October 17th, 2013

Post date: Oct 17, 2013 11:12:50 PM

Writing: The students continue to work towards publishing their personal narratives. They have been telling some great stories and look forward to sharing them with you. Our next writing unit will build upon all of the personal narrative strategies that they have been learning so far. I look forward to seeing how much they continue to grow.

Reading: The 3rd graders have been continuing to do a great job during literacy block. They are making wise independent choices, which allows for me to work one on one and in small groups on specific skills and strategies. We spent some of the week observing text features and seeing how they can deepen the meaning of the text. They had some excellent discussions!

Math: We spent a lot of time working on the following skills and concepts:

1. Rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100. Once students became comfortable with this concept they began to see how it can help them check to see if their addition and subtraction sums and differences make sense.

2. Multi-digit addition strategies. The students worked on using a number line as a visual model to help see number patterns and combinations (ex: counts by 10's and then 1's, doubles facts, etc.).

How We Organize Ourselves: The students completed their "3 Branches of Government" challenge. See the "How We Organize Ourselves" link under "Student Work" to view their products with a brief description. Since then we have discussed different types of organizations (ex: Audubon Society, sports leagues, Girl Scouts), how they function, and how they work to solve problems.