Our second week has been very busy! We have jumped right into academics and are getting settled into our routines. I think the biggest challenge has been transitioning between reading and math since we have a long block of time between specials and lunch. We've been taking a longer brain break in between the two subjects which really helps. Overall, we are off to a great start to the school year! Classroom News and Highlights from this Week: Students had the opportunity to "shop" for books to put in their book boxes. They were so excited to choose books and start reading. I think we have a class full of readers! In math, we learned about place value and practiced adding with base ten blocks. On Friday, students participated in various stations which included using mental math at the Smartboard, writing a 5 digit number in expanded form, playing a game to build larger numbers, and practicing their skills using place value task cards. Math Stations Practicing making numbers and adding with base 10 blocks... Observing Science Tools As part of our science unit, students learned about tools scientist use and had the opportunity to observe some tools. Each group discussed the purpose for each tool and recorded this in their science notebook. Working with our Kindergarten Buddies!!! We met our kindergarten buddies on Friday and everyone was very excited to finally be the older buddy. Each student helped their buddy complete a "Get to Know Your Buddy" booklet. We finished our social contract this week. Students collaborated in groups to answer questions about how we want to be treated in our class. This contract will be signed by each student and used as a reminder all year about how we all agreed to treat each other so that we can make our classroom the best learning environment. There are consequences that we will all agree upon for not following our social contract. The goal is for students to be accountable for their actions and to help each other follow the contract. I'll add a photo of our contract soon. A Look Ahead...September 8-11Writing: Students will learn strategies for generating ideas and use some of their ideas to write personal narratives. Some of the strategies include thinking of a person, place, or object to spark a memory. Also, we'll learn how to narrow the focus by choosing a seed idea.
Reading: This week we will focus on monitoring comprehension including how to stop and jot as well as using fix up strategies, (what to do when you are stuck or stray from the text). We'll also form reading partnerships. Science: We'll begin our unit on Energy this week after learning about science related careers. During this unit students will investigate sound, light, heat/thermal, and mechanical energy. Math: We'll continue with our first unit on place value, rounding, addition & subtraction. We'll learn how to round to the nearest ten and hundred, however, our focus isn't so much on the rules, but rather how and why to use friendly numbers to help with real world math. Be sure to check the class website some time in the next few days. I'll be adding some photos today and tomorrow. Upcoming Events: Friday (9/11)
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November 2019
Mrs. Swyers3rd Grade Teacher |