Week Five: Raney's Rock Stars

     September came and went, in what feels like, the blink of an eye! It's amazing how quickly time can pass us by. We had a few special moments this week. One of our caterpillar chrysalides hatched and we celebrated in our school-wide reward by painting kindness rocks together. We have settled into a nice routine. This week students have been working to push themselves beyond what is comfortable and "easy" for them and move towards having more stamina to complete the work asked of them.
     We have been writing a lot! We are steering away from the classic, news reporter's voice telling about a whole day worth of story within 30 seconds time. Instead, students are reflecting on small, tiny seed stories within their lives, using a storyteller's voice. In connection to our Forest Fridays, students are taking the time to describe the world around them with elaboration. Any chance you get, talk with them about using more elaborate words to describe what they are doing and how they are doing it :-)
     In math, we have been focusing on various addition and subtraction strategies to help us in our everyday arithmetic. Starting with what you know in order to figure out what you don't is our motto. Soon we will be getting into adding and subtraction multiple-digit numbers on a number line. During our Number Corner time, we have begun to introduce the idea of multiplication and how it is simply repeated addition.
     Lastly, we finished our first read aloud of the year, Wishtree by Katherine Applegate! It was a tear-jerker for sure. I hope your child has come home and shared the story of Red, Samar, and Stephen. It's a wonderful story of hope, courage and the strength in wishing for more.

Ideas to spark conversation:
-Can you tell me about the song Miss Dale is working on with you?
-Why do you think Stephen (book character) decided to stand up for Samar and write "stay" on his wish?
-How can you spread kindness?
-What are some examples of "science fruit"? What makes them science fruit?
-What tiny seed stories have you been working on lately?

Raney's Rock Stars: Week Four

This week we worked on sorting words by a specific rule or set of rules. Students were grouped together based across the whole third grade. On Wednesday, students met with their Word Work Group and learned the rule of the week. Our SeeSaw post this week is a reading of your child's words. In Global Citizenship, students continued their research on recycling and surveyed our school to find out how much we recycle. In Math, we focused on addition strategies and completed an addition table to use as a tool when solving math problems. In Science, we learned about pollination and went out to our school garden to help pollinate various flowers as well as find the stigma and pollen dusters on them. In Second Step (our social skills curriculum) we focused on what it means to take another's perspective on a situation. Students were paired off and described a chair from their point of view. From there, each student made connections to how our points of view can change when we see another person's side to a story. Lastly, on Thursday we celebrated earning over 2000 tokens with pajamas and bringing a stuffy to school. These kiddos certainly are Rock Stars!

Questions to spark conversation:
-What are you reading in reading group?
-What is the "Make Ten" strategy for addition?
-What does it mean to take another's perspective?
-Where can you find the stigma on a flower? Why is the stigma important?

Raney's Rock Stars: Week 3

We started our week off with our very first Spanish lesson! This week we created math glyphs to reflect our learning preferences. We began Math groups and learned the ins and outs of rotating between various groups. In Global Citizenship, we continued our research on recycling and why it is so important. We finished our week with Mrs. Garfield, as Class Council has begun. We look forward to getting into the forest again this afternoon and starting to note our observations while outside.

*Be sure to check out your child's SeeSaw post! Let me know if you have any trouble connecting.

Questions to spark conversation:
-Why is recycling important? Where does plastic go?
-What does your glyph tell about you?
-Describe to me what you heard, saw and felt while at your sit spot this week?
-What is your personal goal for learning and making the classroom a better place?
-What are the important elements of a graph?

Raney's Rock Stars: Week Two

We had a very busy second week of school. We began our week by taking a closer look at recycling. Students generated a list of questions we needed to be answered in order to answer our driving question, "What can we do, as community members, to improve our recycling habits and reduce waste at DBS?" Later in the week, we went to two Casella Waste facilities to speak with experts and learn more about recycling. It was an enriching and eye-opening experience for all. I hope your child was able to tell you about what we saw throughout our day. To finish our week, we headed back into the woods. Students chose their year-long sit spots. Using their five senses, they observed the natural world around them. We finished our time exploring our surrounds and enjoying the day.

Questions to spark conversation:
What is recycling?
What is the most interesting thing Casella has found in their recycling?
What is SeeSaw?
What are your hopes and dreams for third grade?
What observations did you make from your sit spot in the woods?