Letters Home

Spetember 21, 2018
Upcoming Events:
  • Picture Day: Wednesday, September 26, 8:15 am
  • Third & Fourth Grade Team Building: Thursday, September 27, Dac Rowe, 9:30 am
  • No School: Friday, October 5 & Monday, October 8
  • iMove ¾ to Little River State Park: Wednesday, October 17
  • Picture Retakes: Thursday, October  18

Dear Parents & Families,
The fourth week of school is complete! We continue to open materials and areas in the classroom, and to review and practice routines, procedures and expectations. On Monday and Wednesday of this week students carried out the fall Maps testing for both math and reading (English Language Arts). The Maps are given two to three times a year within HUUSD to assist educators in guiding both whole class and individualized instruction and support for students in the classroom. A few children need to finish their testing and we’ll provide that time throughout next week. All our children deserve a pat on the back for a job well done with Maps. I noticed perseverance, self-regulation, and a growth mindset during our testing times - well done class!

Reading: This week in Reader’s Workshop we discussed the importance of not judging a book by it’s cover. A cover might look old or unappealing, but it’s what’s inside that counts, which is why practicing our strategies for choosing books is so important (i.e., read the back cover blurb, read a page inside, etc.) We practiced this idea by reading a children’s picture book and looking for the author’s message. We discovered that, although we thought the book might have been too young for our third grade tastes, it still carried an important message for readers of all ages. In addition, we opened our reading bins for the first time and took a close look at our new reading notebooks. We created reading notebook expectations and practiced filling in the reading log. We also started Read Theory, an online reading tool that’s fun and motivational for kids and provides individualized student reading information for teachers to help guide and support students in the classroom.

Math: This week we began a few lessons in our new math curriculum.  On Tuesday, we made glyphs on paper plates that showed our work preferences as well as our favorite time of day and how we like to show our math thinking.  On Friday we sorted these glyphs and created statements about what we could learn from the glyphs. Next week we will create graphs based on our observations.  We actually have 2 math times each day: our regularly scheduled math class and our Number Corner time. This week in Number Corner we made observations about the patterns on our monthly calendar.  We created number lines from 10 to 1,000 (counting by tens) and we practiced place value noticings by coloring specific numbers according to the directions.

Writing: This week in writing we used maps to help us generate story ideas for the future.  First, we created a map of some our summer travels and experiences on our foot map.  Next, we created a map of some place that reminds us of several “buried stories” . We are working on 10 minute writes based on these stories, that encourage a quick writing with free flowing ideas.  This helps get our creative juices flowing and builds our writing stamina.

Other: School has been in session now for a whole month! We’ve been reviewing routines, procedures and expectations daily to build independence and self-efficacy. Children are very familiar with the morning routine and at this time of the year I ask parents to help their child build independence by dropping them off at the school doors or the classroom door. This will allow your child to follow the morning routine on their own and possibly make mistakes that they can learn from, which is what school is all about.