LITERACY
Last week in literacy we finished off our Dollars and Sense Unit with the story My Rows and Piles of Coins.
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It was a story about a young boy named Saruni who persevered in saving money for a bike, only to be gifted the bike as a reward for his discipline.
The comprehension skill that accompanied this selection was character. We completed a character analysis of Saruni in our interactive notebook.
Tuesday's reading response task had students taking the information from their graphic organizer above, and writing a well-developed paragraph about Saruni's character.
Students are learning how to site evidence in their reading responses, always supporting their ideas with examples from the text. In order to do this effectively, they have to pay close attention to the transitions between their ideas and the evidence. The phrases below will become a natural part of your child's writing this year.
2. I know this because on page ______ it says....
3. In the text, on page ____the author shows us...
4. From my reading, I know that ______
This type of writing is the end goal for third graders when it comes to using evidence. If they are already demonstrating effective use of evidence-based transitions in their responses, the next challenge for them will be to create introduction paragraphs, and conclusion paragraphs to their weekly reading responses. This expectation is above and beyond what 3rd graders are expected to do, but many skilled writers will be ready for this next level writing expectation. Meeting either goal, will take time, and their sophistication will grow over the course of the year.
To support both the reading comprehension goals and the writing in the context of reading goals, we will alternate tasks each Tuesday. One week the students will complete a comprehension test for the story of the week, and the next week the students will be writing a reading response essay.
This creates a nice balance, prepares them for the rigor of the smarter balanced assessments, improves reading comprehension, and employs the authentic use of writing in order to demonstrate their understanding of what they are reading.
During Wednesday's Reader's Workshop, our guest teacher Ms. Mulligan finished our Chapter 2 "character study" of Lucas Cott.
They finished reading Chapter 2 together, while jotting down the 4 types of evidence that "shows" us his character.
Once this step was complete, she got them started on taking the evidence they collected (pre-writing stage) and using it to compose a Character Essay of Lucas Cott, based on evidence from the text.
A NOTE ABOUT READER'S WORKSHOP VOLUNTEERS: If you are interested in volunteering during Reader's Workshop, this is a typical reading task you will be helping students to complete. The focus of reader's workshop will be on these higher level, open-ended tasks, rather than "scripted" direct questioning. The "scripted" direct questioning, will be provided as a tool for discussion purposes in your small groups, but the work the students will be doing will involve more rigorous tasks, and require a greater deal of thought.
On Thursday, Ms. Mulligan had the students read Chapter 3 on their own, and write a summary of the chapter independently.
On Friday, with Chapter 4, I introduced another Reading Comprehension Task to the class - Main Idea and Supporting Details.
To keep things fresh, instead of a web, this time we drew an umbrella to show relationship between a main idea and a detail.
The umbrella, contains the "big idea" from the chapter - what the entire chapter relates to. In this case the title of the chapter was a HUGE clue.
The comprehension skill that accompanied this selection was character. We completed a character analysis of Saruni in our interactive notebook.
EVIDENCE-BASED PHRASES
1. For example, on page _____ it shows....2. I know this because on page ______ it says....
3. In the text, on page ____the author shows us...
4. From my reading, I know that ______
To support both the reading comprehension goals and the writing in the context of reading goals, we will alternate tasks each Tuesday. One week the students will complete a comprehension test for the story of the week, and the next week the students will be writing a reading response essay.
This creates a nice balance, prepares them for the rigor of the smarter balanced assessments, improves reading comprehension, and employs the authentic use of writing in order to demonstrate their understanding of what they are reading.
During Wednesday's Reader's Workshop, our guest teacher Ms. Mulligan finished our Chapter 2 "character study" of Lucas Cott.
A NOTE ABOUT READER'S WORKSHOP VOLUNTEERS: If you are interested in volunteering during Reader's Workshop, this is a typical reading task you will be helping students to complete. The focus of reader's workshop will be on these higher level, open-ended tasks, rather than "scripted" direct questioning. The "scripted" direct questioning, will be provided as a tool for discussion purposes in your small groups, but the work the students will be doing will involve more rigorous tasks, and require a greater deal of thought.
On Thursday, Ms. Mulligan had the students read Chapter 3 on their own, and write a summary of the chapter independently.
For many students, independent reading and writing tasks will be the norm.
On Friday, with Chapter 4, I introduced another Reading Comprehension Task to the class - Main Idea and Supporting Details.
The umbrella, contains the "big idea" from the chapter - what the entire chapter relates to. In this case the title of the chapter was a HUGE clue.
Our main idea was placed in our umbrella, and underneath our umbrella would be a variety of specific details (sentences) from the chapter that relate directly to this main idea.
The chapter was quite long, so we spent the whole session reading aloud, stopping to discuss the plot, vocabulary, and make connections to what we were reading. Tomorrow, we will revisit Chapter 3 with the purpose of locating details that relate to the bet Lucas makes.
We also had fun along the way, identifying details from the chapter that had nothing to do with the main idea. This helps reinforce the difference between supporting details, and unrelated details.
This strategy will be very important for Reader's Workshop volunteers to execute in their small groups. I can't wait for our army of adults to come in and begin this meaningful work with our students.
PLEASE NOTE: This week we will be running "Reader's Workshop" every day. There will be no "big story", spelling test, or grammar skill. We will be utilizing the shorter week to dive deeper into our novel study. We may just finish our Class Clown novel this week, which means we could then begin our leveled groups next week. If so, I will be recruiting volunteers soon!
WRITING
In writer's workshop this week we finalized our 5th strategy for word choice revision strategies.Now that we understood the "parts of speech" we would be focusing on in our writing, it was time to add an element of fun, and engagement, to support the effective use of these revisions.
I then introduced a color code system to help them focus on the various revisions, one at a time.
This week we will complete a series of revision warm-ups to help them practice the stratgies.
This week we will complete a series of revision warm-ups to help them practice the stratgies.
(example from last year)
MATH
In Unit 2 of math, we focused on the various ways to represent larger numbers.
We began by exploring larger numbers using physical mats (hundreds), strips (tens), and units (ones).
Next, I would announce an increase or decrease of that amount, by another number.
They had to listen, build, and record how much the number was changing, and the new total.
Throughout the activity, students had to make many "trades" - one strip for 10 units, or 10 strips for one mat. This hands-on activity will support their conceptual understanding of "carrying" and "borrowing".
The remaining days this week were spent exploring the various strategies and representations for solving double-digit addition word problems.
47 + 59
We began by exploring larger numbers using physical mats (hundreds), strips (tens), and units (ones).
During this activity, I would announce a number, and the students would model it, using the mats, strips, and units.
The remaining days this week were spent exploring the various strategies and representations for solving double-digit addition word problems.
SCIENCE
This week the students and I spent several days learning fun forest facts via the Oregon Forest Resources Institute.
I showed several brief animated videos, aimed at teaching students about some of the following concepts relating to Oregon's Forests.
1. Wood Products
2. Forest Management
3. Clear-cutting
4. Sustainability
5. Forest Fires (How they can be helpful to forests.)
6. Forests and Clean Water
The next couple of days, we went deeper into the concept of forest management - particularly, the area of forest harvest methods.
We watched a few more videos targeting the three different ways we harvest timber in Oregon.
After each video, we took time to:
--> draw a picture of this method
--> write a description of the method
--> describe the benefits of this method.
Sorry, forgot pics!
This week we will shift our focus from Oregon to the Amazon - another geographical area where forests are an important resource and topic of concern.
ART
Friday's art project centered around the Native Oregon Forest Animal that each student selected. The art concept we explored was color gradation.
After introducing the above art vocabulary, and explaining the directions for the project, the students chose the color they wanted to use, and were then seated in groups according to their color choices.
IMPORTANT DATES
October 14 - NO SCHOOL – Teacher In-service
October 18 - Field Trip to Hoyt Arboretum
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