Teaching Kiddos

Daily 5 The Daily 5 is a series of literacy tasks which students complete daily while the teacher meets with small groups or confers with individuals.   The Daily 5 is more than a management system or a curriculum framework – it is a structure that will help students develop the daily habits of reading, writing and working with peers that will lead to a lifetime of independent literacy.  We started  The Daily 5  this year in third grade and we are soooo excited about it! This is what we have been doing each day. We created a read to self anchor chart. We talked about urgency and the importance of reading. We talked about student/teacher expectations during this time and how to build our stamina. Stamina is doing anything for a long period of time without getting tired or giving. Our kiddos needed to get to 20 minutes before we introduced the next daily 5 task, work on writing. Sense of Urgency: Why do we read? 1. Become better readers and writers 2. It is fun!  3. It makes us happy! 4.

A,E,I,O and U can spell! During the month of  September our spelling words consist of mostly short vowel words. This is one of the best times of the year for spelling tests because by 3rd grade many of our students have already mastered this strategy. Many short vowel words are 3- lettered and some ( like many of our spelling words) are more. The vowels " glue" together the letters to make a true word. Perfecting our short vowels at the start of the year help to make it an easier transition into long vowels. Words with only three letters are the easiest to make the short vowel sound out of, due to the fact that only having three letters typically doesn’t allow for a second vowel to force the long vowel sound. An obvious example of the exception would be words like bee or tea. These words use a second vowel to force the long vowel sound from the first one, while other words like ant or mat use the placement of  consonants  to force a short vowel sound.  If your student is stil

We decided that we needed to do something about the frustrating fragments that often plague our third graders' writing.  Therefore, we started the school year by teaching the four types of sentences during Lang. Arts time.  Immediately after that, we tackled subjects and predicates. Slowly, our ideas started chugging.  When brainstorming, we often try to come up with some sort of visual that students can apply to a new concept.  We decided to try using a train analogy to teach subjects and predicates this year.  We could teach students to think of a complete sentence as a train, with the subject being the train's engine, and the predicate serving as the train's caboose. After the whole group lesson, the kiddos worked as a team to put subjects and predicates together( ocean theme of course ) Not  only did our third graders really seemed to enjoy the  subject   &   predicate  activities we did, we can honestly say that they really seemed to latch onto the train analogy! 

We have our chapter 1 math test coming up.  We have learned to read and write 3-4 digit numbers. We have also learned how to round to the nearest 10 or 100. To help better understand this concept we became " race car drivers" The kiddos had to place their car on the number that decides wether it will be rounded down and rest or add 1 more and let it soar to round up. Lots of fun.... And educational at the same time!!!

Last week we read the book " How Full Is Your Bucket?". It is about a boy who begins to see how every interaction in a day either fills or empties his bucket . He then realizes that everything he says or does to other people fills or empties their buckets as well.  So the idea behind the buckets is that we all have an imaginary one that is a part of us.  Throughout our day we are either "filled" or "dipped" from by the people around us, and the experiences we go through.  Saying something nice to a friend, adds a drop to their bucket (and yours!).  Say unkind words to a friend and their bucket has just been dipped from (and yours!)  The goal is try to and keep a full bucket and to help those around as have one as well.   After reading the book, the kiddos got their own buckets and had to come up with one way they fill people's buckets.  We got some great ideas. Check some out:

It was a great back-to-school night ! We were so happy to meet new parents and see some old ones( always fun to reconnect ).  If you were able to attend, we hope you got some questions answered . If you were not able to attend , please make sure your child gives you the back-to-school packet that was sent home. For all parents, please make sure if you have any questions , please don't hesitate to call or email.