CC-3 Updates!

Chex Mix
Our Chex Mix making was a huge success.  As I write this blog post Friday morning, I'm excited about the sale!  A tremendous THANK YOU to all the families that donated supplies.  We made 18 double batches of mix, that is 432 cups of mix!  We had wonderful help from Tracy Phillips, Dave Christy and Monique Trepanier when it came to baking and bagging!  Students truly understood how their kindness will make a difference for Central Vermont children.

Dusting for Prints!
This week we've been finishing up our mystery unit.  On Wednesday, we did an exploration that involved using cocoa powder to dust for fingerprints.  Many of our students were very successful in seeing prints appear after dusting.  Please ask your child what he/she thought of in regard to this event.  We may have some future forensic scientists in our midst!  A positive outcome of this event was the fact our classroom smelled like a chocolate factory!

Mrs. Christy demonstrated the "dusting" process.

Literacy
This week we've working on reading skills associated with reading and sharing nonfiction text. Students learned a discussion protocol, called GoGoMo.  They did a great job reading an information book, deciding on key ideas, and then sharing their ideas with others.  Please ask your child to explain how GoGoMo works, it's a lot of fun!

In writing, we've been working on sentence structure, punctuation and neatness in our written work. Students have been improving their ability to write with complete sentences, making sure they have a subject and predicate.  We've been creating "lap book" resource guides for parts of speech.  So far we've added complete and fragmented sentences, common and proper nouns and plurals.  We'll be adding work with verbs and adjectives in the near future.

After break we'll be really concentrating on our informational writing unit.  This week students reviewed their pre-assessments and we talked about setting goals for this next unit.  Many students shared the fact that spelling and punctuation are key goals for them to work on.  As we tackle this next unit, students will be writing about something they are "experts" about.  It would be a great help if you could talk to your child and promote their thinking about what he/she truly knows a great deal about.  The possibilities are endless from raising puppies, to camping, sports, travel, collections they may have, a favorite activity, vacation spot, etc.  This is always a really fun unit to teach and students make amazing writing gains.

Upcoming

• Monday 12/19 -Gifts for Giving-Students need to bring a bag or box to transport their gifts in.
• Friday 12/23-K-3 Music concert at 1:45 p.m. in the EMES gym.  Students need to remember they will be playing their recorders.
• Friday 12/23-Classroom Celebration right after the concert.  If you'd like to join us, you are welcome to!  Please let us know if you'd like to send in a goodie to share!

Have a great weekend, stay warm!  We anticipate a VERY BUSY week next week, so we'll send our best wishes for a wonderful holiday week today!  ENJOY the break with your kids!

Christine & Kathy

Holiday Celebration

Next week will mark the end of 2016!  On Friday, the 23rd, students will have a concert in the gym beginning at 1:45p.m..  3rd graders will be playing their recorders.

We thought it would be nice to have a small class celebration after the concert.  We'd love for you to join us!  If you'd be willing to bring in a goodie to share it would be appreciated.  It will be a low key even,t to send us off for a great vacation.  If you are willing to bring something in, please email us so that we know what we will have and/or need.  Thanks so much, please let us know if you have any questions!
Christine and Kathy

Wednesday, December 7th

December Book Orders

December book orders are due tomorrow.  I will be submitting the paper and online orders tomorrow after school so they arrive before vacation.

Basketball Season Is Upon Us!

New or changing sports schedules can be confusing for students and teachers.  It is a tremendous help to us, and the front office if you send in notes when your son/daughter needs to stay after school for an event or practice.  Thank you!

Chex Mix

We are collecting donations for our Chex Mix sale until Wednesday, December 14th. We are making and mixing on Thursday, and will be selling it on Friday. We can use a couple of parent volunteers to help bake and bag the mix beginning at 1:45 p.m. Thursday, the 15th.  If you can help please let us know!  cchristiano@u32.org and kchristy@u32.org.

Following is a list of types of cereals, etc. we can use:

Wheat Chex                 Goldfish style crackers

Corn Chex              Cheez-it style crackers             Mini melba toast

Rice Chex              Cheerios (no honey-nut) 

                   

Small Pretzels-check labels to make sure they are from a peanut-free facility
* We have all the spices, bags, etc. that are necessary.*

            

The 2nd and 3rd grade classes will be having their annual Chex Mix Sale on Friday, December, 16th.  Bags of Chex Mix will cost $1.00.  All proceeds will benefit THE SANTA PROJECT.  This important Central Vermont project, sponsored by THE WORLD newspaper, buys new winter clothing for Central Vermont children in need.  Thank you for supporting this great cause!

Next Week's Sharing

Next week students will be sharing information books. Students have been taught how to fill out the forms to accompany their sharing.  Students are welcome to borrow information books from our classroom library, EMES library or share one from home.  Here is the link for the form: December Information Book Sharing. Mrs. Christy is happy to help any students who need more support with this assignment.

Important Events and Dates

Happy December!  It is hard to understand just how quickly a year flies by!  Here are some important dates and deadlines to keep in mind.

Sharing~  Here is the link to our Sharing Calendar for December. Today we made sure that student's had a hard copy of the handout that needs to be completed for their informational book sharing, for the week of December 12-16. In literacy class we went over the example and talked about information books that are available for students to borrow from class.  All students put the paper in their backpacks.

Chex Mix Benefit~ We're really starting to collect Chex Mix supplies!  Please check our blog entry post for Chex Mix Kindness Project for items that we could use as donations.  Donations need to be here by Wednesday, December 14th.  


Book Orders~ The last day for December book orders is Thursday, December 8th.

Food Drive~ The EMES Student Leadership Team is sponsoring a Food Drive to help the EM Fire Department create holiday food boxes for East Montpelier families.  Any donations of canned goods are appreciated! The drive ends Friday, December 16, 2016.

Winter Concert~ The EMES Winter Concert will be held on Friday, December 23rd at 1:45 p.m.

Thank you!  Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!
Christine & Kathy

Winter Gear and Storage!

Hi Families,
Well, it looks like winter weather is truly here!  Today we were trying to help students hang up everything in their lockers/cubbies after recess.  There is one locker available per student for storing all their gear! Organization is always a bit tricky, but we're up to the challenge!

Basically, your child needs:  one pair of boots, one pair of snowpants, one jacket, a warm hat and mittens/gloves as well as indoor shoes for each day.  Extra socks or pants can be helpful for really wet days. If you can help your child decide what he/she really needs here at EMES, that would be great as some kids had multiple boots, shoes, etc. that there is just not space for.  We know this transition to winter always takes a bit of time for all of us, but any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!

In other news, we are always grateful that many families think of teachers around the holidays with thoughtful gifts, this is certainly not expected nor necessary.  We truly appreciate kind gestures. However, in conjunction with our year long theme of kindness, if you were thinking of a teacher gift, we would like to request a different option.  If you'd like to donate to our Chex Mix project in lieu of teacher gifts that would be a wonderful gesture and one we'd greatly appreciate.

We wish all of  our students and their families a wonderful Thanksgiving break! We hope you'll be able to spend it with family and friends, safe travels to those of you who will be venturing away from home.

December Kindness Project Preparation!

CHEX MIX KINDNESS PROJECT

Second and Third Grade Community Service Project

For many years the students in our classes have completed a community service project during the holidays.  The project is THE WORLD newspaper’s “SANTA PROJECT”.  This project collects money and buys new coats, hats, boots, and mittens for Central Vermont children.  This year, we will once again, make and sell “Chex Mix” as a fundraiser for this project.  We will make the mix on Thursday, December 15th and sell it on Friday, December 16th to students, staff and families of EMES.  The cost will be $1.00 per bag.

In order for this project to be a success we are asking families for donations of mix supplies.  It is truly amazing and fun for the kids to see all the great contributions we receive each year.  We need many, many boxes of cereal; it can be Chex or a generic variety, it doesn’t matter the brand!  We cannot accept any nuts or products that contain any honey-nut ingredients.  Please check ingredients before sending in contributions, pretzels can be especially tricky!  Following is a list of types of cereals, etc. we can use:

• Wheat Chex                              Goldfish style crackers
• Corn chex                                  Cheez-it style crackers
• Rice chex                                  Small pretzels-check labels!
• Cheerios (no honey nut)             Mini melba toast   

                

We will supply the spices, butter and baggies for the project.  Please send in your donations by Wednesday, December 14th so we can plan accordingly.

Thank you for your generosity in this important event.  We know how expensive groceries are, so we really appreciate your help in teaching this important lesson of giving to our students.

Please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail us with any questions!  If you can help bake or bag the mix the afternoon of Thursday,December 15h, please let your child’s teacher know.  THANK YOU!!

Friday Folders...on Monday! Election Day! Tissues Needed! Sharing Review! Gift wrap order?

Mrs. Christy's apology...Friday Folders were all packed and ready to go on Friday, but they spent tht weekend on our counter!  They are making their way home today.

As we all know, tomorrow is a big day in Vermont and the USA.  Election Day has finally arrived! In celebration of this day, students will be able to participate in a mock election here at school. Students will be able to sign in as "registered voters" and vote for both national and state officials.  In the spirit of the election, we invite students to dress in red, white and blue tomorrow if they wish.

Cold  season is definitely here and we've gone through an abundance of boxes of classroom tissues we personally purchased.  If you'd like to send in a box or two of tissues to support our classroom through cold and flu season, they would be greatly appreciated by students. Tender noses appreciate tissues that are a bit softer than what we might acquire here at school.

This afternoon we reviewed sharing for this week.  Students need to choose a book he/she has read and complete the November Book Share-Summary Sheet which is linked.  Students who said they did not have a copy, were given another one to bring home today.

Finally, we have a mystery package of wrapping paper that was  purchased from the PTNO gift wrap sale.  It had our class information on it, but not the name of the student who sold it.  The order contains two rolls of gift wrap.  One roll has snowmen, the other reindeer.  A bottle of very intersing disappearing ink is also in the package.  Please let us know if this order belongs to you and we'll make sure it goes home with your child.

This Week in CC-3

We've had a busy and productive week here in CC-3!  We hope your child shared with you all about our special "Day in the Dark" celebration on Monday.  It was a great day of learning and celebration.  We were so proud of all of our students and their ability to get a lot accomplished as well as have some fun at the same time.  It is crazy to think that the first quarter of the academic year concludes this week!  We've completed a lot of projects recently and are moving on with exciting new units of study.  Below is an academic update.

Kindness Projects
Our kindness projects of the year continue with great success!  This week CC-3 students carried out our Trick-Or-Treat for UNICEF project.  Students collected and counted all the money submitted by EMES students.  We are happy to report that the EMES community donation to UNICEF was a little over $400!  A few donations are still trickling in, we will let you know our grand total soon.  Our students separated all of the coins, counted them, and rolled them.  We were able to get in a lot of practice counting coins this week in math.

Literacy
We've recently concluded our first reading and writing units of the year.  It has been exciting to see students develop wonderful reading and writing habits over the course of the past two months.  Now it's time to set new goals and conquer new heights!

Today, we launched our new reading unit.  It's all about MYSTERIES!  Throughout this unit students will be introduced to the "big" ideas of the mystery genre while working on the important foundational skills of  story elements, predicting, envisioning, retelling, summarizing and analyzing author's craft.  Before you know it, your child will be devouring many popular mystery series!  We will also begin writing more about our reading with the important goal of finding evidence to support ideas and theories.

Please encourage your child to transport books they are reading between home and school.  We want students moving through chapter books.  The best way to do this is to read the same text at home and school.  Remember, your child should be reading independently for a minimum of 20 minutes each night!  We have an easy process for signing out books to borrow in our classroom that all students know.

In writing class, we'll be working on several skills during the next three weeks before we move on to our informational writing unit in early December.  Our skill work will include: spelling instruction, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation and parts of speech.

Math
We have been spending a lot of time on solving word problems that include repeated addition.  Many of these problems have multiple steps to solve.  When given a word problem, students are working on reading the problem and determining what is the important information, what operation(s) to use, what strategy would work best, and labeling their solution.

This week we began to investigate equal groups.  This will lead us into our work with arrays and area. These are all models of multiplication.  Kids are always so excited to learn their multiplication facts.  Well, third grade is their year!


Discovery
As we all know, the election is next Tuesday!  In class we've been learning a bit about the election process.  We continue our study of the United States, its symbols and landmarks.  Students are working in partnerships to research  a specific national symbol or landmark.  They will then share their learning with others.  Teams are working on learning about the following:

• The Bald Eagle
• Liberty Bell
• White House
• The Great Seal
• The American Flag
• Statue of Liberty

Technology Integration
This week we began a new project with Ms. Arlyn.  We'll be using a program on iPads called   as a story retelling tool.  We're working on reading picture books, creating a written summary for the text, building scenes with Legos and inputting it all into the program.  We'll be working on this project for the next several weeks.  It was incredibly exciting to see partnerships go to work this week and demonstrate successful collaboration skills.

We look forward to meeting with families next week for conferences.  We've got a busy Thursday afternoon/evening scheduled as well as Friday appointments.  You should have received both a hard copy (bright orange) confirmation notice as well as an email.  If you do not know when your conference is, please let us know, we'll confirm your time.  We're excited to share your child's progress with you and set new goals for the future. Have a great weekend!

Tidbits

• New book orders are due on Thursday, November 10th.
• Indoor and outdoor shoes are needed each day!
• No school next Friday, November 11th due to Parent Conferences!

Have a great weekend!
Christine and Kathy

Day in the Dark Celebration!

Students have worked hard demonstrating positive behaviors this fall.  Today we celebrated filling our 5th PBIS bucket with a very special "Day in the Dark" celebration.  Please ask your child to tell you about what our classroom looked like and some of the special festivities that took place.  We hope all of our students enjoyed this special celebration!

Reading a Halloween story, and problem solving comprehension questions together.

Reviewing nouns, verbs and adjectives with Halloween Mad Libs!

Rolling dice to create sentences about Halloween characters and creatures!

Math problem solving.

Creating equal groups in math and writing equations with repeated addition.

Teamwork on word puzzles.

Brr and Author's Chair!

Well, the weather has certainly turned and cold air is here!  We're at the point when coming to school with multiple clothing options is essential.  Please make sure your child is well prepared for outdoor recess each day.  Also, leaving a second pair of shoes in lockers is a great idea for all students.  As boot season approaches, having indoor shoes for PE is also necessary.

When the weather turns, we inevitably get requests from students to stay in for recess.  We believe it is essential for all students to get outside and enjoy fresh air each day.  We also do not have any flexibility in our job schedules to accomodate these requests, so please help your child be ready for the outdoors everyday.

Below are some pictures of our "Author's Chair".  This week students are finishing up "polished drafts" of a narrative story they chose to publish.  Each student takes time in the Author's Chair to read aloud his/her piece.  The audience (other classmates) listen carefully, look at our narrative writing checklist, and make positive comments about what the author did well.  This is an important part of our end of unit celebration.  We'll be finishing up our narrative writing unit this week with a post assessment.  We'll be able to share the results of that assessment as well as other writing progress at parent conferences.

Using the microphone helps author's practice using a presenter's voice.

Sharing writing allows students to practice their reading fluency.

It's exciting and rewarding to share a piece that you've worked really hard on!

It's important to review writing checklists so that you can give specific feedback to the author.

Sitting in the "Author's Chair" adds more importance to sharing polished pieces!

Parent Conference Sign-Up

Hi Families,
Just a reminder...please send in the parent conference sign-up choices with your child tomorrow.  We have several scheduled, but would like to get things confirmed and get back to you with your exact time as soon as possible.  Thanks so much!
Kathy & Christine

Important Highlights for the Week!

• Field Trip:  Wednesday, October 19th, we will be traveling by bus to the Barre Opera House this for the play, "Jigsaw Jones".  We will board the bus promptly at 9am.  Please make sure you child arrives at school on time.
• Picture Retake Day:  Thursday, October 20th.  Please let us know if you plan on having your child have their picture redone.  Send in any paperwork needed for this process.  This is also a day to have your son or daughter's picture taken if they were absent/did not have their picture taken on picture day in September.
• Open House:  Thursday, October 20th. Come visit our classroom with your child from 6pm-7pm.  Students will be able to show you what 3rd grade is all about!
• Recorder Forms:  Friday, October 21st. Please return the music forms regarding recorders to Ms. Gelfon by this date.

This Week in CC-3!

We've had a great, busy four day week here in CC-3!  Students have been working on writing short opinion pieces about "assets" they think should exist in East Montpelier Village.  Please ask your child to tell you about his/her asset.  These ideas will be shared at next Thursday's Open House.  We also continue to work on narrative writing and reading skills.

In reading this week, we continued to focus on envisioning and predicting as well as reading fluency. When it comes to reading fluency, we're concentrating on reading accurately with expression that demonstrates an understanding of what is being read.  Fluency is a critical skill to be developed and practiced as students continue to grow as readers.  In class we concentrate on reading in a voice that sounds like a conversation, rather than reading like a robot! Here are a few of the big ideas we're working on:

• When I'm reading, I sound like a storyteller.
• I read with expression, like how it sounds when adults read to me.
• I read at a comfortable pace, one that matches the text I am reading.
• When I read it sounds smooth, like talking.
• I pay attention to punctuation and pause at commas, dashes, and end punctuation.
• I work on changing my voice a bit when a different character is speaking.
• I scoop up words in phrases, smoothing out parts when my reading gets bumpy.
• I go back and reread tricky parts to get it just right.
• I sweep my eyes ahead of the word that I am reading now. I try to scoop up as many words as I can, in a phrase or sentence, using just one breath.

When reading with your child at home, all of the above are great things to encourage and practice!

Sharing

We're seeing a few struggles when it comes to students being prepared for their share day.  Some students do not come ready to present on his/her assigned day.  This causes a backup on the subsequent days. When we have a long list of presenters, it effects our schedule, as well as the quality of sharing.  It is expected and important that your child come ready to share on his or her assigned day.  You can access the sharing calendar to see this information and the week's topic using this link: Sharing Calendar.

It is also important to remember that a component of our listening and speaking skills, is coming prepared (as a presenter) to speak with well thought out pieces of information.  Many children find it helpful to have their 2-3 pieces of information (about their share) written down on a sticky note(s), or on an index card.  In the case of this week, children found it helpful to have bookmarks or notes that marked the dialogue they were going to share with the class.  We hope helping your son or daughter prepare for his or her sharing is a fun activity for your family.  It should not take more than 10 minutes. Your child can even prepare early and bring his or her notes and/or items to school for safe keeping until his or her share day.

If you or your child are unclear about the sharing focus for the week, or need more support for this expectation, please do not hesitate to contact us.  We would be happy to clarify and help.

Next week

• Wednesday-Trip to the Barre Opera House!  Please make sure your child makes it to school on time as we need to start loading the bus at 9:00 a.m.!
• Thursday-EMES Open House 6:00 p.m. All students and families are welcome!  We hope to see you then!
• Reminder that the grass is often wet in the morning now, and the cool air is settling in.  Please remember to send in a second pair of shoes for outside PE and recess so students can have a nice, warm, dry pair of shoes ready for the rest of the day.  It is also that time of year to remember layers, like fall jackets.

Have a great weekend!

Reading Updates & Important Dates

WOW!  It's hard to believe that October is already here and moving along quickly!  We're so proud of how hard our 3rd graders are working.  They have become a great community of learners.

Reading Workshop
We continue to work on reading and writing narrative stories.  In reading workshop, we're currently reading the book Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner as our class read aloud.  Ask your child to tell you about it thus far.  This book is a key anchor text in regard to our work within the "Narrative Reading Learning Progression" for 3rd graders. (A copy of the complete progression is in the booklet we gave out and/or sent home at parent night).  We are currently focused on three parts of the progression-envisioning/predicting, checking comprehension and fluency. These goals are great to review with your child as you read together at home. Here are the goals for third graders in regard to their development in each area.
(Courtesy  © 2015 by Lucy Calkins and Colleagues from the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project from Units of Study for Teaching Reading (Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH)

Envisioning and Predicting
I make a mental movie as I read. I imagine the setting, the characters, the events, and characters’ reactions to them. I predict what the main character will do, say, and think (and how the character will react to things) based on earlier parts of the text. I can explain the reasons for my predictions.

Checking Comprehension~Monitoring for Sense
I expect the story to make sense, and when it does not, I use fix-up strategies such as rereading and asking questions, including the 5 Ws. To regain my grip on the storyline, I recall the sequence of events, often trying to sort through what the main character really wants, the problems he or she confronts, and ways the character rises to those challenges.
(The 5 Ws-Who? What? Where? When? Why?)

Fluency
I can read in my head and aloud in ways that help my listeners and me understand the story (e.g., changing my voice to show dialogue or a character’s feelings). The new work I’m doing now is that I can do this even when I’m reading longer sentences.

In regard to reading at home, we hope that you are encouraging your child to read daily for sustained periods of time.  Reading with and to your child is also terrific! Students have developed excellent reading habits at school and are ready to read many texts for extended periods of time.  This is truly how they will grow as readers!  We welcome students to borrow books to bring home from our extensive classroom library.  We have a simple system for signing the books out.  We are also always happy to help out with book selections. We've been doing some class "Book Buzzing" when we talk about great books that we think other students might enjoy reading.

Important Dates

• Friday, October 7 is a WCSU Teacher Inservice Day~No School for students.
• Monday, October 10 we are all off for the Columbus Day Holiday
• Monday, October 10-Scholastic Book Orders are due.  Online-search for Mrs. Christy's class, the code is DXCXK.
• Wednesday, October 19~Trip to the Barre Opera House-all permission slips are in!  We will be back in time for lunch.
• Thursday, October 20  EMES Open House for students and their families~6:00 p.m.

Friday Folder Items

We put a couple of important items into Friday Folders today, so please be on the lookout for them.  Also, please remember to empty out folders and return them with your child on Monday.  Thanks!

1. A permission slip for our trip to the Barre Opera House on Wednesday, October 19th.  The hot pink form has all the information about the trip.
2. Two Scholastic book orders.  Book orders will be due by Monday, October 10th.  You may order from either flyer or both.  Only one check is necessary, it needs to be made out to SCHOLASTIC. An even easier way to order is online.  Just go to Scholastic and follow the directions for online ordering. Our class online code is DXCXK.  At the site you'll have the opportunity to search for even more books than just the flyers we send home!  Remember, if you order books, our class will earn Bonus Points, and with points we are able to continue to add to our classroom library!  

Classroom Curriculum News

This week marks the completion of our fourth week of third grade.  We've been busy in all academic areas.  Please read on for an update of all curriculum areas.

Math

We have been quite busy these past few weeks.  Students have been reviewing basic addition and subtraction facts to strengthen their fluent recall of them.  We have also been working on reading, writing, and determining values of numbers up to the one hundred thousands place.  In addition to this work, students have been solving addition problems up to the hundred thousands place with and without regrouping (carrying).  Soon, we will be solving subtraction problems with and without regrouping (borrowing).  These math concepts are important foundational skills that students need in third grade prior to our work with multiplication.  

We have also been working on rounding numbers to the nearest decade.  Understanding rounding helps students make estimations before solving calculations.  Estimation is an important skill for students to practice as a way to check their work.  

Sharing

As you may have noticed, the sharing calendar is often made a month or two in advance. There will be times this year when events such as the All School Hike pop up after the calendar is created.  In instances such as this, if your child is supposed to share on the day of the event, he or she can choose to share the day before or the day after the event.  This Friday’s hike is postponed until next Friday, September 30th.  Students scheduled to share next  Friday, can share next Thursday or the following Monday.

Discovery

Each week, the students’ discovery block focuses on science and social studies lessons. We began the year by building our classroom community and learning about a few character traits.  We have focused on perseverance, kindness, and teamwork.  These are three great traits for third graders to have.  

As you know, our class has done a fantastic job demonstrating kindness to each other and to the larger community by raising money to purchase books for a school in Louisiana.

Students tested their perseverance and teamwork this week with a fun activity.  Teams were given an ice cube with a small bead frozen in the center.  The teams were given rules before they could begin to retrieve the bead, such as you cannot bang or chip at the ice, you cannot add hot or cold water to the ice cube, you may not put it in your mouth etc.  Students worked well as teammates, were creative in their approaches, and even when their ice cube did not seem to be shrinking in size, they did not give up.  They definitely exhibited perseverance and teamwork.

Next week, we will be beginning our geography unit with a study of globes, maps, continents, and oceans.  As the unit progresses, we will also investigate our country, concluding with the presidential election in November.

Reading and Writing Workshop

What is reading and writing workshop?  What does it look like in our 3rd grade classroom?

Reading and writing workshop are the the cornerstones of our reading and writing instructional program. This is the time of our day for students to grow as readers and writers.  As students and teachers, we know that readers and writers improve by doing two key things...READING and WRITING! Thankfully, a workshop model provides plenty of time for both! Each workshop session typically lasts between 40-60 minutes. There are 4 component pieces of a workshop session.

• The Mini-Lesson: The teacher provides whole group instruction that actively engages students. (Generally 5-10 minutes)
• Independent Reading or Writing Time-Students work independently or sometimes in small groups with the teacher. During this time students are practicing strategies that have been learned, receiving feedback about their work, working on reading and writing goals.  They read and write! (30-40 minutes)
• Mid-workshop Teaching:  The teacher asks students to pause and reflect on progress, reiterates the goals of the days work, adds a tidbit of information to student work. (1-3 minutes)
• Sharing:  Students share within partnerships, small groups or whole class meetings to share out key learning, accomplishments or new goals that were established during the workshop time.(5-10 minutes)

Word Study

This year we'll focus on three areas in regard to word study.  First, we'll be working on building vocabulary through read alouds, writing and reading workshop, and discovery.  Second, we'll be focusing on spelling strategies, learning specific things we can do and be aware of to become better spellers.  Third, we'll work in small groups on phonics and direct spelling instruction,  This work will be determined through individual spelling assessments and daily work.

As you can see, third grade is a busy place!  Each and every day is FULL!  We thank you for sending your children to us ready to work hard and make great gains.  We'll continue to give curriculum updates as the year unrolls.  In the meantime, please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. Enjoy your weekend!

Sincerely,

Christine & Kathy

Our Kindness Project and a Few Tidbits!

We've completed another great full week of school here in CC~3.  We're incredibly proud of this wonderful group of students and the learning community we are all becoming. Our routines are now well established and we're making academic progress daily!  Third grade is such an exciting year of growth!

This week we've continued to develop our community by focusing on the ideas of perserverance and kindness.  One way we've done this is to read great books that have been wonderful for discussion.  In regard to kindness, two picture book highlights of this week included:  Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson and The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig.(Mrs. Lyford came and read this one to us, and left it in our classroom library as a gift!) We have also just started a new chapter book about kindness, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  

Please ask your child about these books, it's a great opportunity for them to retell the stories to you!

We've also been practicing small acts of kindness. These include actions such as giving a peer a genuine compliment, holding the door open for someone, or picking up something off the floor that’s not yours.  Throughout the week, we have also talked about big acts of kindness.  We determined, whether big or small, showing kindness to others makes a lasting impression.

Throughout the rest of September, we have an opportunity to complete a LARGE act of kindness, so as a class we decided to do it!   We are excited to participate in Bear Pond Books and Kellogg Hubbard Library’s book drive.  Our class will be purchasing new books for a school in Louisiana that lost all of their books during summer flooding.

To accomplish our goal, we will be popping popcorn during the afternoon, next Wednesday, September 21st.  Students will help bag the popcorn, and sell it to the EMES community Thursday morning for $0.50 a bag.  Our goal is to sell 100 bags of popcorn.  In anticipation of reaching our goal, students have already chosen the books we would like to purchase for the school in Louisiana.  

If you would like to be part of this great act of kindness, please let Mrs. Christiano and Mrs. Christy know by Tuesday, September 20th. We would appreciate parent volunteers to help pop and bag on Wednesday afternoon.

Tidbits

• Please remember to send in bus notes, as you know we have a shared classroom, so if we don't get notes, it's hard for us to be sure about and coordinate student dismissal plans. You are welcome to email them as well!
• Next Friday, September 23rd, is EMES HIKE DAY! The raindate is Friday, September 30th.
• Don't forget to check the sharing calendar for the "focus of the week", next week's focus is to bring in something about Autumn, as this new season begins on Thursday, September 22nd!