September 19, 2019
Language Arts
Using the book, The Library, by Sarah Stewart we learned about how our own class library was structured and distinguished between fiction and non fiction. Next, we organized our fiction section of our class library in alphabetical order according to the authors' last name. What a big task that was!
We logged into our Raz-Kids accounts which is an award-winning resource that provides a library of differentiated books at 29 levels of difficulty students use to practice reading in school, at home,
Math
September 12, 2019
Language Arts
This week we began our special language arts unit called Journeys and Destinations, which is designed specifically to meet the needs of our high ability scholars. The goals of the unit are as follows:
- to develop analytical and interpretive skills in literature
- to develop persuasive writing skills
- to develop linguistic competency
- to develop reasoning skills
- to develop listening/oral communication skills
- to understand the universal concept of CHANGE
We read and discussed "The Wolf and the Lion," one of Aesop's fable, Using a Literature Webs and depth and complexity, we explored and analyzed the language, feelings, and ideas of the story.
We explored the universal of STRUCTURE (an arrangement of parts with each part having a function) and practiced writing the "structure of a postcard" by creating ones on the website ReadWriteThink. Homeschool homework will be to create a hand written postcard of the local place of interest in our community that we researched last week.
Math
We found different combinations of 100s, 10s, and 1s for a number and recognized their equivalence (i.e., 1 hundred, 3 tens, and 7 ones equals 1 hundred, 2 tens, and 17 ones, or 13 tens and 7 ones) and solved addition problems with 3-digit numbers by using strategies that involve breaking numbers apart by place or adding one number in parts.
Social Studies
Presenting why we chose "our word" for our classroom banners was very interesting to listen to and discuss this week.
PE LOG
It is due on Monday. Be sure to add up all the minutes and complete the questions on the back in complete sentences.
September 6, 2019
Thank you for coming to Back to School Night. The scholars enjoyed reading your notes about your 3rd grade experiences. If you were not abIe to join us, the letters were taken home for you to enjoy. We appreciate all your support you have given to our incredible class.
Also, thank you to the White, Ross, and Parsi families for letting us borrow their fans since our air conditioning on our side of the building went kaput. Flexibility was the name of the game this week with us trying to find cool spots in our building to work. We were thrilled to be able to use the middle school lounge for part of the day.
Language Arts
The perspective projects were so interesting to listen to in class. In our "Literary Response Journals, " we wrote letters to Mrs. Shimizu about our books that we are reading during Independent Reading Time. We are learning to reflect and write down our connections, details, perspectives, and big ideas about our books and Mrs. Shimizu will write us back.
Math
Math time was spent rounding numbers and adding three digit numbers using and discussing multiple strategies.
Social Studies
Our room looks incredible with all the colorful banners that we created for our classroom community. Next week each of us will present to the class our reasons why we chose the special word.
Thank you for coming to Back to School Night. The scholars enjoyed reading your notes about your 3rd grade experiences. If you were not abIe to join us, the letters were taken home for you to enjoy. We appreciate all your support you have given to our incredible class.
Also, thank you to the White, Ross, and Parsi families for letting us borrow their fans since our air conditioning on our side of the building went kaput. Flexibility was the name of the game this week with us trying to find cool spots in our building to work. We were thrilled to be able to use the middle school lounge for part of the day.
Language Arts
The perspective projects were so interesting to listen to in class. In our "Literary Response Journals, " we wrote letters to Mrs. Shimizu about our books that we are reading during Independent Reading Time. We are learning to reflect and write down our connections, details, perspectives, and big ideas about our books and Mrs. Shimizu will write us back.
Math
Math time was spent rounding numbers and adding three digit numbers using and discussing multiple strategies.
Social Studies
Our room looks incredible with all the colorful banners that we created for our classroom community. Next week each of us will present to the class our reasons why we chose the special word.
August 30, 2019
Social Studies
This week we were prompted by a puzzlement (photos) and simply asked: What do you observe? What do you wonder? We were so curious and excited to share our observations and wonderment! Next, we looked at all of our observations and wrote down how the pictures were somehow connected.
These are some of the words we came up with: Togetherness, Love, Kindness, Helping, Connecting, Teamwork, Family, Friends, Happiness, etc.
This lead up to what we are going to be exploring in Social Studies... Community. We quickly looked up the definitions of community in the dictionary and realized that the photos were various examples of it.
Math
We watched a YouCubed video from Stanford: https://www.youcubed.org/wim/the-importance-of-struggle/
about the importance of struggle. We discussed brain connections, explored number visuals, investigated patterns in them, and asked our own questions about the interesting representations. Did you know that creativity is possible in mathematics? We discovered that we can see or approach any mathematical idea in different ways at the same time respecting the different thinking in all of us. Also, we used place value to round numbers to the nearest ten and to the nearest hundred.
Language Arts
We presented our Detailed Flowers, Perspective, and PowerPoint Presentation Projects to our class. Three more scholars will present next week. Everyone did a great job and the audience shared their “likes and wonders.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday we completed our MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Test which is a computer adapted test which means every scholar gets a unique set of test questions based on responses to previous questions. MAP Tests cover reading, language usage, and math. These assessments are given three times a year.
During spelling, patterns were seen as we completed our spelling sorts.
PE
We loved playing during PE on Thursday. Be sure to wear tennis shoes and bring a water bottle every day!
ART
Since a hermit crab is part of the tide pool community, we were so excited creating it in our art journals.
Social Studies
This week we were prompted by a puzzlement (photos) and simply asked: What do you observe? What do you wonder? We were so curious and excited to share our observations and wonderment! Next, we looked at all of our observations and wrote down how the pictures were somehow connected.
These are some of the words we came up with: Togetherness, Love, Kindness, Helping, Connecting, Teamwork, Family, Friends, Happiness, etc.
This lead up to what we are going to be exploring in Social Studies... Community. We quickly looked up the definitions of community in the dictionary and realized that the photos were various examples of it.
Math
We watched a YouCubed video from Stanford: https://www.youcubed.org/wim/the-importance-of-struggle/
about the importance of struggle. We discussed brain connections, explored number visuals, investigated patterns in them, and asked our own questions about the interesting representations. Did you know that creativity is possible in mathematics? We discovered that we can see or approach any mathematical idea in different ways at the same time respecting the different thinking in all of us. Also, we used place value to round numbers to the nearest ten and to the nearest hundred.
Language Arts
We presented our Detailed Flowers, Perspective, and PowerPoint Presentation Projects to our class. Three more scholars will present next week. Everyone did a great job and the audience shared their “likes and wonders.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday we completed our MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Test which is a computer adapted test which means every scholar gets a unique set of test questions based on responses to previous questions. MAP Tests cover reading, language usage, and math. These assessments are given three times a year.
During spelling, patterns were seen as we completed our spelling sorts.
PE
We loved playing during PE on Thursday. Be sure to wear tennis shoes and bring a water bottle every day!
ART
Since a hermit crab is part of the tide pool community, we were so excited creating it in our art journals.
August 23, 2019
What an exciting week we had! Thank you so much for all the wonderful supplies, including the WISH list, that have been donated to our classroom. The third grade scholars were well prepared with their "tools" even on the first day of school! Wow! I appreciated that our scholars arrived on time and were well organized. Thanks for your support!
Universal Concept
We started this week defining and discussing the universal concept, CHANGE. Universal concepts give students the opportunity to think beyond fact-based learning. The concept transfers across disciplines to develop essential understandings. We came up with all the changes that were going on in their lives. (For example: Starting a new school, having a new teacher, being in the 3rd grade, and meeting new friends). We grouped them together and they realized that CHANGES can be positive and negative or both and CHANGES are necessary for growth.
We read First Day Jitters by Judy Dannenburg and used Depth and Complexity icons as our tools for diving deeper and understanding concepts with more complexity (details, multiple perspective, big ideas, and unanswered questions).
Using the book, The Library, by Sarah Stewart we learned about how our own class library was organized and distinguished between fiction and non fiction. We compared and contrasted Goldie Socks and the Three Liberarians to Goldilocks and the Three Bears in a Venn Diagram. The Goldilocks Rules for Choosing a Book that is "Just Right" was a fun way to learn how to choose books at our levels
Math
We started this week's lessons using the research developed by Jo Boaler, from Stanford University, about Growth Mindset. The scholars were fascinated by how our brain grows when we make mathematical mistakes. We watched and discussed the following inspirational math video.
https://www.youcubed.org/
We read The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns about a bored and dissatisfied triangle that visited a local shape shifter to add another angle to his shape. Poof! He became a quadrilateral. But then he got greedy and kept adding angles until he's completely transformed. We played with pattern block cutouts and discovered that six equilateral triangles can be made into a hexagon. Also, three rhombuses are equal to a hexagon.
Universal Concept
We started this week defining and discussing the universal concept, CHANGE. Universal concepts give students the opportunity to think beyond fact-based learning. The concept transfers across disciplines to develop essential understandings. We came up with all the changes that were going on in their lives. (For example: Starting a new school, having a new teacher, being in the 3rd grade, and meeting new friends). We grouped them together and they realized that CHANGES can be positive and negative or both and CHANGES are necessary for growth.
We read First Day Jitters by Judy Dannenburg and used Depth and Complexity icons as our tools for diving deeper and understanding concepts with more complexity (details, multiple perspective, big ideas, and unanswered questions).
Using the book, The Library, by Sarah Stewart we learned about how our own class library was organized and distinguished between fiction and non fiction. We compared and contrasted Goldie Socks and the Three Liberarians to Goldilocks and the Three Bears in a Venn Diagram. The Goldilocks Rules for Choosing a Book that is "Just Right" was a fun way to learn how to choose books at our levels
Math
We started this week's lessons using the research developed by Jo Boaler, from Stanford University, about Growth Mindset. The scholars were fascinated by how our brain grows when we make mathematical mistakes. We watched and discussed the following inspirational math video.
- Mistakes are beautiful things
https://www.youcubed.org/
We read The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns about a bored and dissatisfied triangle that visited a local shape shifter to add another angle to his shape. Poof! He became a quadrilateral. But then he got greedy and kept adding angles until he's completely transformed. We played with pattern block cutouts and discovered that six equilateral triangles can be made into a hexagon. Also, three rhombuses are equal to a hexagon.
