Dear Parents,
This week your child's standards-based progress report will be coming home. This report, as many of you know, is very different from the narrative report that came home last quarter. It will list each of the curricular areas and strands we teach in third grade. We use the terms Extending, Accomplishing, and Developing within each of these areas so you will have a sense of how your child is doing in regards to the content of the Common Core State Standards. Please, please, please remember these terms do not in any way equate with letter grades. For example, Extending does not mean an "A" nor does Accomplishing mean a "B."
Before sharing your child’s standards-based progress
report I would like to take a few moments to share the work we have done
together over the past ninety days of school to explore this content, as well
as to assess it. This is a recap of the information you have received weekly in our class newsletters.
Reading
We began the year celebrating our summer reading. The
kids brought in their summer reading projects and shared with us some of the
books they had read during their break. We purchased a copy of most everyone’s
favorite book (some proved to be near impossible to find) and added these to
our classroom library so others could enjoy them also. Over these first few
weeks of school we used engagements such as the presentations to build
excitement for the reading we would do this year –as a whole group, smaller
book clubs, and during independent reading time. We talked about strategies for
selecting good books, set high expectations for engagement during reading time,
and stretched ourselves to build reading endurance (reading for as much as 35
minutes at a time in the classroom). We also set goals for ourselves to finish
what be start, at least the vast majority of the time.
Over the course of the semester we have conducted
whole-group novel studies of Kate Di Camillo’s Tiger Rising and Karen Hesse’s The
Music of Dolphins. The books gave us the opportunity to come together
daily, in partnerships and as a whole group, to talk about literature. This
helped us see all the ways we interact with texts – asking questions, making
predictions, placing ourselves into the story and considering how we might feel
or act, sizing up characters, making inferences, and so on. This all supports
our understanding that “reading is thinking.” Whereas many books published for
children will have “discussion questions” at the end to help them talk about
the book, we found we don’t need those sorts of closed opportunities. Rather,
we are always having discussions about books, movies, and television shows on
our own because of the great thinking we do – thinking that helps us to
comprehend each of these texts.
The kids also have conducted book clubs this semester.
This is a structure where they choose books they would like to read and come
together with a couple friends each day to talk about what’s happening in the
story. Part of our learning during these book clubs is to develop conversations
where each person builds upon the ideas of others. This requires them to be
careful listeners and, at times, to let go of what they want to talk about and invest
in the ideas of others. As you can imagine, that is not always easy. But it’s
something we can all grow into.
We have also studied non-fiction texts together. While
researching animals for our expert
projects we learned about non-fiction text features (headings,
subheadings, table of contents, glossary, bold print, captions, etc) as well as
visual features (photographs, maps, diagrams, etc). The kids began learning to
determine what information was most important, paraphrase this, and then sort their
information into self-created categories.
Along the way we have explored many other smaller
concepts and skills. Each of these have taken place within the context of the
work we were doing above.
Writing
We started the semester with a study of cursive writing.
We focused on the lower-case letters and then, later in the semester, worked to
learn the capital letters. Once we had learned each lower-case letter I asked
that the kids write everything in cursive to give them ample opportunities to
become comfortable with this new script. For some, this was an opportunity to
clean up otherwise sloppy handwriting. For others, this was a chore and they
couldn’t wait to return to manuscript. Over the remainder of the year there
will be some times when I will ask for everyone to use cursive to ensure they
don’t forget it. However, the majority of the time they will be free to choose
whichever feels most comfortable for them.
During our two studies of
cursive (Iower-case then upper-case) the kids were free to write within any
genre they wished. They collected stories, poems, songs, and non-fiction drafts
in their writing notebooks then chose one at the end to revise, edit, and
publish. As with all published pieces, these went up on the wall for everyone
to pull down and read during silent reading.
Our first genre study of the semester was memoir. The
kids collected ideas from their lives to write about and filled their writing
notebooks. We write each and every day so they have opportunities to really
fill up those journals. During this study we learned to generate ideas to write
about, organize our ideas in a sort of timeline, and stretch out our writing by
including details and telling a story step-by-step. As we worked on this we
also read many memoirs to see what craft moves other authors were using that we
could make our own.
Our second genre study was non-fiction writing. We used
the research we collected about animals (during both reading and science) to
write our own non-fiction books. Again, we used “mentor texts” from our class
library to see what we noticed about the writing of other non-fiction writers.
We learned there are many structures for sharing non-fiction information –
question/answer, narrative, straight forward informational, etc. We also
learned that non-fiction need not be dry. It comes in many forms with many
different styles of writing. These projects called for lots organization and
planning.
Our third genre study has been an exploration of
songwriting. The kids each brought in a favorite song and we used these to
study rhyme pattern and song structure while also looking at subject matter
from time to time. The kids wrote at least two songs and then chose one to
revise and rehearse. These songs will later be recorded as part of our class
CD.
The second semester will have fewer genre studies,
leaving more freedom to select the sorts of pieces they wish to write. However,
even during a genre study the kids always have total freedom to select what
they want to write, so long as it falls within the given genre. Choice is a
very important component of our classrooms, as well as all classrooms at the
Center.
Math
We began the semester reviewing content from last year –
namely adding and subtracting larger numbers. The summer break is long and for
many this review was much needed. We explored real world problems as
mathematicians, making use of both addition and subtraction.
Much
of the first semester has been spent doing the heavy lifting in regards to our
third grade math curriculum – studies of multiplication and division. These are
both key parts of the third grade standards and conceptual understanding as
well as computational accuracy will be crucial as they begin to take on
increasingly complex mathematical work over the next few years. For this
reason, we worked very hard to grasp both these concepts and apply them in a
variety of ways – problem solving with manipulatives, word problems, algebraic
problems, mental math, and abstract problems on a sheet of paper.
Other
areas of study have been: place value, data collection and representation
(graphing), rounding, estimating, measurement, and fractions. Each of these
concepts will be further explored in the second semester.
Social Studies
Our early studies were to use maps to understand the
geography of South Carolina and recognize the differences between various
regions. From here we moved to a study of the Native Americans who lived in
North America before and during the era of exploration. The kids saw that there
were more than twenty different tribes living in what is now South Carolina.
However, we also noticed the state standards only called for us to study four
of these tribes. We wondered how they might have selected which were worth
knowing about which were not. Thinking critically (namely, noticing what is
there and what is absent) is a big part of all our work in social studies.
After
studying Native American tribes we learned about Christopher Columbus. We used
this study to see how the same story can be told very differently based on who
does the telling. Some sources made him out to be a dreamer, brave, and heroic
(all of which could very well be true when only considering certain facts about
him) and other sources made him out to be greedy, dishonest, and evil (all of
which is certainly true when looking at other facts). We built upon the earlier
work we had done to consider what is there and what is not when being given
historical information.
Our most recent study has been of the American
Revolution. We have used this study to see that many different perspectives are
present when looking at any event (current or historical). In the case of the
American Revolution we saw that there were many groups to be considered:
Yankees, loyalists, freed slaves, runaway slaves, poor farmers, Native
Americans, British citizens in England, the King of England, and so on. It was
not two sides. It was many people trying to make sense of what was happening
and determining what was best for their own lives as well as those of their
family and neighbors. A larger question, do we make or support decisions for a
whole country based on our personal needs, the needs of others, or a
combination of the two? How does this work? What is our role in a government?
Ah, social studies is so much more than memorizing a set number of facts
someone has set in front of us!
Science
The science curriculum for third grade science includes
studies of: habitats and adaptations, states of matter, rocks and minerals, and
motion and sound. However, we do not limit ourselves to just these four topics
of study. During news and journals, explorations, and reading workshop we have
an opportunity to explore so much more. From news articles, we have
conversations about space, weather, migrations, etc. From journals, we talk
about plants, animals, and the experiments our classmates are trying out on
their own. During reading workshop we use a variety of science related texts
when doing work around literacy.
As far as the assigned studies, we have thus far only
launched our study of habitats and adaptations. We explored animals of the
world, went to the zoo, observed and collected information from animals in the
classroom, and conducted research projects. Over the remainder of the year we
will complete our focused study of rocks and minerals (February), states of
matter (March), and motion and sound (April). We will also be exploring
electricity during the second semester.
As always, if you have any questions please pass them along.
Thanks,
Chris and Meredith
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