Hi Parents and Students! We had a fun and busy day today! We had guidance, innovation lab, and book swap, but we managed to get in a bit more. Check out below to find out what we did today and all week...
Phonics/Grammar: We focused on commonly misspelled homophones. We worked to identify their meaning and also use them in sentences correctly. Their/there/they're are the trickiest of all!
Reading and Writing (combined this week): We got our new book club selections and began reading with our partners and independently. We also read a narrative passage and practiced writing a constructed response (summary of "Dog Walking Business"). We looked at sample writing that scored a 0 and a 1, then we wrote summaries striving for the maximum points (2). We worked as a class to score each paper and discussed how to make all of our papers 2's for the Milestone. Later in the week, we read two opinion articles on whether or not video games are good for children. We discussed how to write an opinion paper based on the evidence provided in the articles. We then wrote to practice for the extended response portion of the Milestone. We read several challenging passages and looked at how to answer multiple choice questions and know our answer is correct.
Math: We reviewed telling time to the minute in order to be prepared next week to start our Elapsed Time unit in math. We practiced our math facts. We did a daily review of all of the third grade math topics we've covered so far this year on our math 4-square.
Social Studies: We learned about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his work to improve the nation's economy during a tough time in our history. We discussed The New Deal, his program to employ Americans. We read in our biography books and then completed a graphic organizer to highlight important parts of his life. The students were especially interested to learn that FDR married his cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. There were some interesting discussions to come from that fact...
Class News and Announcements...
Thank you to all who have sent in wipes! YAY...we were able to clean today! We've actually had an entire week with no absences, so I want to keep it that way. If you haven't please send in by next week.
Congratulations to our first Kemp Cougar of the Month; Lauren Ablashi. Lauren's picture is in the hallway across from the cafeteria with a short blurb about why she was chosen as an outstanding Kemp student.
Our next chapter book is going to be The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. Please make sure if your child hasn't done so yet, that they hold off on reading the book. Many of our activities will be involving predictions. You may want to go ahead and buy the book since all of third grade here at Kemp will be reading it.
Lots of graded writing came home today. Please take a minute to go over the comments/rubric with your child. Talking about how to improve writing by looking at a piece is a great way to help your child be successful.
Excessive talking continues to be a bit of an issue for our class. I absolutely LOVE the personality and character of each student, but as a whole, the constant need to say what ever thoughts pop in those heads is a problem that takes away from our learning time. Please continue to have ongoing discussions about times to use the power of speech and times not to.
As stated in my email earlier this week, we had a major breakthrough with writing and I am so proud of the work the kids accomplished. I know preparing for a test is not always the most exciting thing, but I can't tell you how impressed I was with the amazing progress I've seen.
Looking ahead a bit, we will have one week after Spring Break in the classroom on our regular schedule, then testing begins. I believe we will have four days this year. The county is splitting up some of the longer ELA sections, which will help immensely. I'm hoping the students can keep their stamina up and do their very best until the last page of the Milestone.
As we get more exact information on testing sections and dates, I'll share with you.
Mark your calendars for Spring Break; April 3-7
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