the hats from our triad! 

We also read a book by Dr. Seuss that was NEW to me. It was called I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. Our task was to decorate our classroom door for a school wide contest based upon our book!   FYI: We won the prize for MOST COLORFUL! 

Back from vacation we started reading a book called Uncle Max's Secret. We started off by using our schema and making predictions about the story. We then read a few pages and STOPPED. We discussed how our thinking that changed and how that might change our predictions. Good readers STOP frequently and think about what they have read.  

Andrew and Caroline write about their thinking! 

This week we read a book called Cactus Hotel. It is about the life of a saguaro cactus. Students were amazed with the slow growth of these giant plants. We also learned why they are "hotels" for many other living creatures. Tomorrow we will take the facts we gathered and turn the in to the CACTI FACTI!  Be sure to check our twitter for pics! 

MATH 

We have been working on addition and subtraction of 3 digit numbers using a variety of strategies. Our mental math number talks have been great in helping us solve larger problems. We have been rounding to the nearest 10 and 100 to estimate sums and differences. 

We also did a lesson recently on ACCURACY!

We reviewed the fact that sometimes problems ask more than ONE question or ask you to EXPLAIN your answer. Many times, students are getting papers back to correct because they didn't answer the question that was asked. Careful work leads to fewer corrections!