Let's Fill the School's Piggy Bank!!!

Parents of 3B students should have noticed a fundraiser package brought home last week by your 3B student.  It was a big envelope from the Chippe Shop.  This is a company our school has done fundraising with for many years now, and it usually is a huge success.

The students attended an assembly Thursday to kick off the fundraising and get pumped up to help fill the school's piggy bank.  Money raised through this fundraising effort goes to pay for field trips and plays for the various grades.  The students at Crestwood Elementary have taken some wonderful field trips in the past and we hope to continue that with money raised through this year's fundraising efforts.

Information is printed on the envelop.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact the school.  Good luck...and don't forget to pick out your prize 3B students before you return the envelope to school.  There are so really cool prizes.  And remember that if you sell 25 items, you get to go for a ride in the stretch hummer limo!

Thanks for your support everyone!

Skype with Mrs. P. We Are Writers!

Another busy week has passed and another is coming.  Are we ever NOT busy in 3B?  Nope!  This coming week will be a little shorter for students as they have Monday off for teacher inservice and Friday is an early out for Homecoming.  Even with the short week, we have so much to do.

Last week we had a wonderful Skype with Mrs. P.  Some of you may recognize her as Mimi off of the "Drew Carey Show" a few years ago.  She now talks to students encouraging them to show their creativity through writing. With this Skype, there were classes from Hawaii, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and Kansa connected with us as well.

This opportunity connected well with our writing in 3B as we have been working hard on where writers get their ideas.   Even with the technical difficulties on her end at the beginning of the Skpe, it was fun to listen to her tell stories and answer questions.  She has quite the imagination!  A favorite comment that she made to the students was, "If you can talk about it, you can write about it." I hope that really sticks in the students' minds as they continue writing this year.

She also holds a writing competition across the US.  Last year, the students in my homeroom and Mrs. Midthus's homeroom class each ended up in the top 5 and were awarded various prizes.  Information for Mrs P's writing competition can be found at Be a Famous Writer on the internet.  Simple click the link and it will take you to the information.  3B students are excited to get started writing about their pets, as that is the topic of the contest this year.

Thanks Mrs. P for sharing your stories, answering our question, and motivating us to write.

Science....Insect Inquiry Continues

It was another busy week in science.  We observed even more insects as part of our Plant and Animal Populations unit.  Last week I talked about how we observed predator - prey relationships.  All of our aphids quickly disappeared when they were introduced to the lady bugs.  Chomp! Chomp!

This week we observed the life cycle of fruit flies.  While I hate to ever have those in my house, they are a great example of observation of the various stages of egg, larva, pupa, and fruit fly.  Students could observe all the stages in one vile of fruit flies.  Very cool!

We also have set up an ant farm in the classroom.  Students are watching the ants dig their tunnels and do various jobs.  It is interesting to see that the ants bury their dead (yes, some have died).  They have also done a little research on ants, gathering at least 5 facts about ants, that we will share this week.

With both of these insects, students have learned about the characteristics of insects.  In conjunction with this, Angela, the Howard County Naturalist, will be stopping in Tuesday to do an Insect Inquiry activity with the 3rd graders and see what they have learned.  I am excited to have her stop in the classroom and share more learning with the students.

CADET Time...What is That? Focus on Fluency Last Week

Teachers spend a lot of time analyzing data, working with students in small groups, large groups or independently, and making observations.  This information is used to make decisions on what are each child's strengths and weaknesses.  We all learn at different paces and can't expect to be taught everything the same way and the same time.  This is why the district has created "Cadet Time".

Cadet Time is a 30 minute period of the day where teachers use data and observations to target and work with students in the areas they demonstrate a need in reading.  This can be a specific skill or strategy.  In the past, students in all classrooms moved between teachers as each teacher focused on a different skill/strategy.  We will not be doing that this year, but I will be using the idea of Cadet Time to build student's strengths and weaknesses.  If you think about it, that is what an educator should be doing all day anyway.  Right?

Through observation and assessments, a lot of 3B students have shown they struggle with reading fluency.  Last week during Cadet Time, I introduced a procedure revolving around building fluency and recording words per minute throughout the week for one passage.  I introduced it to all students, so they know the routine, but starting this week only students struggling with fluency will work on the passages.  The routine goes something like this:

1.  Students are given a passage.  They practice reading the passage with a whisper voice and highlight words they are unsure of or struggle with.  They can also write questions on the side about the reading (this will be introduced this week). 

2.  Teacher discusses passage with students.  Students share words highlighted and the group discusses the meaning of those words and how we can use accuracy strategies to determine those words and their meanings.  The teacher also orally reads through the passage out loud.

3.  Students have a partner who times them and records how many words per minute their partner gets.

4.  Students practice whisper reading the passage again for 3-5 minutes

5.  Students get with their partner and again read the passage, recording their words per minute.

6.  If we have time, students practice choral reading the passage with their partner and discuss the meaning behind the passage.

We use the same passage all week, focusing on the idea that repeated readings help build fluency and accuracy when reading. 

I will be sending out information asking for parent volunteers during Cadet Time.  Look for that to come out this week.  Due to the varying levels and needs of students, it would be nice to have some parent volunteers to help out.  

To kick off our work on fluency, students read silly poems with partners and practice "reading the punctuation" to present their poem choice to the class.  Super fun!

Genius Hour! What is Your Passion?

A new push in education the last few years has revolved around students recognizing their passions and deciding their own learning.  This is part of what we call "Genius Hour".  One of my favorite consultants in education, Angela Meiers,  goes around the US presenting to teachers and students encouraging them to share their passions.  She tells them, "You are a genius and the world expects your contribution".  Very powerful message if you think about it.

Genius Hour was a favorite of the students last year as well as the year before.  It is a time where students can decide what they would like to learn about, do research and hands on activities, and create something to share their learning with the class.  Their learning will revolve around key questions.

I kicked off genius hour by sharing two videos.  One is by my favorite, Kid President, in which he encourages students to go out and be awesome!  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do in 3B.  It is titled "A Pep Talk from Kid President to You!".



The other video that I shared was about a boy who took his passions for arcades and created something wonderful.  This video is called "Cane's Arcade".



After reading some books about presenting the idea of Genius Hour, the students started their own "Wonder Wall" in their Genius Hour notebook.  We have a "Wonder Wall" in the class that we started writing questions an things that come up during the day that we wonder about.  The students also have done this in their notebooks.

The next step was to think about what we are passionate about.  Students created a page that they will continue to add on to, listing their passions and what they would love to learn more about.   Next week we will talk about asking questions to set the stage for learning as well as internet safety.  The students will then be ready to decide their passion and learning.

This is a powerful time that I am always amazed at what the students can do. We will have Genius Hour every Friday morning from 10:00-10:45.   Last year I had students build wind turbines, lava lamps, video movies, and so much more through Genius Hour.  It is a powerful time of learning!

Below is a picture of students writing their passions in their writing notebooks.

Guided Reading is Rolling!

Now that our district assessments are done, we are back in the routine of Daily 5 and have kicked of guided reading!! Yeah!!!  Everyone is so excited to start guided reading, and so am I!!!

With our first unit in literacy, the skills and strategies we will focus on are:

Determine Important Information

Author's Purpose

Inferencing

Drawing Conclusions

Nonfiction Helpers: Table of Contents and Number List

Prefixes of "not",

context clues

inflected endings

Synonyms

We will work on these strategies throughout the next 4 weeks.  This week the main focus will be on Determining Important Information, Author's Purpose, Synonyms, and Context Clues.  

MAPs and FAST Testing.....Done!

Besides a few students who were absent or need to finish, almost all of 3B has completed the MAPs assessments over reading, language, and math as well as the FAST assessments for the state of Iowa that cover fluency and reading.  It was a busy two weeks of testing, but the students were troopers and tried hard.

Information and scores from these assessments will be shared with parents at conferences in November.

To celebrate having these assessments done, I brought donuts Thursday morning for everyone to enjoy!  Nice job 3B.  I am very proud of you.....and glad those are done (for the most part).

Daily 5 in Full Motion, Mini Lessons, and Kicking Off Guided Reading!

Everyone, including myself,  is excited that we are in full Daily 5 routine and starting guided reading!  The plan was to start guided reading today, Tuesday, but our MAPs assessments took longer than planned.  No problem!  We will start sometime this week.  I am very proud of how hard the students are working through the different components of the Daily 5.  If you are not familiar with the Daily 5 and CAFE, please look below at previous post where they are explained.  Feel free to contact me as well if you have questions.

Our mini lessons during literacy the next few week will cover author's purpose, determining important information, and synonyms.

I mentioned last week that I would be sending home "At Home Reading" information.  Parents....I did not get that done last week with Dot Day but am planning to send that information by October 1st.  Look for that information soon!

I took these two great panoramic pictures of the students during the Daily 5 as well as writing when they were sharing their pieces with a partner.  Just wanted to share them.

Celebrating Creativity! Dot Day was a Hit!

Last week people all around the world celebrated International Dot Day.  This is a day in which people are encouraged to elebrate their creativity and be proud of what they can create.  It is a day based on the book by Peter Reynolds titled The Dot,  which we have read in the classroom.  I will post the online story below so you can check it out if you have not heard of it before.



Students in 3B spent Friday showing their creativity through various activities and stations. Here are some of the activities:

Students went on a "dot hunt" in the room and created a collage of their pictures using the app "Pic Collage".    They then posted their collage on their student blog pages so be sure to check them out.

Everyone contributed something to a class dot by painting on it to show his/her individual creativity.

We did some augmented reality using an app called Quiver.  Students colored a "dot" using marker and then used the app to make the "dot" pop off the page and move.  It was very cool, and the students loved it!

Using construction paper, students created layered dots to hang around the classroom.

By coloring on a coffee filter with markers and spraying it with water, the colors are forced to spread and create a stained glass look.  This was another favorite activity.  Our window in the classroom looks very cool because of these creative dots!

Yes, we also enjoyed some yummy "dot treats".  You can't have a celebration without food right?!

It was a fun way to end the week and remind ourselves to be creative!  And remember....when you create something....sign it!  Be proud!

Meet Mrs. VerMeer!

3B is so lucky to have Mrs. VerMeer join us for an hour of literacy a day to do some coteaching.  Many times, Mrs. VerMeer and I will teach a mini lessons together and then work with individual students or small groups.  It is nice to have another adult in the room as well as limiting the time some students are pulled out of the room.

So if you hear a 3B child talking about Mrs. VerMeer, you now know who she is.  Welcome Mrs. VerMeer!