It was a great full week in grade three! The students
continued to get to know one another and the classroom routines.
Students focused on the reading strategy of “making personal
connections” in order to improve their comprehension. To start, we read the
story Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt. In this story, a squirrel is
afraid of the unknown so prepares himself against it. In the end, he finds
himself without his preparation kit in the unknown….and learns something very
interesting about himself! After reading the story, students made personal
connections to things they are afraid of or times when they were fully prepared
but things didn’t work out according to plan. Ask your child to share the
personal connection they made to this story. In addition to making personal
connections, we talked about making “text to text” connections after a student
brought in the book How Full is Your Bucket by Tom Rath. The student
brought this particular book in because it reminded him of the other books that
we read throughout the start of the school year.
The grade threes continued to build their writing skills and
stamina during fire writing. They continued to use a variety of strategies
to show their ideas about anything they want, such as lists or sentences. This
week, we focused on what to write about if students felt stuck. We generated a
list of ideas, including a story (fiction or non-fiction), poem, things you like
to do, or songs. Ask your child what they like to write about during fire
writing.
Students worked together in groups of four to find the
numbers to 100 on a sheet of paper where the numbers were spread out. After
their first attempt at finding all the numbers, we met as a group to discuss
the task. Students identified that in order to make this task work, teamwork
was important. They shared ways their teammates helped them. The grade threes
explained specific strategies that their team used in order to be successful. The
grade threes also made some mathematical discoveries during this task. One
student explained that the numbers were organized and another explained that
there was a pattern! After these realizations and discussions, students tried
to find the numbers again and were even more successful. Ask your child to
explain how this task worked in their particular group. Students also continued
to practice their basic facts by playing card games.
A big focus of our week was starting to design logos for our
class name (designerthr33s). These logos will be used on our Twitter and blog.
Students defined a logo as a picture or symbol to represent a company, store,
or group. Before starting their design, we came up with class criteria after
looking at a variety of logos, such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Vans, and Batman.
The students determined that logos should represent their company, pop out, be simple
(without tiny details), unique, and have colour. After all this preparation,
students started their independent logo design! Ask your child what their logo
looks like!
In order to improve their logos, students did a lot of group
work. Group work will be a big part of our year together! To become even better
at group work, we talked about how to invite others into conversations to make
sure everyone is included. The first step is to find someone who is not in a
conversation and say their name. Then the next step is to ask a question (and
we most often provide them with a focus question). This way, that person is
included and has something in particular to talk about. After working on these
conversation skills, a student who was not included in a group the first try
but who was invited in the second try, explained that he felt like the peanut
butter and the person who invited him in was the jam. Together, they made a
great sandwich! Ask your child to explain how to invite someone into a
conversation.
Another important part of group work is giving one another
feedback. Students watched a video showcasing students giving feedback to a
peer. They then explained in their own words that feedback is giving advice to
someone to make their work better. They also decided that to give feedback, you
must look closely with a sharp eye, be kind, be helpful, and be specific. One
student explained that we should have a feedback routine in our classroom that
should start with a compliment and end with something to work on. From this
idea, we determined that our feedback will be in the form of a star and a wish.
Students then gave each other feedback on their logos, tweaked their work, and
got more feedback. They realized that this “feedback loop” is a cycle or
pattern. Ask your child what feedback they gave to someone to make that person’s
work better.
Reminders
-If you have any forms (demographic, apples, or pizza
orders), please send them in ASAP. Pizza forms are due by the end of the day on
Monday.
-The Welcome Back Picnic is on Sept. 19
-Conferences are the evening of Sept. 19 (3:30pm-7:00pm) and
the morning of Sept. 20 (8:00-am-12:00pm). If you haven’t yet booked, please do
so. If you need help, you can email your child’s teacher or contact the office.
Upcoming Dates
Sept 16 –
Pizza Orders Due
Sept 17 – Gr
5/6 Winsport Field trip
Sept 19 –
Welcome Back Picnic
Sept 19 –
Conferences 3:30 – 7:00
Sept 20 –
Conferences 8:00 – 12:00
Sept 27 –
Terry Fox Run
Sept 30 –
Orange Shirt Day/Elder Shirley Residency
