Reading in Interesting Positions

Some of our third graders read in the strangest places! As long as they are reading I'm happy though. My good friend Thierry K. here has been reading up a storm! He has met both reading goals for the past two months of Scoop Up Those Books and really loves reading series books. When asked if he reads for the ice cream reward, he said no... he just really loves to read! How cool is that?!

Coral Reef Food Chain Performance

Our class performed our coral reef food chain play on February 10, 2014. We performed twice that day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. The morning performance was for Pre-K, two third grade classes, a kindergarten class, and a fourth grade class. There were also parents in the room. That means we performed for over 100 people. The class was very nervous but they did a great job. Our visitors said that they learned a lot and we had some great listeners as well.Our afternoon performance wasn't as packed. There was a sixth grade class, the afternoon Pre-K, and some more parents and teachers. Mr. Martel, a supervisor at Montello, said that we reminded him of a lot of science he had forgotten when he taught sixth grade a few years ago. Sadly, Mr. Cliffe and Mrs. Gish couldn't make it. They were very busy in the school that day. Mr. Cliffe did ask if he could watch a special encore performance later on though. We are still waiting on his visit! 

Finding Time Intervals

 

Our class has been practicing telling time since the beginning of the year during our calendar math block of the day. We use an analog clock and we have even explored telling military time. During the last week or so however,we have incorporated time telling lessons into our math workshop and are having a little bit of trouble. Instead of only telling time, students are now also finding time intervals/elapsed time. They need to know the difference between a start and end time of a particular activity. A problem with the math curriculum we're using right now is that it requires students to find the elapsed time in only minutes. As far as I'm concerned, this seems a little extreme when talking about something that lasted for over an hour or two. It is perfectly acceptable for students to label elapsed time in hours and minutes as far as I'm concerned.

In order to continue practicing these skills, you could work with your child at home. Talk about the length of time it takes to make dinner, go to the grocery store, or clean their bedroom. The more practice they get the stronger this skill will be for them. Thank you!

Intro to Expository Writing

Students started new writing pieces this past week. They will be working on expository writing. We will be writing two pieces under this category. The first will be an informational article about something we know a lot about and our second piece will be a research paper that coincides with research on a country for the third grade district Common Core unit. Our first day being exposed to the expository format, students read a nonfiction text with me about Life in a Tide Pool and a third grade sample piece about the ballet. We noted that expository writing is meant to teach you something and that it is full of facts. After working as a whole class, we went to practice finding expository writing/informational articles independently by looking through magazines. Students were very excited to be reading a new resource and asked to keep the magazines for their independent reading later. When we were finished exploring, students came back together to share their findings. They answered two questions: How do you know this was an informational article? What did it teach you while you read it?

100th Post! Happy Holidays!

On the last day of school before our holiday vacation, our class had music. When I picked them up from Mrs. Tripp's class they sang me the most amazing song called We Will Jingle to the tune of We Will Rock You". My favorite part was when Thierry played the air guitar and slid across the floor towards me. My third graders are rocking and they have so much personality. Enjoy the holidays and we will try to post much more frequently this coming half of the school year!

Happy Holidays! 
See you January 2, 2014
Mrs. Derouche

Catching up on Blogging Part 2: Community Debate

At the end of their community unit, students were asked to write persuasively to me about the community that was best to live in. We had learned about rural, urban, and suburban communities using books, videos, and internet resources. We created t-charts listing the pros and cons to living in each neighborhood in preparation for the task. Afterwards, students debated their point with their peers. They were split into debate groups based on the choices they made in their persuasive letters. Below is a video excerpt:

Catching up on Blogging Part 1 : Communities

This past fall we began a social studies unit about the three types of communities. By the end of the unit students would be expected to define rural, suburban, and urban communities as well as compare and contrast them. 

In order to prepare students for this learning, we began by discussing the communities we are all a part of. Students are a part of home/family, school, Lewiston, Maine, and USA communities as well. While discussing these communities, students completed different writing prompts and drawings.

Daily 5: Word Work

Because today is Friday and we have already had our weekly spelling test, our students spent this afternoon's word work practice time using math and social studies content words. We practiced spelling words like digit, addend, sum, property, parentheses, estimate, rural, urban, suburban, and community. It is just as important for us to practice our content words as the sight spelling words each week. We know that word work not only improves our spelling but our reading and writing skills as well. 

The different word work stations we've been practicing are stamping, magnetic letters, white boards, and playdoh with cookie cutter letters.