Guided Reading and Strategy Group Instruction has Begun!

I am pleased to say, as the kids are so excited, that we have build enough stamina in read to self and read to someone that I can start guided reading groups and strategy groups! Yeah! I realize the importance of setting the foundation for routine and practice the first month of school, as it will make all the difference through the rest of the year, but it felt like we were never going to get started with guided reading. The students have been begging me and reminding me that we are ready, and I agree, they are! Not only will I be doing guided reading groups, but I will be trying to utilize strategy groups as well. The difference is that in guided reading groups the students are usually reading the same book at the same level. In strategy groups, you can have students reading different books at different levels focusing on one strategy for all of them. There is importance in both types and students will be involved in both this year.

We are working hard on getting our writing stamina increased. After just starting "work on writing" last week, we are up to 10 minutes. I am hoping to see our writing stamina increase a lot this week now that we are done with MAPs testing and can get back to business. Many students say this is their favorite so far of the Daily 5 - work on writing. Super! Having "choice" is an important component of the Daily 5 and it helps build enthusiasm and independence.

I hope your 3B students has filled you in on all of our wonderful science critters! We have aphids, daphnia, fruit flies, and ants all venturing to stay alive. So far the daphnia and ants have been unsuccessful. I'm not sure what happened to the ants in the ant farm - this is the first year they have died so quickly. We never have much luck with the daphnia, but at least they made it a few days for the students to observe and learn about. We have been charting the population of the different insects and thinking like scientist do. Why are some of the populations decreasing while others are increasing? What factors can contribute to this? We have had some great discussions! Next week we will have more visitors - the predators of these insects!!! Should be interesting!

Looks like we will be ready for our first math assessment at the end of this week also. I am pleased with the background each of the students has carried over from second grade when it comes to math concepts! They retained a lot so it has made this math unit of review go very smoothly! Our next unit is on addition and subtraction so start practicing those facts at home as I have noticed there is a little weakness in that area for many students in 3B.

Finally, it looks like summer is over and fall has hit. The wind was terribly cold today and many students were chilly at recess. Just a reminder to think about the weather when helping your child decide what to wear to school. Dressing in layers is the best bet as they can easily take off a sweatshirt if get too hot in the afternoon but can't do anything to stay warm without extra clothes. I am hoping it warms up a little bit in the next few days as I am not ready for winter! Yuck!

Have a great week!

Learning From 4th Graders in Virginia

Another great week has gone by. I am very pleased at how much we are getting accomplished, routines are going well, and students appear to be having a little fun along the way. :) We never seem to get everything done that I plan each day, but that's alright as I tend to overplan. Yesterday I had class all day revolving around the "Daily 5" that we are using to faciliate our literacy. It was nice to share questions, ideas, and thoughts with other elementary teachers although I would have rather been outside being it was a gorgeous weekend. I'm not going to lie about that.

There were many exciting events that happened this past week. One of them I need to give thanks to my "Twitter" PLN - personal learning networks. A teacher in Virginia had her students do a readers theatre about Constitution Day, which was Sept. 17th. She let those of us on Twitter know about it. I asked her if I could have a copy of the readers theatre and she said better yet, she would have her 4th graders recording of their readers theatre on her blog page for us to listen to. It was a story about some kids planning a camping trip and had to make decisions. They connected it to the way the Constitution was written and shared facts along the way. We, in 3B, thought it was such a great way to learn about the Constitution that we wrote some comments back to them on their blog page. Little did we know, we would be making friends with students from Virginia via the Internet. It was very cool, and the kids were amazed what they learned by listening to other students.

Our first set of "creatures" arrived this week for science also. The ants have made their home in our room in an ant farm. We will be watching them create a habitate and monitor how many of them exist throughout the next few weeks. Our seeds that we planted last week are growing, which is good. Our next set of visitors will be arriving this week. Wonder what they are. . . .

With literacy, we had our first week of word works - kind of like spelling but in a different way. The students have gone through the different routines and modes of learning and are set. I would have to say using Wiki Stix is a favorite. They could have played with those for quite a while. Next, we move into the area of writing with the Daily 5.

I am excited about writing as we have been talking about what writers do and the writing process. I wanted to try and find an author who would skype in our classroom, via the internet, and chat with the students about writing. After some time looking, I found a site of various children's authors that do just that! I can't wait ! I am working on getting it scheduled and arranged. The author will chat with the kids for 15-20 minutes free of charge. Very cool! The students will be able to have conversation with an actual children's author, asking questions and learning about what it is like to be a writer without leaving the classroom. Ahhh. . .the wonderful world of technology!

Here's to another great week of learning - for all of us!

3B's Respect and Responsibility I Chart

I forgot to put this in last week as I mentioned I would. Here is the "I Chart" that we came up with as a class as far as our expectations for our behavior and responsibilities. Hopefully you can see it. Sorry I forgot to post it earlier last week.

"Everything Would be Alright"

I am pleased to say that we had a very productive; yet fun, week! I am amazed that so much time has already flown by since the first day of school. Wow! Probably the highlight of the week for the students was listening to President Obama give a speech to students across the US about staying in school, setting goals, being respectful and responsible. We had a wonderful discussion about his speech afterwards and ended up setting goals for ourselves for the month of September. This is something we would have done anyway, actually each month, but fit right in with what he was sharing. Then today rolled around, September 11th. I can remember I was at school when I heard about what happened that day and ran down the hallway to call my mom because I have relatives who worked at the World Trade Center. Still gets me kind of emotional. I finally found a short video on the internet that talks about September 11th at a level that the kids can understand. They loved it! Our discussion afterwards was wonderful. We read different books, I showed pictures I had taken 1 week after it happened as I was there for a football game, they wanted to share what they knew. . . everything. I have some very curious little minds in 3B! Hopefully you will have time to discuss the events of September 11th with your child and connect it to some conversation about peace makers. Because the the book we read today said, "We knew everything would be alright."

Some other news is that we have increased our Read to Self to 30 minutes!!! Yeah! We have increased Read to Someone to 18 minutes and will be starting "Word Works" next week. I plan to have all facets of the Daily 5 in place in the next 1-2 weeks and then begin guided reading. I did finished assessing students on Dibels and will be doing one on one conferencing with the students this coming week, maybe doing some small group instruction also based on demonstrated needs. It is so great to see their faces when they finish reading a book they have enjoyed! They are so pleased with themselves. That's the great part of the Daily 5, you need to get better at reading by reading and that is what they are doing! Along with all of these "happenings", we have been busy with other mini lessons as well that have focused on reading the punctuation and coaching on what to do if stuck on a word. Our literacy time is all morning and that time goes by so quickly. I am very proud of them!

If you were not aware, Mrs. Hartberg did have her baby last week. She had a girl, Allison Elizabeth! She is adorable. Mrs. Hartberg will be out until sometime in November and her sub is Mrs. Becky Trautsch. The nice part is that a lot of the students know her as she has subbed a lot in our building. She will be coming in for 30 minutes every day to co-teach writing with me. So if your students talk about someone named Mrs. Trautsch, that is who they are talking about.

I couldn't end my blog for the week without encouraging everyone to cheer for the Cyclones tomorrow!!! Big game of Iowa vs. Iowa State! It's been fun to talk "sports" with some of the boys who are dedicated Hawkeye fans! :) Go Cyclones! Have a great week!

Progress in All Areas! Fantastic Friday!

I am writing this post on Monday, Labor Day, but it is a reflection of last week. (Just pretend I am writing it last Friday.) After our morning meeting today, we had a discussion on respect and responsibility. The students and I created an "I Chart" if what a respectful classroom looks like. Students did a wonderful job coming up with phrases to finish the statement "I show I am respectful/responsibility by. . ". They also thought about what the teacher does to show respect. I will take a picture of our chart to include in my next post. Everyone signed it in agreement that that is what our classroom will look like. (A teacher can never "assume" students know what to do all the time and review is constantly needed.) We hung it in the classroom so that we can always be reminded about our "job" as student and teacher. Great visual to have! On a different note, I was so excited with the progress the students made in our Read to Self and Read to Someone stamina!!! They increased their Read to Self stamina to 23 MINUTES!!!! Incredible!!!! They also increased their Read to Someone to 13 MINUTES! The students were so excited when I told them how long they made it! Way to go! In the afternoon we started some math stations in which students work in small groups applying math skills we learned in the previous lessons (telling time, measuring, calculator use, reviewing addition and subtraction). The students were sad when it was time to stop and have recess. . .some wanted to stay in from recess! Wow! It was too nice to stay in. During science, the hunt was on looking for living organisms outside by the butterfly garden. The sun was shining so it was wonderful to be outside. But no matter how much we rushed, we couldn't get our Friday podcast done. . .so stay tuned for it next week. The students love to do podcast!!!!

Punctuation and Full Moon?

The students did a wonderful job with "Read the Punctuation" this morning! It's great to listen to them read with attention to expression based on punctuation marks. I took pictures and will post them some time soon. Tomorrow we are podcasting the book Yo! Yes?, which we will apply reading the punctuation. Listen to it by going to my web page sometime after school on Friday (tomorrow). Hopefully you can tell what punctuation marks are at the end of each phrase/word by the way we read it.

I hope you are enjoying our daily blog. Students enjoy contributing to the daily blog either alone with our 8th grade typer, Ashley Haw, or as a large group. (Thanks to Ashley) We look if we have new comments or followers every day so I encourage everyone to become a follower-parents, grandparents, etc. I know some people are having difficulty getting the "follow" to work so I will be sending home a sheet that explains how to become a follower. Look for this next Tuesday.

Well. . . I think the students are in a good routine and feeling comfortable after 2 1/2 weeks of school . but today was a little rough when it came to respecting one another and listening. Yes, a day of setback is expected, as the students really have established a great morning routine so once and a while a setback may occur. For the first time, we didn't make our stamina in Read to Self. We fell a little short; yet we increased our "Read to Someone" stamina so that is a give and take. I am very pleased with our progress over the last week so keep it up 3B! Mornings are pleasant and wonderful as we work through literacy. Love it! I am surprised at the shift in behavior of some students, not all, when the afternoon approaches. Maybe when the students go out for noon recess they forget how to treat each other and listen??? Doubt it. If you get the feeling we had a difficult afternoon, you are correct. From 12:30-2:00 appears to be the challenging time of the day for 3B students. What to do? What to do? Well, we had a big class discussion at the end of the day today. Tomorrow we are going to do a few mini lessons on respect and what is a "student's job" in 3B. We will try various other "strategies" also, but I did want to bring it up for discussion. If you are reading this blog, as parents of 3B students, have a discussion with them how they feel the day went this afternoon. It's important to get their opinion of how they feel the afternoon went and the problems that occurred. Again, I stress, it was not all students. This is also common after a few weeks of school when comfort is established. So. . .we move on and focus on what we could do better and ARE doing better. Maybe there was something in the water because all teachers commented that students had a rough afternoon today? Full moon coming, that's for sure!
Have a great 3 day weekend and thanks for sharing your 3rd grader with me.