Classroom News Week of September 22-26 Reading: Students will continue to build their repertoire of reading strategies. I'll model how readers ask good questions, make connections, and visualize. Of course students will have opportunities to practice their strategies with partners and then during independent reading time. We'll read one of my favorite picture books by Chris Van Allsburg called The Stranger. It's the perfect book for showing kiddos how many questions they have once they start thinking about them. Writing: I have seen so much progress already in the students writing. I noticed they are trying to narrow down their topic to write a "seed idea" and they are beginning to add more details. We'll continue to learn about qualities of good writing with mini lessons on show vs. tell, (how to show something with words instead of telling), sequencing stories using exact details, good word choice, and strong leads. Science: The kiddos had a great time working together to devise a plan to make a radiometer spin. We were all so surprised that flashlights shining directly onto the panels in a dark room made them panels spin! Sometime this week, we'll take them outside and see how they react in the sun. We have one more light investigation to conduct and then we'll begin exploring heat/thermal energy. Later in the week students will get to build solar ovens and then test them out! Pictures will be added to the class website soon! Math: This week our focus will be on strategies mathematicians use to solve addition and subtraction problems including using base 10 blocks, a strip diagram, (part, part, whole), partial sums, (breaking numbers apart), using a number line, counting up, and compensation. We'll also begin rounding numbers and estimating. Don't forget this week is Education Go Get It Week! You received a flyer about it in the Thursday folder last week. You can refer to that to see what activities are happening this week for EGGI. Upcoming Events: September 22-26- Education Go Get It Week Tuesday, September 23rd- Picture Day Wednesday, September 24th- Early Release Day Highlights from Week of September 15-19 Students learned that sound is vibration while conducting a sound investigation using cans and salt. The goal was to make the salt move using only sound-that means nothing could touch the large can with salt on top! The kiddos had a great time trying to figure out how to make the right sound to move the salt. Every group was successful. A few groups even discovered how to make the salt bounce right off the can until they had no salt left on top. We learned that writers choose a seed idea to write about, not a big watermelon topic. For instance, a trip to the beach would be a watermelon topic, but catching sand crabs would be a seed idea. What a better way to remember that to observe a watermelon! And of course, everyone wanted to taste it. Look at those happy faces!
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November 2019
Mrs. Swyers3rd Grade Teacher |