Mysterious Artifacts Arrive!

Today was an exciting day in 3rd Grade! We received a letter from the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife asking for our help on an important project. The letter arrived with a box of very mysterious artifacts discovered in this area. Today and the rest of the week we will be investigating these artifacts to help Virginia Parks (who wrote the letter) determine what they are, what they are made out of and who might have used them... 

Our 1st chapter book read aloud of the year: Alvin Ho!

Meet Alvin Ho. He is afraid of pretty much everything. Girls, school, substitute teachers, you name it! But, he is NOT afraid of explosives and he loves superheros. He even considers himself to be one. He is about to start second grade and couldn't be more terrified.. Will he be able to overcome some of his fears? Will he EVER speak at school? The answers will be revealed as we make our way through this delightful piece of humorous realistic fiction together... 

Readers' Workshop

Today during readers' workshop we got to use our reader's notebooks for the first time. We will be using these notebooks all year to write down the books we read, the books we want to read and to write response about what we are reading. 

Our Reading Lists are going to help us documents all of the books we read at school. Each child is responsible for writing down the title, author and genre for the book they are reading and rating it as easy, just right or difficult for him or her. In the coming weeks we will be making goals for how many books from each genre we want to read this year. 

Homework for the week of September 15th-19th

Today students were given a two-sided math handout to complete for homework by Friday, September 19th. 

The first page asks students to answer a series of questions about a bar graph showing students' favorite pets (in a fictitious classroom). We have spent some time in class analyzing graphs like this one. I am looking forward to reading students' answers and especially curious to see what they write for their own question about the graph.

Side 2 is a series of addition and subtraction problems. If you have time to ask your child how the problems in #1, 2, and 3 are related, that would be super helpful. The challenge problems at the bottom are optional and students can chose to do none, some or all of these. Thanks for your support! 

Homework for the Week of September 8th

Students are asked to read for 20-30 minutes every night.

On Tuesday they received a paper to fill out about their Homework Spot and helpers for the year. This is due on Friday, September 12th.

Readers' and Writers' Workshop

Readers' Workshop

During Readers' workshop we have been discussing all sorts of strategies to become even better readers including how we chose books, how to pick out a "just right" book, getting to know our classroom library, why we abandon books and how to "buzz" (talk about books). Ms. Shannon has been reading books to the class ("Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Suess, "Applemondo's Dreams" by Patricia Polacco and several stories by Leo Leoni just to name a few) and students have been working on building stamina by reading on their own during D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time every day. 

Writers' Workshop

So far in writers' workshop we have decorated our notebooks and brainstormed different topics to write about. We have been learning about narrative writing and how to generate ideas when you aren't sure what to write about (see below). Today we learned the difference between a watermelon and a seed story. A watermelon story is when we try to summarize a larger event (i.e. "My Summer Vacation" or "My Trip to Florida") where as a seed story is focusing or zooming in on a small moment. We are going to do our best to write seed stories and "zoom in" on all of those juicy details. 

IPad Exploration

Students were assigned IPads today. After we created our list of expectations they had a chance to explore the apps and games already available on them. How lucky we are to have these in our classrooms! 

Homework for the week of Sept 2nd

Students are asked to read at home for 20-30 minutes every night. 

Tuesday: Students were asked to discuss the meaning of their name with their families and write about what they discovered. They were also given a "Welcome to 3rd Grade" packet to share with parents which included all sorts of useful information as well as a few forms (permission slips, volunteer info, etc) to be filled out, signed and returned to Ms. Shannon.

Wednesday: Students are to bring a small souvenir that represents their summer vacation. It can be a picture, a map, a postcard, etc (no toys or video games please). We will be sharing our souvenirs during class meetings this week.

People Glyphs

We have been learning so much about each other the first two days of school! For Math, students made "People Glyphs" to represent what kind of Math Learner they are. A glyph is a simple picture or figure whose features represent information about a subject. I learned a lot from these glyphs, first and foremost being that we have quite a creative and innovative group in third grade. We also learned that the majority of us prefer to work with just one other person and we mostly prefer learning math in the morning or evening.. Night school anyone?