Dear Grade 2/3 Families,
What a great week. We started with pajamas and ended with a great field trip to the New Jersey State Museum. Of course we wouldn’t have been able to go without all of our parent volunteers. Thanks to Gina, Suzanne, Heather, Agnes, Aurora, Michele, Lynette, and Emma for giving their day to take the children. They learned a lot, and now they have a little more background knowledge before starting their individual inquiries.
In Grade 2
Math Workshop: The children worked on making change last week. This is a challenging concept, but we were up to the challenge. We focused mostly on the strategy of counting up to $1 to find the change. We also looked at subtraction as another strategy. This week we will conclude our study of money (even though we will continue to review it all year). We will work on counting money mentally, play more money bingo, and continue to work on making change with larger amounts. 2nd graders will begin working with the Dreambox Learning adaptive math program next week. Please keep an eye out for materials that will go home with your learner on Wednesday afternoon. In the meantime, here are some things you should know about Dreambox:
Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop: The children are continuing to work on paragraph writing skills. We are also working on peer editing and revising our writing. Ms. Gallagher will be in to help us as we look at good book selections. As always, we will read, talk about reading, write about our reading, and read some more.
In Grade 3
Math Workshop: we began laying the groundwork for multiplication fact fluency practice at home by trying and discussing different strategies that work. A lot of information went home this week about this-- please notify Gaby if you didn’t get any of the parent letters or resources about fact fluency practice. We also delved into division by learning a game called Leftovers with 15. We played as a whole class, then we played Leftovers with 20 with a friend. Begin having conversations with your child about division and real world situations that require division of whole numbers ie: baking, sharing out of items, etc...To help with understanding, we read a book called When The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. Ask your learner about the book was about! Next week, your learner will teach you how to play Leftovers for homework. Learners also took a Show What You Know on their fluency learning goals for the week. If your child showed fluency on the assessment, then they will get new goals for next week. If not, they get to try again! :) Again, please let Gaby know if your learner is not having success with an appropriate tool/strategy for practice at home. Finally, 3rd graders got started on Dreambox Learning this week. Please let me know if you did not receive information at home about setting this up at home. Here are 3 main things you must know:
Let Gaby know if you have any questions about Dreambox. We are so incredibly fortunate to have this be a piece of our math program.
In Readers’ Workshop, we are taking a closer look at the genre of fiction. We are examining opening lines of fiction books and what makes them so interesting and effective in hooking the reader in. We are also noticing all the details that go into building out the story elements of a memorable fiction story. In our Read Aloud, Amphibian romance is building in The Prince of the Pond! We are learning a lot of factual information about pond life through this very funny and engaging fractured fairy tale. Ask your learner to tell you about the characters of the story and what they love most about the story.
In Writers’ Workshop, we completed another successful dictation. Just a gentle reminder to make sure your learner’s spelling journal lives in his/her backpack. A helpful way for your learner to practice the spelling words is to give him/her interesting mini-dictations requiring them to use different spelling and punctuation. Just as we are exploring fiction up close in Readers’ Workshop, we are doing the same in Writers’ Workshop as we examine mentor texts and their opening lines and improve our own as well as add details to our fiction writing.
In our 2/3 learning community
IB Unit Inquiry: Last week’s trip really helped the children get more background information for their inquiries. Next week, the children will make a decision about which subtopic about the Earth’s surface they want to study. Children will work independently or with a partner to investigate topics like erosion, glaciers, volcanoes, earthquakes, weather, and hopefully a few more. They will be able to use books and the internet to do their research. Then children will be able to choose a way to show what they know by using a poster, model, powerpoint presentation, video, or some other means. We are looking forward to what they come up with.
Important Dates and Reminders:
December 15, Pizza Thursday
December 15, Thursday - Class Holiday Party 9:30 - 10:30
December 16, Friday ~ Winter Party @ 10:30am - 12:00 Dismissal
NO Regular Afternoon Programs
NO Vacation Program
December 19-23 ~ Vacation Program in session
December 27-30 ~ Vacation Program in session
January 3, Tuesday - Classes Resume
January 6, Friday - Friday Focus
What a great week. We started with pajamas and ended with a great field trip to the New Jersey State Museum. Of course we wouldn’t have been able to go without all of our parent volunteers. Thanks to Gina, Suzanne, Heather, Agnes, Aurora, Michele, Lynette, and Emma for giving their day to take the children. They learned a lot, and now they have a little more background knowledge before starting their individual inquiries.
In Grade 2
Math Workshop: The children worked on making change last week. This is a challenging concept, but we were up to the challenge. We focused mostly on the strategy of counting up to $1 to find the change. We also looked at subtraction as another strategy. This week we will conclude our study of money (even though we will continue to review it all year). We will work on counting money mentally, play more money bingo, and continue to work on making change with larger amounts. 2nd graders will begin working with the Dreambox Learning adaptive math program next week. Please keep an eye out for materials that will go home with your learner on Wednesday afternoon. In the meantime, here are some things you should know about Dreambox:
Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop: The children are continuing to work on paragraph writing skills. We are also working on peer editing and revising our writing. Ms. Gallagher will be in to help us as we look at good book selections. As always, we will read, talk about reading, write about our reading, and read some more.
In Grade 3
Math Workshop: we began laying the groundwork for multiplication fact fluency practice at home by trying and discussing different strategies that work. A lot of information went home this week about this-- please notify Gaby if you didn’t get any of the parent letters or resources about fact fluency practice. We also delved into division by learning a game called Leftovers with 15. We played as a whole class, then we played Leftovers with 20 with a friend. Begin having conversations with your child about division and real world situations that require division of whole numbers ie: baking, sharing out of items, etc...To help with understanding, we read a book called When The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. Ask your learner about the book was about! Next week, your learner will teach you how to play Leftovers for homework. Learners also took a Show What You Know on their fluency learning goals for the week. If your child showed fluency on the assessment, then they will get new goals for next week. If not, they get to try again! :) Again, please let Gaby know if your learner is not having success with an appropriate tool/strategy for practice at home. Finally, 3rd graders got started on Dreambox Learning this week. Please let me know if you did not receive information at home about setting this up at home. Here are 3 main things you must know:
- Learners must complete any lesson they start-- regardless of whether it is “too easy” or “too hard”. Completing the lessons make it essential for the adaptive program to calibrate and get to your learner’s mathematical “sweet spot”
- Learners must complete lesson 100% independently. Again, if grown ups explain and help out with the math, the individualized tailoring for your child will be skewed and so will the information it gives us about how your child problem solves and any strategy gaps.
- No pencil and paper when using dreambox. All math is to be done mentally OR using the virtual tool/manipulative provided on the screen.
Let Gaby know if you have any questions about Dreambox. We are so incredibly fortunate to have this be a piece of our math program.
In Readers’ Workshop, we are taking a closer look at the genre of fiction. We are examining opening lines of fiction books and what makes them so interesting and effective in hooking the reader in. We are also noticing all the details that go into building out the story elements of a memorable fiction story. In our Read Aloud, Amphibian romance is building in The Prince of the Pond! We are learning a lot of factual information about pond life through this very funny and engaging fractured fairy tale. Ask your learner to tell you about the characters of the story and what they love most about the story.
In Writers’ Workshop, we completed another successful dictation. Just a gentle reminder to make sure your learner’s spelling journal lives in his/her backpack. A helpful way for your learner to practice the spelling words is to give him/her interesting mini-dictations requiring them to use different spelling and punctuation. Just as we are exploring fiction up close in Readers’ Workshop, we are doing the same in Writers’ Workshop as we examine mentor texts and their opening lines and improve our own as well as add details to our fiction writing.
In our 2/3 learning community
IB Unit Inquiry: Last week’s trip really helped the children get more background information for their inquiries. Next week, the children will make a decision about which subtopic about the Earth’s surface they want to study. Children will work independently or with a partner to investigate topics like erosion, glaciers, volcanoes, earthquakes, weather, and hopefully a few more. They will be able to use books and the internet to do their research. Then children will be able to choose a way to show what they know by using a poster, model, powerpoint presentation, video, or some other means. We are looking forward to what they come up with.
Important Dates and Reminders:
December 15, Pizza Thursday
December 15, Thursday - Class Holiday Party 9:30 - 10:30
December 16, Friday ~ Winter Party @ 10:30am - 12:00 Dismissal
NO Regular Afternoon Programs
NO Vacation Program
December 19-23 ~ Vacation Program in session
December 27-30 ~ Vacation Program in session
January 3, Tuesday - Classes Resume
January 6, Friday - Friday Focus