Reading
Conferring: Focused and targeted reading instruction with students.
Strategy Group: A small group of students will work on a specific reading skill.
Literature groups: In literature groups, students make predictions, ask questions, share their thinking, and build upon others' ideas. Students may sometimes be assigned roles such as vocabulary expert, summarizer, and note taker.
Readers' Theater: Students practice poems, scripts, and plays to build fluency and expression with their oral reading.
Read Aloud: I will model fluent reading and a love for literature by reading aloud to the class each day.
Independent Reading: This is a twenty-minute block where students read self-selected books. During this time, I may be conferring with readers or modeling how readers stay "in the zone."
Poetry: Students learn about poetry and poetic devices by reading a wide selection. Each week we highlight a new poem in our "Poem of the Week" exploration. The extensive poetry reading ultimately helps students as they begin to write their own pieces.
Writing
Independent writing: After a brief mini-lesson in which I share a book or model a particular strategy, students will resume their writing. At times they may be given an assigned topic, but often they are writing from their own seed ideas. I will end each writing session with an opportunity for writers to share their work and receive feedback.
Poetry: Reading a variety of poems will help us become more skillful poets. Throughout our study of poetry, students will learn the power of word choice and descriptive writing.
Shared writing: Students and teachers also spend time crafting stories together. I will do the actual writing, but as a class, students volunteer ideas and share their creativity for the stories. This process allows children to focus on beginnings, middles, and endings, in addition to word choice and sentence fluency.
Literature responses: Non-fiction books and articles, as well as Junior Great Book stories, will serve as a framework for students to write structured responses.
Science Observation Journals: As scientists we will use our observation journals to record accurate and detailed descriptions of insects, rocks, and other living and non-living specimens.
Cursive: Lower case and capital letters will be practiced in our Handwriting Without Tears Cursive books.aniz
Everyday Math
The series of lessons embedded in Everyday Math spiral and build upon each other. Within each lesson, Beginning, Developing, and Secure skills may be taught. Secure skills are meant to be mastered, while beginning and developing skills are always improving.
Each morning, students start their math lesson with a quick mental math warm-up/reflex. From there, they complete a math message independently or with a partner in preparation for the day's lesson. The math message serves as the hook, or the introduction, to the lesson.
The lesson itself often involves guided practice, teacher modeling, partner work, discussion, and math games. Each student has a Math Journal that he or she will complete on a daily basis. Math Boxes, graphs, and computation exercises within the Journal correspond to the specific lesson.
Home Links will be sent home each night. The purpose of these math homework papers is to provide an opportunity for students to practice new math concepts. They should always be brought back to school the following day.
Math facts: Math fact fluency in addition, subtraction, and multiplication will be practiced in 3rd grade through a variety of different strategies and methods.
Discovery Math: Each Friday students receive a Discovery Math sheet that should be brought back to school the following Friday. This optional extension activity offers children more computation and problem solving opportunities.
Science and Social Studies
Through Inquiry, Observation, Experimentation, and Research, students have the opportunity to explore various key concepts within the following topics. Reading and writing will be incorporated into these units as well.
Geology
Geography
Energy
Biographies
Solar System
Most importantly, students are encouraged to ask questions, wonder, compare, and classify new information.