....I am sure I have some tired 3B students today after a busy night of trick-or-treating! It was nice to see so many of my students stop by for some extra "treats" last night, but I can sure see that some of them are coming off their "sugar high" from last night. We will trudge through today and make it a good one as we have many busy activities to start this week.
It was nice to see all of you at conferences last week! We had some great discussions, and I appreciate you taking the time to be involved in your child's education. I still have a few more conferences this week and am anxious to talk to those parents as well. As I mentioned to many at conferences, keep your child reading at home as that is the "homework" I expect all 3B students to be doing every night. Thanks again for your attendance. If you ever have any questions or concerns, feel free to call or email me any time!
This week we are starting something new, and it is student blogging! The students will each be shown how to get to his/her blog page and make various posts throughout the year. They are so excited, and some have already started. After I show them how to get to their blog page and various other concepts about blogging, the students will be ask to make a post this week about a book they have finished. We are calling it a "book review", and I will be modeling this at the beginning of this week. Look for the students book blogs by the end of the week and feel free to comment! You don't need an account or anything to make a comment, and students look forward to seeing who comments about their post!!!! They think it is cool, and it also helps them realize they do have an audience when they are writing. Students will be making the post by themselves, so there will be mistakes in punctuation, spelling, etc. for some and that is ok. Our practice in keyboarding during the month of October is paying off now as students will hopefully be able to type a little faster than they would have at the beginning of the year. So.....look for 3B's student blog pages to start soon and make those comments!!!! We all appreciate it!!
If your child has not returned his/her "Book-It" calendar for October, he/she must return them by tomorrow, Tuesday, November 2nd. I am sending home the calendar for November today as well. Remember....keep reading!!!!
A few other comments about activities in the room:
* Students are working on various map skills in social studies before we begin unit 1 in the book on communities. This week we will be looking at the different continents and oceans as I have found that students in 3B are unfamiliar with these concepts. I hope to start the unit on communities in our books by the end of the week.
* With literacy, we will be continuing our strategy of "Tune into Vocabulary" and furthering our discussion on "connections" in reading. Students are doing a great job with the Daily 5 and the routines of literacy. I hope to introduce "Listen to Reading" this week as well through an online program called "Read About" that is wonderful nonfiction to listen to and explore!
* In writing we are focusing on the trait of "ideas". Students have practiced funneling down their ideas, sticking to a topic, "putting on binoculars" to look for details, and adding "show me" statements. This is a big concept for many students so it is something we will be spending a lot of time on. Students will be taught a song as well to remind them of the "ideas" trait and it's characteristics. Busy! Busy! Sometime next week we will also be having "Author Sharing" day.
* Our current math unit involves measurement......we need a little review on measuring to 1/4 of an inch so we will be doing some of that as well as going into perimeter and area.
That about sums up what has been going on and will be going on in 3B. As you can see, we are busy! Along with that, I am going to increase the amount of homework that will be sent home with the students compared to what it was in the 1st quarter. We need to continue to build our responsibility, and the students have shown they are ready for more homework so be on the lookout for more to be sent home.
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