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