A Sneak Peek at Our Week ...

Literacy Stations:  Beginning Wednesday this week, we will begin literacy stations during a 15 minute section of our mornings.  Usually, students will participate in one station each day.  Students will rotate between the following stations this week:

• Work with Teacher: Each day I will work with a different group of 6, providing guided/strategic small-group reading lessons 
• Independent Work: Students will continue work from the "work with teacher" station
• Book Shopping & Independent Reading: Students will have the opportunity to "book shop" in our classroom library and begin reading their selected texts
• Vocabulary: Students will work on vocabulary maps for content specific S.S. words
• Book Talks:  At this station, students will independently practice writing 1-minute book talks - they will begin sharing these "book-talks" during morning meetings

Writing:  Students will post their second blog comment this week to one of their peer's "My Buddy and Me" posts.  For their second comment, students focused more on elaborating their thinking, and will reflect on how this improved their writing.  Afterwards, students will continue creating journal entries focused on a topic.  Lessons will focus on organization of paragraphs, elaboration of ideas, and using varied sentence structures.  Be sure to check out and comment on your child's blog if you have not done so yet! - Room 210 Students Blogs 

Reading:  We will be continuing with our Self-Monitoring unit.  This week students will  practice monitoring their comprehension noticing when they have "clicks" and "clunks."  They will learn to recognize when and why their comprehension breaks down, and learn different "fix-up" strategies to use to improve comprehension.  

Math:  Unit 1 of Everyday Math was a review unit for students.  One of our main focuses during this unit was having students understand and practice math workshop routines and procedures.  We focused largely on the routines and procedures of math stations, so students understood expectations and could have the most productive math learning experiences possible.  

Now that we will be beginning Unit 2, we will be full-fledged into our differentiated math workshop.  Students will take a pre-assessment Monday and lessons 2.2-2.5 will be instructed this week.  Based on NWEA data, and the Unit 2 pre-assessment, students will be placed in flexible groups to best support their learning needs.  Be sure to check out Unit 2 on the Third Grade website for resources and parent information!

Social Studies:  Students will continue reading about different Native American groups.  This unit has been a great and very effective way to integrate literacy related skills in the content areas!  The four different sets of Native American texts that students are reading vary in reading complexity.  Therefore, students' reading skills are being strengthened because they are each reading texts that are "on their level."  Towards the middle of this week, students will work in collaborative groups composed of students reading about each of the four different tribes.  Students will have the opportunity to draw connections amongst the different Native American groups, more deeply understanding key concepts of the unit.  

Important News & Information

• Please turn in your child's photo-release form as soon as possible!
• Author Steve Cotler will be visiting Skinner North on Tuesday.  Third graders will view a presentation by Cotler in the morning!