Week 10 & 11

These have been VERY busy, full days!  Thank you so much for coming in to school to learn more about your child's progress.  It's so exciting to think about how far they have come since the beginning of the year!
Last week we published our small moment narratives.  We broke into small groups with Mrs. Raney's class and with the support of our writing partners, read our stories to our group. Within our class we had a publishing party with special snacks.  We set up a book museum and students walked around enjoying classmate's writing pieces and crafted thoughtful comments. This week we moved on to non fiction writing.  Students came up with a topic they are experts in and have begun to write everything they know about their topic.  We are in the process of writing our table of contents and thinking of a logical sequence for our books.
In reader's workshop we have begun to focus on non fiction.  We are noticing different text features in our books and using these as a way to get our minds ready for the reading that will be done.  Toward the end of the week, partners read non fiction articles together and wrote about the main idea and examples that went with the main idea.  This is a tricky task that our 3rd graders took on with confidence!
In math we have moved on to multiplication.  During number corner students are using the equation height x length to figure out the area of arrays on our calendar.  We are also starting to learn about fractions (1/8, 1/4, 1/2.)

Questions to spark conversation:
-What did you do in the forest with the Growing Change teachers?
-What are you writing your non fiction book about?
-Can you find any arrays around the house?  What is the area of those arrays?