Welcome To Third Grade. It is going to be an awesome year. We will grow and learn together. Our classroom will be a place where you can experience new things and reach your own personal best. Each day will be a new day to celebrate successes towards your goal. Live, Laugh, Love and Learn

Class List 2010-2011 Ashley Amaral-Gauvin Luis Baez Gabrielle Beaulieu Michael Boucher Alex Burgjohann Carly Carroll Lauren Cedrone Emma Cidade Jordan Cruz Alexander DiMasi Haley Fornuto Kylie Gallow Deirdre Lowell Ava McKaig Asia McLaughlin Quintin Moore Abigail Quinlan Faith Parton Anthony Ricks Jayson Ryan Kaylee Simpson Gregory Slater Andrew Stockford Logan Volatile

Hundred Bee Buck Awards

The following students have received the recognition they deserve for having earned 100+ bees this year for following the Blackrock Rules. They are on the grade 3 Wall of Fame! congratulations to all of them:

Michael

Alex B

Carly

Emma

Jordan

Alex D

Haley

Deirdre

Asia Faith

Anthony

Andrew

Kylie

Our school psychologist friend, Dr. Lou Ruffolo, visited our classroom for 5 weeks to help us with becoming a stronger classroom community and strategies to be successful as part of the larger school community.

week 1- We were introduced to Dr. Lou and the weekly meetings we will have with him. We talked about things that cause us to feel comfortable and uncomfortable.

week 2- We are working on Stop, Talk and Walk signal for uncomfortable behaviors. Ask your child about this important self monitoring strategy.

week 3- Dr. Lou talked about the "Big Six": happy, sad, angry, nervous (worried), surprised, and disgusted. The Big Six are emotions we feel and we need to know how to handle them as they occur.  These feelings are umbrella feelings under which other ones we feel can fall. They are the most frequent. We see them the most. Children were asked to think about classifying these feelings as comfortable and uncomfortable.

week 4-  Dr. Lou reminds us to "listen with our eyes". It means listening and looking. The benefits are an increase in attention and understanding. Misperceptions happen when we don't listen with both our eyes and our ears. 

It is like a pizza he told us. We communicate to ourself in 3 ways:

1.  language or our words

2. how we say our words or our tone and feelings that come across in how we say it

3. our body language

If the pizza is 100%, words is 4 pieces, how we say it is 1 piece and half the pizza or the rest of the pieces is in our body language.  Therefore listening with your eyes and ears is like having the whole pizza. 

week 5-  Today Dr. Lou introduced us to "trigger, thought, feeling, action".

Seth was excited about the snow.   (trigger)

Seth had postitive thoughts.             (thought)

That gave him comfortable feelings.  (feeling)

It led him to having haapy actions preparing for his snow day.  (action)

Our actions are guided by our thoughts and feelings. We have triggers in our daily lives that impact our thoughts. Our actions are not random. They are controlled by our thoughts. The good news: WE CAN CHANGE OUR THOUGHTS TO CHANGE OUR FEELINGS.  Try it sometime and see the result!  We can go from uncomfortable to comfortable by changing our thoughts. Sometimes the things we do to make ourself comfortable are the right things to do and sometimes they are the wrong things to do. 

1. recognize your thoughts

2. use actions to work through the problem or thoughts, not avoid them

Unit 7 begins May 1, 2012. We will review the concepts previously learned this year in the conceptual understanding of multiplication in problem solving and fractions. Please review the linked target map for more detail.

 

The end of the year is quickly approaching. As mentioned at the start, third graders have a target of 24 correct digits in addition and subtraction with regrouping by year's end. SWAT for spring has just completed. Based on those results, you will receive a notice letting you know the status of your child's efforts towards this grade level target. If your child still has not met the target, please have them practice nightly their basic facts. Automaticity with basic facts to 20 enable your student to work quickly applying the fact knowledge to skill work on 2 and 3 digit numbers for addition and subtraction. This work is about automaticity of facts and application of them. PRACTICE IS THE KEY to reaching the target. Web sites used in class and linked here are the way to make it fun and less tedious, but whatever works is what you want to do.

Our new class read aloud is The Lemonade War.  A great link to our Young Entrepreneur unit of study.

Synopsis

Evan Treski is people-smart. He’s good at talking with people, even grownups. His younger sister Jessie, on the other hand, is math-smart—but not especially good at understanding people. She knows that feelings are her weakest subject. With just five days left of summer vacation, Evan and Jessie launch an all-out war to see who can sell the most lemonade before school starts. As the battleground heats up, there really is no telling who will win—and even more important, if their fight will ever end.

Here is a clever blend of humor, math wizardry, and business know-how. As it captures the one-of-a-kind bond between brother and sister, this poignant novel subtly explores how arguments can escalate beyond anyone’s intent.

Our new website for practicing all the strategies is Into the Book.

Try it at home. http://reading.ecb.org/student/index.html

Our Comprehension Focus Strategies to date: locating and recalling details sequencing making connections cause and effect, compare and contrast, summarizing, problem and solution, multiple perspectives/point of view, and character trait analysis.  Our third trimester has begun and students should be reading nightly and completing the trimester book log. Guided reading books for most students were selected through a student choice process. The choices were Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Hundred Dresses, Stone Fox, Alone in the Teacher's House and Skinnybones. Ask your young student which book they selected to read in group. It was very interesting to see their choices. 

 The Importance Of Critical Reading And The Elementary Child Critical reading is the ability to draw useful information from a book. For the most part, kindergarten through second grade focuses more on learning to read and reading for enjoyment. By third grade, however, the importance of critical reading becomes critical. The importance of critical reading becomes more apparent by third grade because this is when kids generally start reading to learn. Chapters are read in science, social studies, and health books. By third grade, your child is expected to read these books and learn new information. This can often be frustrating for children, particularly those who struggle with reading. Therefore, helping your child become a strong critical reader is very important. Emphasizing the Importance of Critical Reading at Home The good news is that you can begin stressing the importance of critical reading with your child. To emphasize the importance of critical reading at home, you should first be a good role model for your child. If she sees you using your reading skills to learn new things or to find information, she is more likely to gain an appreciation for reading and its usefulness. Using think aloud strategies will also help your child realize the importance of critical reading. For example, if you are remodeling your house and you aren't sure how to install new windows, think aloud how you plan to find this information. Tell your child, I need to learn how to put these new windows in. Luckily, I have this book that tells me all about home improvement. I'm going to look for the word windows in the index to find what page I should look on. Then, let your child watch you as you go through this process. After turning to the page, tell your child, See? These pages give me the steps I need for putting in new windows. I'm going to read each step so I can learn how to do this myself. Again, allow your child to watch you engage in this process. There is no better way to demonstrate the importance of critical reading skills than to let your child see you putting those skills to work. Helping Your Child See the Importance of Critical Reading Skills for Himself You can also stress the importance of critical reading skills to your child on a more personal level, too. For example, when your child receives a new toy, don't put it together for him ahead of time. Instead, encourage him to read the directions for its assembly and see if he can put it together himself. Just be sure the directions are clear enough for him to understand. As a parent myself, I know firsthand how difficult some toy assembly directions can be to follow! The importance of critical reading skills can be emphasized to your child in other ways, as well. For example, if your child wants to have a pet of his own, lead him through the process of learning how to take care of the pet. Check books out from the library and find information on the Internet together. In this way, your child is learning the importance of critical reading in a meaningful way that provides him with a reward  a new pet! The importance of critical reading may not become obvious until your child reaches third grade since they may have been focusing so intently on reading the words. Reading to your child and following the think aloud strategy along with the strategies on this message board will go a long way in helping your child read for meaning.

We have begun our unit on Communities. Communities will be a year long unit of study focusing on present and past day communities. Communities of the past will include a living museum experience at Plimoth Plantation and The Mayflower II replica. What a great trip this is. Many of our classroom followup activities will link this experience to what we have learned through our nonfiction reading. Access a few virtual tour videos to relive the day at Plimoth Plantation web site http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/webcast.htm Communities of the present day include our work on citizenship and laws as well as the structure of society. Our study will include an entrepreneur experience where we will immerse ourselves in the world of economics and business.

Young Entrepreneurs has launched. It is our culminating unit to the year long study of community. Students are asked to study community structure through a look at Economics. Students create their own business as a way of learning the principles of economics.

 

Bees That Please Businesses:

Luis- The American Pencil Flags

Abbey- Abbey's Super Duper Lava Lamps

Deirdre- Puzzle Me Pins

Faith- Doodle with The Group

Jayson- Jayson's Amazing Pet Rocks

Gabby- Gabby's Rock Turtles

Alex B.- Baseballs

Quintin- Quintin's Soldier Shop

Jordan- Jordan's Amazing Drawings

Emma- Emma's Store of Slime

Haley- Haley's Lucky Lizards

Lauren- Lauren's Desk Plants

Ava- Blockie Buddies

Ashley-  Flower Power

Alex D. - Alex's Anytime Ornaments

Logan- Lucky Logan's Spin to Win

Greg- Greg's Creative Creations

Mike- The Flight Shop

Anthony- Saving Money

Carly- Carly's School Supplies

Kylie- The Creative Shop

Andrew- Kingdom of Flags

Asia- The Fun Shop

Coming Soon:

Structure of Life- seeds, crayfish and beetles, oh my!

Weeks of May 7 and May 14- Seed Exploration

We will be collecting, observing properties of, examining structure of and growing them in water via our seed sprouters and hydropods. Will we have a green thumb?

 

BIOMES visits grade 3

On Tuesday, BIOMES visited grade 3 to talk about animals in the sea and their structures as part of our living structures unit. We were all very excited and it was a wonderful experience. This was brought to your children from a grant from Target. Below are some reflections from 3 of our students:

Asia: Today Biomes came to third grade and she had a bunch of sea creatures.  One of them was a sea star and it had 5 arms and at the bottom of each arm it had an eye.  I learned that a sea star climbs slowly onto a clam and slowly opens it up and it takes about 5 hours to do that.  That's how they eat clams.  I touched a sea star and it felt rough.  When a sea star looses its arm it can grow back.  Then she showed us the clam and you can tell how old it is by the dark lines on its shell.  The clam can only open its mouth just a bit and if it opens any more the clam will die.  She talked about the puffer fish and when she took the puffer fish out of the water he puffed up and when he was done the puffer fish spit all the water out of his mouth.  The puffer fish puff up with water not air.  the puffer fish we couldn't touch because if you touched it it would bite.  The puffer fish was the slowest fish.  Then she took out the snail and when he feels like he is being eaten he curls up inside his shell and hides.  I hope that my mom and I can go and pet some animals.  I think that was really cool to see all the sea creatures.

 

Emma: Today Biomes came to third grade. I learned all new stuff about the animals that live in the ocean.  Did you know that it takes 5 hours for a starfish to open a clam.  There are a lot of things related to a starfish like sea urchin and brittle sea star.  Did you know that when a spider crab doesn't fit its shell it climbs out and grows a new one.  I touched a snail.  It was slimey.  I got grossed out.  When I saw the horseshoe crab I thought it was a sting ray but then the girl said it was a horseshoe crab.  I had a really fun time seeing all the cool animals. 

 

Anthony: Today Biomes came to third grade. We say Quahog clams, minnow, shail, sea urchin, brittle star fish, seahorse, spider crab, horse shoe crab, puffer fishe and a star fish.  We learned that some fish have an exoskeleton that means when they outgrow their shell or skin, they take it off and have it grow aagain.  We learned that starfish grow back a lost arm and that is called regeneration.  On the bottom of a starfish there are suction cups attached to tube feet.  These help it move but it needs water to move.  The shell of the snail is shaped so weird, it has a tiny hole on the side for the snail.  The quahog has 2 shells, called bivalve.  Sometimes they are closed or open a tiny bit.  That's what BIomes taught me.

During trimester two, students should be working on the following:
1. reading nightly for 15-20 minutes and recording completed books on their trimester book log. The log is due at the end of the trimester. The book project for trimester two will be on nonfiction text. The due date and instructions will be posted by February vacation.
2. practicing flash cards for automaticity of facts in subtraction and addition
3. completing spelling homework weekly and returning the weekly log of their efforts on Fridays

As we wrap up the year, students should be reading their final 8 books and completing the book log. Book logs will be due by June 10 for final credit and the final book tag for their backpack tags of accomplishment collections. The book project for this trimester will be a book in a bag project. The project can be done on any book of their choice from their trimester reading log. Information for this project will be posted before the end of May and sent home with students in class home folders. Book logs can be found here on the web site and will also be included with the project information.

our nightly home component option on www.spellingcity.com

Our newest writing experience is creating our own adventure stories. We enter a theme created room and have 3 adventures while there. Our spring board for this piece was a picture book titled, The Flying Dragon Room. These promise to be loads of fun and our energy for ideas is already evident in the class. 

For some computer fun with poetry, check out Shel Silverstein poetry fun at http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/KidsHome.html students use the writing process to produce a variety of pieces from various genre including poetry, narrative story, personal narrative, expository, and friendly letter.

Writing strategy instruction follows the 6-trait model. Our first traits of focus will be ideas and organization. Ideas make up the content of the piece of writing- the heart of the message. Organization is the structure of the piece, the logical flow of ideas. Both of these traits are where we take the idea and move it along until it is fully developed and unmistakably clear. As we grow as writers we will work on Elaboration with details, Voice, Sentence Structure and Word Choice. Our techniques are zooming in, zooming out, flashback, advancing time, figurative language, slowing down a moment, balancing DAD, creating suspense, magic of three for idea development and detail enhancement, as well as other individualized student -centered techniques delivered via student conferencing.

Our published stories are back. We have fractured a traditional story, The Gingerbread Man by changing our main character, the setting, creating our own rhyme and having 2 chase scenes before composing our ending. Always fun to write, these stories brought out the creativity in our young writers. Students are eager to receive their books and share their stories in small grade level groups during our Young Author celebration, date to be determined once rooms 31 and 33 books are back from the publisher. How Exciting!!

Blackrock Elementary
Diana Lachance