Room 307 News
Hello there!
I hope this newsletter is finding you well! I assume everyone is enjoying their Fall Break. I apologize for not sending out a newsletter last week. We have been doing a lot of learning these past few weeks. I will do my best to fill you in on what has been happening in room 307!
Class Reward: Bring your own Technology to school was a success! The students had a great time sharing their favorite games and apps with friends. There was NO arguing over technology. I saw a lot of collaborating and sharing going on which was great to see:) I can't wait to see what the students pick next time for their class reward. They sure earned it!
I hope this newsletter is finding you well! I assume everyone is enjoying their Fall Break. I apologize for not sending out a newsletter last week. We have been doing a lot of learning these past few weeks. I will do my best to fill you in on what has been happening in room 307!
Class Reward: Bring your own Technology to school was a success! The students had a great time sharing their favorite games and apps with friends. There was NO arguing over technology. I saw a lot of collaborating and sharing going on which was great to see:) I can't wait to see what the students pick next time for their class reward. They sure earned it!
Two Fridays ago, I introduced another new website that students will use during their Literacy Tasks each week. It is called Actively Learn. Students are able to sign in, read a story, highlight/ take notes, converse with other students and answer questions. In the past students have really loved it and again, I love the information I get it! They tried it this past week using two articles about Peyton Manning and Jane Goodall. Although they are about the 2014 race for "Person of the Year," I think they are great articles for students to read. Have your child show you! I try to use stories or current non-fiction articles to test their comprehension.
PBL: Our first PBL is in full swing. Our driving question is: How can we, as Noblesville citizens, help to improve our community? We are going to be trying to answer this question over the next couple of months. As you know, we already interviewed Noblesville community members to see what they thought were some problems in our city. Students also brought those same interview questions home to interview family members or neighbors. We used that information to make an idea board. If you would like to learn more about what we have come up with some far, check out this link: http://ideaboardz.com/for/Community%20Interviews/2492486 Our next steps are to have students make generalizations about the information we gained. What problems came up a lot? What do we already do well? Then, the students will each pick one of the problems to try and solve. I am excited to see what they come up with!
Reading: We have been talking about making reasonable and realistic predictions based on the information read as well as retelling the story. We were using the book Stone Fox to learn all of these strategies. We have since finished the story. We found that the end is somewhat of a cliffhanger, so the students are currently in the middle of creating their own "final chapter" to answer a question they were left with. Did Little Willy win the race? What happened to Grandfather? Did they lose the farm? What did Stone Fox do after the race? We also worked on context clues this past week. Students were able to be "Word Detectives" to figure out the meaning of words they are unfamiliar with.
PBL: Our first PBL is in full swing. Our driving question is: How can we, as Noblesville citizens, help to improve our community? We are going to be trying to answer this question over the next couple of months. As you know, we already interviewed Noblesville community members to see what they thought were some problems in our city. Students also brought those same interview questions home to interview family members or neighbors. We used that information to make an idea board. If you would like to learn more about what we have come up with some far, check out this link: http://ideaboardz.com/for/Community%20Interviews/2492486 Our next steps are to have students make generalizations about the information we gained. What problems came up a lot? What do we already do well? Then, the students will each pick one of the problems to try and solve. I am excited to see what they come up with!
Reading: We have been talking about making reasonable and realistic predictions based on the information read as well as retelling the story. We were using the book Stone Fox to learn all of these strategies. We have since finished the story. We found that the end is somewhat of a cliffhanger, so the students are currently in the middle of creating their own "final chapter" to answer a question they were left with. Did Little Willy win the race? What happened to Grandfather? Did they lose the farm? What did Stone Fox do after the race? We also worked on context clues this past week. Students were able to be "Word Detectives" to figure out the meaning of words they are unfamiliar with.
Writing: We will be publishing our personal narratives the week we get back from break. The students have been working so hard to continue to stretch out their stories and add details. The past two week we learned about paragraphing and analyzed other writing to decide why the author started a new paragraph (new person speaking, setting changed, time changed, new sub-topic). We also learned how to use quotation marks correctly. Students looked at writing to see how this works. They even practiced way to explicitly say how someone said something without using the word "said." After learning writing skill, they edit their story to show it. Lastly, students worked on picking an ending for their story. Just like leads, students tried out different kinds of endings and chose the one they felt made their story the strongest.
Kindergarten Buddies: We have paired with Miss Brune's class and try to meet every other week. So far we have just read with our buddies, but in the future we plan to do other things as well. Miss Brune shared with me that her kindergarteners get so excited when they see their "3rd grade buddy" around school! I have posted pictures below. They are so precious together:) Ask your child about their buddy. We spent the first meeting trying to get to know them. The most previous visit was spent helping the kindergarteners out with their current PBL. They will be learning about community helpers, which works out well with our current PBL. The 3rd graders read various books to their buddy about community helpers to kick start their learning.