WIN Time and Word Study

This week brought about two new additions to our daily schedule: WIN time and Word Study.  During WIN (What I Need) time, all third grade students have been placed in small groups and are working in different academic areas, such as reading, math, or writing.  These groupings will change throughout the year based on student need. Ask your child what he or she is currently working on during WIN time?

 We also began Word Study. Word Study is similar to Fundations in that it is an opportunity to work with words and notice spelling patterns.  Each week your child will be given a group of words and will need to sort the words based on the spelling patterns he or she notices.  For example, a sort may be long vowels vs. short vowels, vowel teams, homophones, digraphs, or blends. Your child will complete several sorting activities throughout the week to help reinforce the spelling patterns in the week's words.  Be sure to ask your child about the his or her words from this week.

In writing, we continued to discuss how author's generate ideas for stories.  We continued to write our stories about important people in our life and practiced adding detail and action to the stories.  We also made Heart Maps.  Each child received a heart on paper and filled the heart with drawings and words of important things in his or her life.  The children then used these Heart Maps as inspiration for stories.

We have been very busy reading a variety of genres during Reader's Workshop.  This week we focused on the thinking that goes on as we read.  Readers can keep track of their thinking as they read by writing notes on Thinkmarks.  Thinkmarks are bookmarks with space to jot down thinking.  Readers use Thinkmarks to  make predictions, ask questions, make connections, make inferences, visualize scenes, and to note favorite, funny, or surprising parts.  We will continue using Thinkmarks throughout the year as a way to build reading comprehension with both fiction and non-fiction text.




Much of our math time so far this year has been spent developing strategies for adding double-digit numbers.  Through modeling, discussions with partners, and Work Place games we have uncovered a variety of ways to represent our thinking and strategies:  sketches of base ten pieces, open number lines, equations, splitting diagrams, or a written description.  Many of our mathematicians can solve problems using more than one of these strategies.  Be sure to ask your child about the two new Work Places we learned this week called Carrot Grab and Rabbit Tracks!



Lastly, please check your child's Friday Folder as his or her homework for the month of October is in there.  Each month your child should read at least 500 minutes and record it on the October Reading Log.  At the end of the month, if your child met the reading homework goal, then he or she will be invited to a Literary Lunch with Deb and Miss Niles.  Also included in this week's Friday Folder, is the October Share schedule. Please look over the schedule and talk about it with your child so he or she is prepared to present on the assigned day.

Have a great weekend!