December 2013

December 2013
               HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Have a healthy, relaxing, and fun vacation with your family.

READING:  The students in room 214 have been working hard on reading comprehension.  Our classroom won the Championship Achieve 3000 Belt.  This is awarded to the classroom with the highest percentage on the activity questions for the week.  The students took turns wearing it when they got 100% on their daily article.  Please encourage your child to read every day over the break.  They can access the Achieve website too if they have internet access.  They might even win a prize if their name is selected after reading 4 or more articles and completing the activity questions with 75% accuracy.  Happy Reading!!

MATH:  The 3rd graders are focusing on multiplication strategies.  Please help your child learn & memorize their multiplication facts by practicing with flash cards daily.  There are many math games on the internet too that focus on learning the facts.

Writing:  Our focus has been on informative writing.  The students are almost finished fixing up a piece about something they are an expert on.  They will then be writing about the inquiry topic, Healthy Me, that they have been investigating and researching.  You will be able to see the results of their hard work at the end of January.

The Achieve Belt!

Room 214 earned the Achieve Belt award for
scoring 75% on reading articles and activity questions.


 

Indoor recess can be tons of fun!!

Sometimes we play Scrabble.

We love to play Bingo!

We take turns playing Connect 4.

Chinese Checkers is just 1 game in this game cube.

We are getting very good at putting puzzles together.

We love to draw pictures.

It's also a great time to continue writing in our journals.

Please remember to dress warm because we go out every day except when the temperature drops below 10 degrees.
 

Mummy Wrap!

The November challenge was "The No Contact Challenge" which was to keep our hands and feet to ourselves at all times.  We did a great job especially in the hallways and lining up.  We reduced the referrals going to the office and were rewarded with a Pajama Bingo day complete with prizes. 

The mummy wrap was the bonus reward for turning in the reading minute sheets. 

Our December challenge is to reduce the referrals to the office that occur at recess time.  This is a whole school challenge and includes every recess!   Our goal is to play safe and have fun.  We can do it!!


Pajama Bingo and Mummy Wrap!

Mrs. Koehler was brave enough to get wrapped up like a mummy.

Everyone got a chance to wrap her up.

It's hard to recognize her.

 

Pajama Bingo with our buddies was lots of fun.

 

 

It was fun to see the winners fun by to get their prize in the office.

November

Reading:  We are working on asking questions and reading to find the answers. 
In our guided reading groups we are also reading fiction books and focusing on finding proof within the text to support our answers.  The 3rd graders have begun to use the daily WIN (What I Need) time to focus on reading.  Students have been divided into focus groups for fluency, comprehension, or extension purposes.  Almost everyday the students are using their ipads to read an Achieve article or Raz Kids book.  They are doing an amazing job on increasing their comprehension.

Math: Students have been working on numbers and operations.  The 3rd graders will begin multiplication after Thanksgiving.  Please help your child master their multiplication facts by practicing with flash cards.  The students are using their ipads daily for Dreambox to practice various math skills and concepts.  Dreambox can be accessed at home to practice at night also. 

Writing:  We have begun our informational writing unit.  The students are planning and writing their first piece about a topic they are an expert on.  This unit will be helpful as the students dig deeper into our Healthy Me inquiry unit and prepare for the project they will complete at the end of the unit.

 

 

Reminder:

Thursday, November 21^st 5:30 – 6:30pm

Wilson Web-Based Programs:

Come and learn how to use our different web programs to encourage your child's learning outside of school and to setup an effective at home learning routine. We will cover the basics(Where to go, how to login, what you child should be doing, how this is benefiting them, strategies for helping at home) for the following web programs: Raz-Kids, Achieve3000, TumbleBooks, Dreambox and if there is time Discovery Education.

Week of Oct. 28-Nov. 1

This week is a very important week for the 3rd graders.  They will be taking the WKCE test Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Reading will take place right away in the morning and math will take place after lunch and recess.  The 2nd graders will be helping out in our little buddies' room during these testing times.  Please assist your child in getting plenty of sleep at night, eating a good breakfast, and getting to school on time in order to do their best on these important tests.

Friday will be a day of celebration for all of us!!  Besides being the end of the 1st quarter, it also marks the end of our personal narrative writing adventure.  The students will be able to share their writing pieces with other students and enjoy the praise and acknowledgements for all their hard work!  We will also enjoy a bit of fun in celebration of the fall season and relax after a long, hard quarter preparing for the big tests.
 

Room 214 News!

Oct. 2013

Welcome!  We are off to a great start in room 214. 

 In literacy we've been working with non-fiction text.  We have been noticing the text features (titles, pictures, captions, maps, and diagrams) as well as reading carefully to learn new information.  We even used our ipads to track our thinking using the Sticky Note app. 

 Our ipads help us to practice math and reading skills every day.  We use an app called Educreations to demonstrate our learning using pictures and recording our voice as we explain our thinking.

 

We had fun setting up our ipads with Mr. Kelly!

We have a lot of passwords for all of the cool programs we will be using!

It has been fun reading to our Book Buddies every Friday.

It's fun reading picture books!

We have begun a Writer's workshop working on narrative writing.  Most of the students have finished their first piece of writing.  They are really adding a lot of detail to make their writing more enjoyable. 

We enjoy writing in our Writer's Notebook and sharing our stories with a partner.