Morning Meeting

Please join our community for a Morning Meeting! You can get to know us better by participating in greeting, share, activity and morning message. We start at 8:40 and end at 9:00. We hope to see you!

Click here if you would like to participate. Sign up for one day and we'll look forward to seeing you!

Important Forms

Hopefully you received two important forms last week:

1. CORI forms - If you would like to volunteer in our classroom or school (this includes chaperoning field trips) you are required to have an updated CORI through Needham Public Schools. Be sure to send in the forms along with a copy of your driver's license. If you have had a CORI through Needham in the last three years, you do not need to complete this process.

2. AUP - Mrs. Martell came to our classroom to teach us about being safe on our computers. In order for children to continue using computers in our school, they need to return an Acceptable User Policy form. Please discuss this form with your third grader and return it as soon as possible. 

If you need an extra copy of either form, please let me know.

Thanks!

Xtra Math

Has your child been using Xtra Math at least 3 times each week? Please remember that this is a requirement of third grade. It's very important that they become fluent with their addition facts. This will help them tackle more sophisticated math later in the year. Thanks for your support!

Volunteers Needed

We're still looking for help from parents! Please consider if your schedule will allow. 

Third graders will soon start to study Dinosaurs and their Fossils! There are several different ways fossils can be formed. Third graders are going to learn more about the different types of fossils by creating “fossils” of their very own.  
    We would love your help! The entire third grade will be working in stations on Thursday,
October 4 from 12:30-2:00. We are looking for volunteers to run stations where children will create their fossils. (You just need to bring your self. No prior knowledge necessary... :o) 
    Please let us know if you can make it!

Volunteers Needed

Third graders will soon start to study Dinosaurs and their Fossils! There are several different ways fossils can be formed. Third graders are going to learn more about the different types of fossils by creating “fossils” of their very own. 
    We would love your help! The entire third grade will be working in stations on Thursday,
October 4 from 12:30-2:00. We are looking for volunteers to run stations where children will create their fossils. (You just need to bring your self. No prior knowledge necessary... :o)
    Please let us know if you can make it!

Assignment Notebooks

Today was an exciting day in third grade! The children received their assignment notebooks. This is a big jump in terms of their responsibility. Each day, children should fill out their assignment notebook with that day's assignment. (It will be posted on the smartboard for them to copy.) When they return home in the afternoon, they should open to the correct page (it will be marked with a sticky note so it's easy to keep track). They should read their assignment notebook before completing any homework.

We also talked about being responsible about returning the assignment notebook each day. I suggested to the kids that they should put their assignment notebook in their backpack immediately after completing their homework. At the same time, they should put their homework back in their folder and their folder in their backpack. That way, the next morning they will be ready to go!

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding the assignment notebook.

Learning Buddies

Ask your third grader about their learning buddy! Last week we met first graders from Mrs. Schwarm's room and fourth/fifth graders from Mrs. Hoffman's room. We will be meeting together two-three times each month to learn together. Each child is assigned one or two partners that they will work with each time we meet. 

It's important that learning buddies get to know each other, so we started by creating venn diagrams. The venn diagrams show ways that partners are similar and how they are different. Ask your third grade what they learned about their partners last week!

Click here to see partners from our fun time together. (Please excuse the formatting. I couldn't get the web page to cooperate with me... :o)

Classroom Rules

Yesterday we created our classroom rules. We discussed ways our community should act so that everyone can reach their hopes and dreams. First, we brainstormed many different rules - we had 15 or 20. We realized however, that we wouldn't be able to remember them all! So we found connections and similarities in our list, and narrowed it down to 4 rules that we can all remember. The rules are:

Respect everyone and everything.

Be safe.

Try your best.

Have fun! 

Next week, children will work in pairs to show what it looks like to follow each of the rules. We will role play and practice following these rules together so that everyone can achieve their third grade hopes and dreams.

L'Shana Tova

Happy New Year to all of you that celebrate!

I just realized that I sent home our first homework packet on the weekend of the holiday. Please remember that the packet is not due until Friday. However, if it is difficult for your child to complete the four pages of the packet due to the holiday, they can return it next Monday, June 24.

In addition, you should have received your child's Reflection Notebook on Friday. Typically I expect these to be returned when children return to school from the weekend. However, if you are unable to respond to your child's letter due to the holiday, please feel free to hold onto the notebook and respond when you can.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!

Melanie

Reflection Letters

Hopefully your child will come running through the door Friday excited to share their newly written reflection letter with you. If not, it can be found in a spiral notebook in their backpack. Each Friday students will brainstorm a list of the activities and lessons we learned throughout the week. Students will use these ideas to write a letter home about one or two of their favorite lessons. In third grade, this takes a LOT of practice! We work on our letter writing skills for the entire school year.

Each week there will be FCAs (Focus Correction Area) based on what has been taught and what the kids are practicing. These FCAs make it clear to the students what my expectations are. This week's FCAs for the letter were:

Topic sentence - This sentence should be towards the beginning of their letter. It should tell the reader what the paragraph is about.

3+ specific details - Third grade writers should include 3 specific details telling about their topic. The details and the topic sentence should be about the same thing.

Capitalization and punctuation - Third grade writers should begin every sentence with a capital and end every sentence with punctuation.

As we learn and grow you will see lots of progress and improvement in our letters. Eventually you will see the FCAs change as we work on more sophisticated skills and techniques.

Please read and respond to these letters if possible. Students look forward to hearing from you and it is a great way to model writing a friendly letter, which is a component of the 3rd grade curriculum.

Happy writing! :o)Melanie

The Colors of Us

Yesterday morning, Room 221 listened to "The Colors of Us" by, Karen Katz. It's a story of a young girl's walk through her neighborhood as she notices the beautiful and unique shades of each person's skin. She returns home to mix white, black, red and yellow paint to recreate each skin tone and paint portraits of her friends.

The young girl connects the shades of skin to many familiar foods. "My mom's the color of french toast... Sonia is a light yellow brown, just like creamy peanut butter..." I challenged children to find foods in the kitchen that remind them of their own skin. We noticed that my oatmeal cookies might match someone's skin! Let us know what you find!

In the afternoon, 221 artists mixed paints to find their own, unique skin color. They painted the shade onto a plain piece of paper which they will use to cut out their face and create their self portrait in collage. They are amazingly realistic! We will notice and celebrate the difference of each one. Thanks so much to the mom's of: Laura, Tom, Jasmin, and Kristina for all their help. I couldn't have done it without them!

Home Folders

Please be sure your child checks his/her folder each evening and delivers any important papers to you. I often send home important notes and homework. I expect each third grader to return their emptied folder the following day. It should only have new notes or completed homework in it.

Thanks for your help as your children learn to handle new responsibilities.

First Six Weeks of School

We will be spending a lot of time during the first six weeks of school spelling out expectations, articulating rules and establishing predictable structures.

1. The children are participating in guided discoveries. In a guided discovery children discuss, explore and practice the use of classroom materials so that they can take care of the materials and each other. They role play what we can do when something goes wrong, or when another child wants to share.

2.Today, the children chose a hope and dream for third grade. Each child will share their dream with the rest of the community. We will use these hopes and dreams as the basis for classroom rules. The discussion will begin with the question - “What rules do we need to have in our classroom so that everyone is able to fulfill their hopes and dreams this year?”

3. We are practicing, practicing, practicing all of the expectations. We practice lining up quietly, using quiet voices while working and even hanging up our backpacks in the cubbies. (**So far so good! The children have been fantastic and respectful. I am constantly amazed by them.)

4. I have been teaching recess. This may sound strange to you, but it's very important. The purpose of recess is for all children to have fun. We have been playing games together as a community. We model and practice what it looks like to be sure everyone has fun and is safe.

5. Most importantly, we are getting to know one another. We are all special and unique and we have begun sharing small pieces of ourselves with one another.

***We put a strong focus on all of these activities so that we can continue to have an
orderly, cooperative and stimulating learning environment where children feel ownership and safety.

Third Grade!

We have successfully completed our first days of third grade! I have to tell you that your children are amazing! They worked very hard today as they began to learn routines and expectations. They have been incredibly respectful.

Ask your child to tell you about:

*our morning routine
*the wonderful things in our classroom
*our classroom library
*class-yes!
*bathroom rules
*math all around me
*cubby name tags

I look forward to meeting you next week at Curriculum Night!