We have started our friendly letter study in order to prepare for writing our pen pals. In third grade students are responsible for not only including all the parts of a letter, but they also need to make sure to include commas where appropriate, like in dates, greetings, and closings. The students are excited about having pen pals! To help with the parts of a friendly letter, we made a friendly letter flap book that labels the parts and has examples.
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Cursive looks a little different than how you and I learned it. Your child will be learning to read and write in cursive this year! To say they are excited is an understatement! Each child will have a cursive workbook that we will be using to practice what I have taught. The kids are doing a great job at doing their personal best and concentrating on writing the letters. So far, we have learned the letters c and a.
We had a great discussion of growth mindset. A note is coming home today explaining the difference between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. In our classroom, we want to have a growth mindset, and in life, I want that for my students and my own children. Having a growth mindset is what allows us to challenge ourselves, take risks, make mistakes and learn. I showed this short video clip to the students today. We discussed a poster I have hanging up, and then we worked on a growth mindset book. I encourage you to look at both sides of the note coming home today and have a talk with your child about having a growth mindset. Avoid saying things like, "you are smart." Instead, say "you are a hard worker" or "that took some effort!" Last week we read the book Ishi, which means rock in Japanese. I love this book! It is "simple tips from a solid friend." The pages are made up of photographs of a rock with a face on it. This rock goes through feelings and tips for when you feel that way. It is a great book for children and for adults. After I read the book, students picked out a rock and drew a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other side. We put all of our rocks in a jar, and we will be pulling these out during community circle times to talk about how we feel.
My own kids are a great reminder to me of how exciting and special the first day of school truly is. As an adult, we sometimes forget that little things to us, are huge things to kids. I too was excited. I had trouble sleeping the night before, just like many kids do. It was a wonderful first day. We have a bunch of amazing kids in our class- kids with such manners, personalities, and smiles. Students first colored a super hero mask. It was neat to walk around and hear their different conversations with each other. The students opened their goody bags to reveal items that mean success in our classroom- Laffy Taffy because we are going to laugh a lot, an eraser because we are all going to make mistakes, a book mark because we are going to leave mark and have a spot saved in each other's lives, a book for all the reading journeys we are going to go on, a super hero pencil because we are all heroes, a stretch bracelet because learning takes a little stretching out of our comfort zone, trying new things, and taking risks, Play-Doh because we have to be willing to be flexible and moldable, and smiley face stickers because whether we like it or not, we are stuck together this year, so we might as well smile, and there are going to be times when we need to stick together to get a job done or to get through something. We broke out the play-doh toys and played, got to know each other, and made some very funny sculptures. Next it was time for read aloud with a cupcake treat for the super heroes. We did a team building activity where the kids had to stack six solo cups by only using the string tied to a rubber band. It was so fun to watch the kids work together. There were a lot of laughs as the solo cups went toppling over, but they did it! It is going to be a SUPER year!
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Mrs. Ellis's Class
Learning & laughing our way through third grade. Archives
June 2020
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