Weekly Update: September 2-5

We had a great second week of school and I feel like we are finally settling into our routines and schedule.

This week in science, we studied tools that scientists use, different science careers and some famous scientists. When you come in for Parent Information Night on Monday at 6:45, you will be able to view the career trading cards each student designed around a scientific career of their choice.

Practicing our note-taking skills in a small group as we read about famous scientists.

We have moved smoothly into reading and writing workshops with several mini-lessons about reading independently and how to generate writing ideas. We also went for our library orientation and now they are able to check out three items at a time. We will visit the library weekly on Wednesdays, beginning the week of the 15th. This group of kids for the most part really seems to enjoy reading and writing. See the two photos below that I snapped during independent writing time...everyone is focused!

They love to share their writing too! They were thrilled when they got to use their highlighters to highlight their favorite lines of writing to share aloud. It's the little things in life....

In math, we are still working on the 10s and 5s multiplication facts. It is important for them to have quick recall of these facts, so please spend a few minutes a day going over the facts with them. It will have a huge impact! But even more importantly, I want them to understand the relationship between the 10s and 5s facts. Through some hands on work, they have discovered that 5s facts are the halves of 10s facts. For example, if they see a multiplication sentence of 8 X 5, they can think to themselves, "I know that 8 X 10 is 80, so half of that is 40." For many of them, this is quicker than skip counting by 5s eight times. These are big concepts for third graders, but knowing this helps improve their general understanding of the relationship between numbers. Below, you will see just a few of the ways we learned in math this week.

Race to Ten addition game

Practicing with 10s and 5s multiplication dot cards

Friday laptop games! Students played three games to practice their addition and doubling skills.

Problem solving is a big component of our math program. On Friday, I split the class into two groups. While half played laptop review games, I worked with the others on learning the 4-square method of problem solving. Then after 30 minutes, we switched. Splitting into two groups allows me to give more one-on-one attention to those who need some extra help. I was so proud of how well they did! The word problem was a two-step problem (they had to add and multiply) and they easily came up with at least 2 strategies to do this. I saw some great teamwork as students shared their ideas.

Next week will be our first 5 day week this year, so I hope we haven't been too spoiled by these last two 4 day weeks. I hope to see you all at Parent Information Night on Monday at 6:30. I will have a sign-up list for fall conferences there. If you are not able to attend, I will email you a list of available conference times. Have a great weekend!