November 20th Update

Can you believe we only have 24 more school days before Christmas Eve? YIKES!

Literacy

On Friday we finished The Trouble With Chickens. The students really enjoyed the novel and I was able to witness some growth in usage of some comprehension strategies! It was great to hear the students making the connections and predictions independently, without me prompting them!

Reading conferences are going well and student reading levels are progressing nicely. Mrs. C and I enjoy this opportunity each day to witness a growth of reading confidence and reading strategy use within the students. 

All of the students in 3C have enjoyed writing in their journals each week! It's nice to see a group of students so eager that they are disappointed when we don't have journal writing. We've continued our focused writing lessons on writing complete sentences and properly organized paragraphs. 

Our Working With Words time is being spent focusing on long and short vowel sounds in addition to looking at r controlled vowels. The students are all doing very well in both our Making Words and Using Words You Know activities!

Numeracy

We have continued our Place Value/Number Sense unit by looking at comparing and ordering numbers. We have discussed the greater than (>) and less than (<) signs. I believe that it is really important that the students understand the meaning of these signs instead of just "having the alligator eat the biggest number." When they are comparing two numbers, they should ask themselves, "does greater than or less than go in the blank to make the sentence true?"

Example:

754 ___ 768

Which statement is true: 

754 is greater than 768 OR 754 is less than 768

754 < 768

Science

We have recently finished up our unit on Rocks and Minerals! The students LOVED it! They will be bringing home their Rocks and Mineral Lapbooks soon!

Social Studies

We are starting our first country study this week! We are going to be learning all about the quality of life in India! 

 

November 6th Update

Life in 3C has been action packed and full of fun activities and learning!

LITERACY

Read Alouds : We have explored the differences between fiction and non fiction books as far as text features, reading approach (With non fiction you can read just the sections that you are interested in, you don't have to read it cover to cover.) We've also started reading our first chapter book, The Trouble with Chickens. During this reading, we are focusing on comprehension strategies. We are asking questions while we read, making predictions and paying attention to the voice because this book is told from two different narrators' perspectives.

Read to Self : Students are strongly encouraged to practice a variety of reading strategies during this 30 minutes of reading each day. I also stress the importance of choosing good fit books for reading. Ideally, students should be able to read most of the words on each page. A good rule of thumb is a book with 5 tricky words on one page is too difficult and would not be considered an independent reading level book.

Word Wall Words: With the past short weeks, we haven't been introducing new word wall words because we don't have enough time to practice them. Instead, we have been focusing on extra Working with Words activities.

Working with Words: We have continued our study on long and short vowel patterns in addition to working with r controlled vowels.

Writing: We have continued our work with paragraph writing and added a focus on proper sentence writing. Students have been working on their Grade Three Slideshows. The writing on each slide must include a title and a short blurb (a minimum of three sentences) describing the event. We have also continued our journal writing a couple of times each week.

NUMERACY

We have finished our patterning unit and started to focus on our new unit, Place Value. Students are exploring numbers to 9 999. We are currently focusing on 5 different ways to write a number:

 - with numerals (567)

 - with words (five hundred sixty seven)

 - with expanded form using numbers only (500 + 60 + 7 = 567)

 - with expanded form using numbers and words (567 = 5 hundreds + 6 tens + 7 ones)

 - with base ten blocks (drawing the simple base ten blocks)

We have also been practicing our basic facts with addition. Students will be able to practice their basic facts in a fun and competitive way using Mathletics. Usernames and passwords will be taped into agendas on Monday. Students have been shown the Mathletics program at school and are welcome to access it at school for free.

SCIENCE

We have been studying rocks and minerals for the past few weeks. The students have been exploring the different properties of different rocks and minerals. The students will have the opportunity to work through various stations and identify the specific properties of some very unique and interesting rock and mineral samples. It is so nice having access to a junior high's science department materials! Students will be learning about the rock cycle and soil in the near future as well.

ART

We have completed a variety of fun and creative art projects! The students are learning about colour and painting techniques. I am hopeful that with some more practice the students will be prepared for a special Christmas painting on a real canvas! I will send home further details closer to the project time. 

I think that's all for this post!

I am going to post some Halloween pictures tomorrow! We sure had a blast at our party!