Savannah is a hard working super hero. She is respectful, responsible, and safe. Way to go Savannah!
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Today, to help with organizing and putting like information together, students used three different color highlighters on their research notes. First, students chose one color of highlighter to highlight everything in their notes that has to do with sleeping habits of their pets. Then, they chose a different color highlighter for their eating habits and a third color for their social habits. This helps when the students begin to write paragraphs for each topic because they only have to focus on one color at a time and think of a main idea for that one topic. It also helps them so they don't leave any information out from their notes on to their paragraphs. The students are doing great and really concentrating in this heat! In the picture below the left-hand side are research notes and then on the right is part of the flapbook with paragraphs.
On Friday, students had to cut up sentence strips about gerbils and then use clues, like main ideas and transition words, to figure out what order they go in. This led us through a discussion of how they are going to need to write their paragraphs for their Pet Research Flap Book. We highlighted the main idea of the entire section and discussed how each paragraph also had its own main idea. We also discussed and highlighted transition words like first of all, second of all, another, and also. Students will need to make sure to use those in their writing too.
I love this Montague tradition of the graduating seniors walking through our halls. It gives me goosebumps to think that some day I will see these third graders do the same thing as they prepare for their next part of their journey, whether it’s going right into a job, going to MCC, GVSU, U of M, or Purdue. It’s exciting to think of all the growing my current third graders will do over the years. Oh the places they’ll go!
On Monday we reviewed using the table of contents, the index, how to use headings and how to skim a text. We reviewed how to put something into your own words when taking notes from a source. We discussed the graphic organizer that will be used as a grade to see how well students can collect and organize their research. Then students dived into books and pet care sheets from Petco and Petsmart to discover all that they could about their chosen pet.
Tuesday, we looked at the notes from students of previous years. While looking at a scoring rubric, we discussed and decided what each student would get. This helps the students see what their notes need to look like to be successful. We then broke out the chrome books and used kid friendly search engines and websites to discover even more about our pets. Today, students could use all the different sources to try to collect and organize all the information they could. They are doing a great job. Soon, I will post pictures of some of their notes and describe the expectations. Coming home soon is your child's reading data for this year. On the top are the students' reading level. This letter is from their Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), which measures the students' fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. This score is then translated to a guided reading level. Third graders who read at grade level should start the year at an M and end the year at a P. It is my hope that students who are lower or higher than grade level still make a year's growth.
The bottom portion of the reading data is reading fluency. This score comes from DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills). This is an assessment that measures how many words your child can read in a minute of grade level text and be able to retell what he/she has read. Students at the end of third grade should be able to read 100 words in a minute. Although students who are not fluent readers can still comprehend text, they may have difficulty later when the text becomes more complex. Right now, as third graders, I am more concerned with how well they are understanding what they can read, not necessarily how quickly they can read it. Here is an example of what is coming home. Scholastic Book Clubs, the backs of some books, and some libraries have the guided reading levels available to use as a reference. The information on this Reading Data sheet will help this summer in your child selecting books to read so he/she doesn't slide backwards in reading levels. Wow! What a perfect day for Camp Pendalouan! The kids represented Montague Area Public School so well. They should be very proud of themselves. I know I am! I put the pictures into a slide show because I took so many. I was with my morning class all day, but managed to get a few of my afternoon class, too! We started at Pond Study, where the kids found some pond critters. Then we went to lumbering, where kids used a two man saw, a can’t hook, played a balance game, and moved logs. They got to see the tools that we learned about in March. Then it was off to Fur Trading, where they had to travel in search of furs and barter. After that, we played Life in the Woods, which helped us see the impacts things can have in the food Hain. We went to canoeing next! And then we finished with Native American, where students sat in a wigwam, throw a tomahawk, and learn games the children played. What a great day! You may want to do a tick check. There were none spotted, but it still might be a good idea! Thank you for sending your child with a sack lunch and for picking him/her up at school at 5:20! That is greatly appreciated! We started our noun study by reviewing nouns, singular and plural. We went through our poems in our poetry folder and found some. Then we added abstract, concrete, common, proper, singular possessive, and plural possessive nouns. For these, we used our Interactive Grammar Notebooks to practice and discuss them. After practicing them in our writing, pointing them out in our read alouds, and practicing them for morning work, students were ready to show me what they know about nouns by making a Noun Foldable. By looking at the picture below, you can see that we are working on two learning targets. Students had to define each kind of noun and dig through magazines to find two examples of each and label them correctly. We talked about how if you cut out a candy bar, that could be an example of a noun, a singular noun, a common noun, a proper noun (Snickers), or a singular possessive (candy bar's wrapper). It all depends on how the students label their pictures. Sometimes learning is messy!
We kicked off our next writing unit by reading the book I Wanna Iguana. Students then generated a list of pets in their notebooks. We then shared out our lists. Students then picked their top two pets that they would like to research and would want to write a persuasive letter to their parents asking for. Students will have to use information from their research in their persuasive letters.
We then completed a decision tree together to help make a decision. This touches on some economic concepts, like scarcity and opportunity cost. Students then complete a decision tree to help them make a decision. We will be using Chromebooks to do research on Pebble Go and other kid friendly sites. We will also use care sheets from Petsmart and Petco and use books from the library for our research. Student will be organizing their information on a graphic organizer. Hallie was our classroom super hero last week. She is safe, responsible, and respectful, and she did a great job presenting her beautiful poster. Thank you, Hallie!
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Mrs. Ellis's Class
Learning & laughing our way through third grade. Archives
June 2020
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