Fall is Here!

 I absolutely love fall!  The leaves start to change!  With fall, we can also expect the temperature to drop.  Please me sure that your child is prepared for the cooler weather outside at recess.

Writing

In writing, students enjoyed reading various nonfiction books about oceans!  We studied the author’s style and used that to jumpstart our own ideas for nonfiction pieces. Oceans and Seas followed a traditional nonfiction format with many facts.  Atlantic wrote about the Atlantic Ocean from its perspective. We also read I Wonder Why the Sea is Salty?  Students discovered that the author used questions for each chapter.  We also wrote poetry this week.

Discussing with Others What we are Reading

This week during Reader's Workshop, we learned strategies to help us when we become distracted while reading.  Some of these strategies included rereading, pointing to the text, and summarizing each section as we read. Students also made connections to a poem entitled “Great Travels”.

We also shared what we are reading independently with others.  We discussed what we are reading in partners and shared interesting facts that we learned as we were reading a nonfiction book this week.

Landforms

We continued our study of landforms! Students used resources from National Geographic to analyze how different landforms look around the globe. We discussed many similarities and differences. We also learned what landforms we can find near Arlington Heights and in Illinois. At the end of the week, students began researching information about their favorite landforms! 

Writing

This week we learned more about Eloise Greenfield by reading a biographical account of her life. Students also participated in their first “quick write”, where they spent five minutes writing down their ideas about a certain topic. We also read the book Silver Seeds, that included acrostic poems about nature. Students loved writing their own acrostic poems about a variety of topics. In grammar, students learned about simple and compound sentences. 

Landforms

Landforms and bodies of water were our areas of focus this week in Social Studies!  We read a nonfiction book that compared various places on Earth. Students did an. excellent job sketch noting the key ideas with pictures and words. We also welcomed Mrs. Goldstein into our room to teach us a geography lesson using google slides!  We will continue to explore landforms over the next couple of weeks.

Chapter 2 Update

We dove right into chapter 2! Students learned two mental math strategies for addition: “add the tens, then add the ones” and “add the tens, then subtract the extra ones”. They utilized number bonds to help them with these strategies. They also learned other mental math strategies for subtraction and addition problems with large numbers. At the end of the week, we worked on rounding!

Since this unit includes concepts that we will continue to learn and practice throughout the year, we will not assess this unit at this time.  

Chapter 2 Math

During Chapter 2, students will have the opportunity to learn about rounding and estimation.  They will also practice adding larger numbers in their heads using various mental strategies.  Here are some helpful videos:

Welcome Miss Feldkamp!

We are so excited to welcome Olivia Feldkamp to 3-4!  She is a practicum student at Elmhurst University.  She will be spending time in our classroom once a week her first semester this year.  She will be learning all about third grade and will be working with the class.  We are so excited to have her joining us!

Social Emotional Learning

During SEL, we began crating our classroom charter! We read

the book Each Kindness, which helped us think about the type of classroom community

we want to have. Students brainstormed words to describe how they would like to feel

while they are in our class.  We will finish our class charter next week.

Reading

We had the opportunity to read the book Swirl by Swirl by Joyce Sidman.

We discussed how poetry is beautiful but can sometimes contain challenging

vocabulary. We focused on strategies that good readers use when they approach

difficult words. 

Geography Unit

We continued our study of geography. Students brainstormed key geographical terms in groups and then we created a class web of important concepts.  We also explored various maps and globes. They worked together to compare and contrast their features.

Chapter 1 Math

This week, we continued working on place value and number patterns.  Students also learned a new game during fact fluency time that incorporated multiplication 10s facts. Next week, we will be reviewing key concepts from unit 1. Students will take their unit 1 test on Friday, September 9th.  A review guide will be going home prior to the test.  This review does not include every question included on the test.