Updates and Kindness ROCKS!

Welcome back!  We hope all students and families had a great Spring break.  We have eight very busy weeks of the school year left, it's hard to believe we'll be sending this amazing group of kids off to fourth grade before we know it!

This week we've jumped right back into the swing of things.  A highlight of the week was placing our KINDNESS ROCKS in various locations in and around EMES.  We've already had some wonderful feedback from students and staff that the rocks make people smile and think about the important messages students wrote.  Here are a few samples below.  If you and your family have some time, one day soon, it might be fun for you to have your child show you some of the rocks, it's kind of like going on a kindness treasure hunt!

Literacy Updates
We began Book Clubs this week.  Students are working in clubs of 2-5 classmates reading the same book and working on a variety of comprehension skills.  This work includes writing responses to prompts such as:

• Who is the main character in your book? 
• What are your first thoughts about the character so far?  
• What evidence from the text supports your thinking?

Another important piece about Book Clubs is learning skills and strategies about how to have a productive discussion with a group.  We're using a series of discussion prompts to help students become more comfortable with this lifelong skill.  Here are some samples of prompts students are learning.

• I agree/disagree with you because…
• At first I thought________________, but now I’m thinking_____________
• What gave you that idea?
• Can you say more about that?
• I heard you say__________. I’m thinking______________.
• You/the text just said________________.  That’s making me think__________.
• I can connect to your thinking by __________________
• Have you ever thought about this _________________________
• I’m not sure, but maybe….
• I’d like to add on to what _________said,
• This might not be right, but maybe….
• What do you think about…

These prompts can be really helpful in any type of discussion, maybe your family can try some of them out at home! The overall goal is for this kind of discussion to eventually become regular practice without needing the prompts.

Spelling

This week we've been working on vowel suffix endings and how they can change the meaning of words as well as how some base/root words need to be changed to accommodate endings. For example, we've been adding -er, -est to words to compare. We've concentrated on rules of doubling consonants like: red, redder, reddest. Changing y to i and adding es: such as happy, happier, happiest. Dropping the final e: wise, wiser, wisest.

Writing
Students continue writing persuasive speeches. We're concentrated on "directly addressing your audience", writing bold, brave introductions, and conclusions that reflect a "call to action". This work will continue over the next two weeks.

Sharing

Our May Sharing Calendar has been published here and also on our sharing link in the sidebar. We went over the calendar with students today and gave each child a hard copy as well as the "Book Buzz" page that needs to be filled out.  A lesson was taught about how to do the "Book Buzz" and specific examples were given, so students should be all set.  We'd like students to read chapter books that are new to them to complete this assignment.  

Have a great weekend!

Progress Reports, Math and Science Updates

Progress Reports
On Friday, April 14, 2017 your child will be bringing home his/her progress report for the third quarter.  You will find two pages in the envelope.  The first page is one we have created in a larger font that is hopefully an easier to read look at your child's areas of strength and areas of growth.  We designed the form to fit with our overall school goals of reporting "Two stars and a wish" for each child.  Our narratives also support the student lead conferences you attended and ideas we discussed at them.

The second page is the "official" WCSU progress report.  Please make sure to look these over as well. The comments from us are exactly the same, but these reports also include important attendance information and progress notes from Library, Music and PE classes.As always, please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the reports.

Math
Earlier this week Spring arrived!  We even had a couple of days when we could open windows and let that warm air in.  We tried to create a little spring in the building with our garden of multiplication flowers on our bulletin board.  We have discovered strategies for N X N facts up to 10 X 10, and now we are going back and really working on using the strategies we have learned to increase our accuracy and fluency.  The facts we have revisited are:  N X 0, N X 1, N X 2, N X 10, and N X 5. This week we've been focusing on N X 9.  Ask your son or daughter how they can find the products with efficiency.

You will be seeing some timed fact tests coming home.  We will be doing these on a more frequent basis in the fourth quarter and students will be graphing their growth over time.  Students have goals to meet.  Student goals are to accurately completing 48 (or more) addition facts in three minutes, 48 (or more) subtraction facts in three minutes, and 27 (or more) multiplication facts in three minutes.

Science
Our class has had a blast experimenting with magnets.  We have discovered that some items are magnetic and some are not, and it depends on what the object is made of.  One of the materials that students discovered that is attracted to magnets is iron, and we FOUND IT IN CEREAL!  Students were able to pull iron out of Total cereal.  Did you know your body needs iron to help your red blood cells carry oxygen to your body?  We'll be wrapping up our magnet study the week after break.
Our best wishes for a great Spring Break with your kids!
Christine & Kathy

Thank you and updates!

Thank you so much for your attendance at Student Led Conferences on Friday.  Our attendance was 100%!  All of our students were so proud to share their growth as learners.  We were very impressed and proud of them as well!  Below are a few scenes of the day!

In other news...
SBAC Tests:  With a bit of luck, all students should be finished with testing on Friday afternoon.  Any students who have been absent, or have required more time, may need to finish testing next week.  We are proud of the determination, attitude and perseverance students have demonstrated in this process.

April Kindness Project:  We'd like to do our own CC-3 version of the "Rock Kindness Project".  We introduced the project to students on Wednesday to get them thinking about ideas.  Here is a short video Kindness Rock Video link that we showed students you may wish to have a look at.  We're excited to create our own rocks, next Friday, April 14th. So, we're calling all rocks!  If you can be on the lookout for some smoother style rocks about the size depicted in the video and send them in, we'd really appreciate it!

New reading and writing units of study have begun.  This week, we launched two new units!

In reading, we're working on Character Studies.  This unit focuses on getting to know characters in chapter books really, really well.  So well, that we can make predictions about behavior and inferences based upon what we know about characters that are more complex than we've studied in the past.  Students will be encouraged to read as many chapter books as they possibly can in this unit, and often series of books. Book series help students see characters grow and change over time, or be faced with a variety of obstacles and problems through a collection of books. We'll also be concentrating on learning the "story arc" or "story mountain" of how books go.  Students will learn that stories begin with an ascent up the mountain, climax with a conflict, and then descend for a resolution.

In writing, we've begun a unit entitled, Changing the World!  This unit focuses on writing strong opinions in the form of speeches.  Students will be concentrating on building persuasive introductions by stating strong opinions or claims.  Opinions will be backed up with reasons and elaborated with details that support their reasons.  Students will be encouraged to create conclusions that support their opinions and continue to convince readers that action is needed.  This is always a fun unit, as third graders are very, very passionate people!

This writing unit is also tied into this month's sharing.  The week after vacation, students will share an opinion piece about a favorite book. This week, we shared a sample of a piece, and passed out writing paper for this assignment.  This sample can be seen by clicking on our sharing calendar and the direct link to the sample piece on The Little House. It's a great idea for students to be thinking about this now, as vacation should be homework free, if the assignment is done.  Students were given copies of two different organizers they may wish to use while completing this assignment on Wednesday, April 5th.