We're back in session!

It was a pleasure meeting my newest batch of third graders just a few days ago! 

Thank you for the abundance of supplies! It's amazing how quickly we will go through cleaning supplies and pencils!

 

We were all smiles for our first day photo shoot!

Wednesday's read aloud, First Day Jitters, was a perfect fit for the first day of school. Readers were surprised to learn who that teachers are nervous for the first day of school too!

We began a back-to-school activity--iPad style. In addition to sharing facts about themselves as "apps," goals they have, and hobbies they enjoy, students also guessed my age, favorite food, and the number of years I have taught. I can't wait to read all of the responses!

 

Thursday we started the day with some capitalization editing. 

We continued our morning working with trivia involving the number 3...

What is 3 x 3?
What was the third state to join the union?
What is the third planet from the sun?

We dug into a science bin in our classroom library in search of answers...

Thursday's read aloud was Margaret Wise Brown's The Important Book. We noticed patterns in both Brown's writing and in the illustrator's use of color on alternating pages.

Writers then got to work drafting their own pages in our class version of The Important Book.

In math, students had the opportunity to "show what they know" on a pre-test covering basic operations, counting coins, problem solving, and equal parts. 

This week we will draft a class contract, begin work with place value, and build our reading stamina in Reader's Workshop.

See you in the morning!

Memorial Park Postal Delivers and a Whole Lot More!

We sure were busy this week! It would be a LONG post if I were to include EVERYTHING we learned, tackled, and explored this week. So here are this week's highlights.

Tuesday, students were introduced to their Spelling Tic Tac Toe homework for the week. It is very important that each assignment be on a different piece of paper and each paper begin with a heading. Read the directions to each activity very carefully. Some have a few steps! :)

  

A Back-to-School mad lib activity had students brainstorming verbs, nouns, adjectives, and ordinal numbers. The mad libs sure were funny!

 

Next, writers brainstormed important people, special trips, memories, and hobbies to include in their writer's heart. No one will ever suffer Writer's Block with their writer's hearts neatly stored in their Reader's Workshop/ Writer's Workshop binders!

Topic 1 in math introduces and reviews place value. We started by reviewing ways to represent numbers. We used two-column notes in our math notebook to record the unique ways to represent numbers.

 

For example, 

standard form looks like this: 247

word form looks like this: two hundred forty-seven

expanded form looks like this: 200 + 40 + 7

place value blocks  looks like this:

Here Bryan shows us 2,150 in word form on the big screen.

Charlie changes eight hundred nine to standard form on the big screen.

  

Our mornings always begin with a little housekeeping--passing in homework and notes, making our lunch choice, beginning morning work, and enjoying Breakfast in the Classroom. 

Here Ryan C. works on Daily Reading and a delicious breakfast!

Unit 1 in Grammar has us exploring sentences. Our first focus lesson was called "What is a Sentence?"

Here, Conor follows along as we tackle the "Try it Out" exercise together.

Memorial Park Postal has delivered its first batch of mail to 16 Bakery Lane--that's us!

Here, Candace reads a letter sent from Mrs. Bissonnette!

Third graders composed their first detailed paragraphs of the year this week. After showing off and sharing their All About Me bags and items, writers used a graphic organizer to plan their writing. Our paragraphs began with a topic sentence, included details about the object and its importance, and ended with a concluding sentence explaining why they chose that item.

This week students brainstormed what rules they felt were necessary to have to ensure our classroom stays a happy, safe, productive, and respectful learning community.  After all, it is their classroom. :) No contract is official without signatures!

Throughout the year, students will partner up with their Clock Partners for reading, writing, and math activities. With twelve unique partners, we're sure to learn a lot from each other this year! 

Another writing activity this week was based on our read aloud, The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. On each page, she describes familiar objects like shoes and things found in nature like clouds, daisies, grass, and wind. The first line of each page begins "The most important thing about....." She describes the objects but always ends each page with "But the most important thing about..." repeating the first line. Writers adopted this technique as they wrote their own page in The Important Book about themselves.

 

Friday morning we got crafty in the classroom! Writers decorated the covers of their Writer's Notebooks with family photographs, Little League cards, ticket stubs, stickers, and other fun embellishments. Why decorate them? The personalized touch to our Writer's Notebooks provides us inspiration when we're in need of a new writing spark or idea.

We wrapped up our week with our first trip to the library. Readers were encouraged to use the "five finger rule" as they previewed books. When reading the first page, if students came to a difficult word, they would put one finger up. By the end of the page, if 2 or 3 fingers were up, and the understood what they read, the book was likely a "just right" book for them. Readers also used their new I P.I.C.K. bookmarks as they browsed.

Be sure to check out our Read All About Me posters on display when you stop by Room 16 tomorrow night at 6:30 for Back-to-School night!