Second Week Success!

We had another great week on Team Esprit!  We are all getting to know each other better and becoming more accustomed to third grade routines! Each class created a set of classroom promises to help make this the best year of learning.  The children were very thoughtful in creating these promises to each other to be safe, respectful, and responsible.  The children also created All About Me posters.  These posters will be hanging in our kiva.  Stop by to learn more about the children on Team Esprit!

This week in writer's workshop, the children were introduced to the idea of a writer's notebook.  This is a place to keep story ideas and a place for the children to do their 7-minute writes.  Each day we will write for at least seven minutes straight, building our writing stamina.  For these seven minutes, the children can write about any topic and in any form, such as poetry, lists, stories, etc.  The children also had the opportunity to decorate their writer's notebooks with images that inspire or interest them.  These images will hopefully be used to spark writing topics in the future! Ask your child what is on his or her notebook!

In math we continue work on a variety of math challenges involving number patterns, patterns in shapes, graphing, and number talks.  All of these challenges are created to provide math conversation opportunities and opportunities for the children to demonstrate and justify their thinking.  We also watched a few videos about the brain and how that connects to learning and learning in math.  Ask your child what happens in his or her brain when he or she makes a mistake!  In honor of making mistakes, we read Beautiful Oops!.  This book teaches us that mistakes can turn into art.  Each child was given an "oops" (a stray mark on a page) and he or she had to turn it into something beautiful.  We were impressed with their creativity!

During reader's workshop, the children filled out a reading inventory.  The questions on the inventory will give us information about the types of books the children like to read and their feelings about reading.  We will use these inventories to help children find books of interest in our classroom library and to offer recommendations.  We also have been building our stamina for reading independently in the classroom.  What book is your child reading right now at school?

Please check your child's Friday folder this week.  There is a note about our upcoming Esprit Curriculum night and our field trip to Shelburne Farms.  Please contact us with any questions.  Have a great weekend!