It was a wonderful first full week of school! On Monday we began studying the 7 Habits for Happy Kids, which is based off of the Sean Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. While reading it, we connected it to our own classroom and work habits. As a group, we decided that we needed to be proactive to keep our classroom in order so we worked on brainstorming some classroom jobs. Then, the children each applied for a job. The S.S. Sundh is going to be running smoothly with everyone working together to get things done in the room.
In reading we have been working on identifying traits, feelings and actions of the characters in the text and how they contribute to the story. We have done both whole group and small group discussions where we worked on citing text evidence, too! Instead of just providing an answer to a discussion question, the children have been tasked with going back and seeing what part in the story proves that this is a correct answer. Ask your child to tell you about about Evan from Lemonade Wars and Drake from The Case of the Gasping Garbage.
In writing, we are working on narratives. We have been working on developing our characters and establishing a problem and solution. Next week we will dive deeper into personal narratives. I know this will be a big hit with the children since they’ll get to tell their own story.
The children were thrilled to begin math- especially since our week was focused on multiplication and division. This is an exciting part of 3rd grade, so the enthusiasm has fostered positive learning. In order to help the children improve their math facts, on Monday we will take a math fact assessment. I put a clock on the screen and the children work through the assessment. When they are done, they record the time it took. On Friday they will take the same assessment and see if they improved their speed of the math facts. We are charting this to help us see our improvement the more we practice. When teaching, I will try to involve many different learning styles. The children do lots of use manipulatives, hand motions, songs and drawings to learn. Next week we will focus on learning our multiplication facts of 2’s.
In Social Studies we are continuing to study maps. We are working on reading the atlas to gain knowledge about places around the world. The children will soon create a podcast to help explain where Libertyville by describing the location through various map terms.
This week the children took the STAR assessment. This is a great tool to take a snapshot of your child three times a year so we can monitor progress. We will compile the data and send home a copy of your child’s score on September 9th. I was very proud of the hard work that the children put forth during the testing.
Today we had our first Book Buddy visit with Mrs. Howell’s Kindergarten students. It is very exciting to be the ‘big’ buddy. We did some getting to know you activities and look forward to a great year together.
We also began Genius Hour today. The children are very excited to be able to pick an area of study. We are working on brainstorming some ideas and will begin our proposals next week! To learn more about Genius Hour, this is a great video https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=NMFQUtHsWhc
Next week is Character Counts Week! It is going to be a lot of fun celebrating the pillars of Character. To read about the activities that are going on each day, click here: http://mrssundhsclass.weebly.com/the-buzz/cc-week
If you have a moment, take some time check out our weekly pictures here: http://mrssundhsclass.weebly.com/pictures.html
Have a fabulous Labor Day weekend! I can’t wait to see the children on Tuesday!
Warmly,
Danya Sundh
In reading we have been working on identifying traits, feelings and actions of the characters in the text and how they contribute to the story. We have done both whole group and small group discussions where we worked on citing text evidence, too! Instead of just providing an answer to a discussion question, the children have been tasked with going back and seeing what part in the story proves that this is a correct answer. Ask your child to tell you about about Evan from Lemonade Wars and Drake from The Case of the Gasping Garbage.
In writing, we are working on narratives. We have been working on developing our characters and establishing a problem and solution. Next week we will dive deeper into personal narratives. I know this will be a big hit with the children since they’ll get to tell their own story.
The children were thrilled to begin math- especially since our week was focused on multiplication and division. This is an exciting part of 3rd grade, so the enthusiasm has fostered positive learning. In order to help the children improve their math facts, on Monday we will take a math fact assessment. I put a clock on the screen and the children work through the assessment. When they are done, they record the time it took. On Friday they will take the same assessment and see if they improved their speed of the math facts. We are charting this to help us see our improvement the more we practice. When teaching, I will try to involve many different learning styles. The children do lots of use manipulatives, hand motions, songs and drawings to learn. Next week we will focus on learning our multiplication facts of 2’s.
In Social Studies we are continuing to study maps. We are working on reading the atlas to gain knowledge about places around the world. The children will soon create a podcast to help explain where Libertyville by describing the location through various map terms.
This week the children took the STAR assessment. This is a great tool to take a snapshot of your child three times a year so we can monitor progress. We will compile the data and send home a copy of your child’s score on September 9th. I was very proud of the hard work that the children put forth during the testing.
Today we had our first Book Buddy visit with Mrs. Howell’s Kindergarten students. It is very exciting to be the ‘big’ buddy. We did some getting to know you activities and look forward to a great year together.
We also began Genius Hour today. The children are very excited to be able to pick an area of study. We are working on brainstorming some ideas and will begin our proposals next week! To learn more about Genius Hour, this is a great video https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=NMFQUtHsWhc
Next week is Character Counts Week! It is going to be a lot of fun celebrating the pillars of Character. To read about the activities that are going on each day, click here: http://mrssundhsclass.weebly.com/the-buzz/cc-week
If you have a moment, take some time check out our weekly pictures here: http://mrssundhsclass.weebly.com/pictures.html
Have a fabulous Labor Day weekend! I can’t wait to see the children on Tuesday!
Warmly,
Danya Sundh