Did You Miss Us?

Mark and I realized this week that we have fallen behind in our posting news about our classrooms. I guess with the holidays, vacation, my son’s wedding on New Year’s Eve, and general life we both got a little sidetracked. We are back now with all sorts of news!

In literacy we have been doing a lot of hard work

Last week we started a new unit about folktales and traditional literature. Over the next few weeks, students will learn to identify the moral of the story in fables. Fables are a form of folktale that teaches a lesson, or moral. Most of the time the main characters are animals.
During the unit students will learn more about summarizing, determining the main idea, picking out character traits and much more. They also will write their own fables and practice great fluency skills as they work on a reader’s theater play.

You may also have noticed I have been sending home penmanship practice homework twice a week. Following up on an idea from a parent suggestion, we will be sending this home twice a week, usually Monday and Thursday. Students should work hard to form their letters well in print, both on this homework and their schoolwork. Once we see improvement and students complete their cursive

workbooks, they will be invited to do the penmanship practice in cursive.

The Great Reading Challenge continues!

Remember, the 30-book Great Reading Challenge is still going and the action is heating up!

Dan F., In Mr. K's class is in the lead having read 17 books! But he cannot rest because two students, Emily and Hale are close on his heels with 16 books each!
Looking at classroom totals, Mrs. Cryer's class is soaring, having read 115 books all together. Mr. K's class also has a respectable 56 books!

Access the list here and the graphed results here

There are MANY students who have not recorded any books at all! I will be sending home updated lists with report cards.
Reading for 20 minutes EVERY night is a standing homework assignment for literacy. Please help your child by ensuring there is time to do this and the student records the books he/she reads on the reading log. The log can be found on the class website under the Important links tab. Students also can turn in paper copies. If you would like a paper copy, just let me know and I will be happy to send them home.

Spelling City Rocks!

Spelling City is a fantastic website for students to practice their spelling lessons with games and more. The PTSA recently purchased a premium account for all third grade students. That means there are more than two dozen games they can play using their very own word lists! Have your child log in, choose a list and play a game! If they have forgotten their log in information, please let me know and I will send it to you!

~Mrs. Cryer

Multiplication and Division

Our unit on Multiplication and Division continues over the next couple weeks. Many students are demonstrating strong improvement in their math facts. Looking at the "big picture", here is an overview of the progression of skills we hope students will be able to do.

Understanding the meaning of multiplication (equal groups, representing in numbers, words and pictures)
Understanding/Identifying Factors and Multiples (using math tools, charts to help or check understanding)
Learning/Applying Efficient Strategies (speed/accuracy) of basic facts. Students should be practicing their Multiplication AND Division Facts each night for at least 10 minutes. The order of "fact timings" is x2, x4, x8, x3, x6, x5, x9, x7. We are using this order based on some of the strategies that can be applied to new facts once a certain set of facts is "mastered". This is a REVISED order we adjusted recently. The order of fact timings on a letter sent home in Dec was different and we decided to make some changes to that.
Word Problems and Mathematical Thinking
Partial Products and other paper/pencil strategies:
We want students exposed to more than one "way" to solve a problem. The biggest skill they can learn is to "persevere and become flexible thinkers" when solving any kind of math problem. One reason we emphasize Partial Products (or "decomposing" numbers") is that it requires students to apply their knowledge of place value. It also brings deeper meaning and application when learning the "traditional method" of multiplying. A strong foundation and quick application of basic facts (3x4, 8x4, etc) and "extended facts" (500x4, 80x4) is crucial. Please encourage your child to continue finding ways at home to build their math fluecy (flash cards, fact triangles, sumdog, aplusmath.com, etc).