Week 24 "With Glowing Hearts"

VANCOUVER 2010

Although the Winter Olympics is not a focus of our classroom instruction, I do like to teach some lessons that reflect on the spirit of the games. This also marks the  beginning of our READING OLYMPICS! Good Luck everyone, I just bought a new book, The Lightning Thief. I know the movie came out this last weekend, but my goal is to read the book before I see the movie. In my class we will have a board showing how many minutes each student has read during this month.

This week we have a lot going on, tomorrow in particular. Here is our schedule Tuesday morning:
8:30 Computers, then Music Practice, then Bookmobile, and then Recess, and finally Grandparents Lunch at 10:30. Kind of fits the Olympic Theme "With Glowing Hearts." Thanks for all those that are planning on coming in. Busy Morning! Then in the afternoon, there is the "Beat the Teacher Assembly." I actually had a couple of students that beat me. They will be receiving a poster and their choice of a candy bar. The rest of the day we will be trying to focus our attention on this weeks agenda.  Here are some of the things I will be concentrating on this week:


Phonics & Spelling: The c and g in the English language follow certain rules, and I have been teaching the students these rules all year, now it is time to reinforce those rules in our spelling words this week.
Rule 2 - The letter c before e, i, or y says s (cent, city, cycle), but followed by any other letter says k (cat, cot, cut).
Rule 3 - The letter g before e, i, or y says j (page, giant, gym), but followed by any other letter says g (gate, go, gust). The letters e and i following g do not always make the g say j (get, girl, give).

Grammar: In the Daily Grams this week we will look at the following areas:
Capitalization and Punctuation found in direct quotations, titles, greetings, and in proper nouns. Some of the Parts of Speech we will talk about include adjectives that tell how many, adverbs that compare (using the er or est ending - bigger, biggest), and pronouns.
The Grammar in the reading program takes a look at the main verb along with helping verbs.


Reading: The theme this week is "Protecting Our Natural Resources," which also ties in nicely with the Olympics, and the Canadians quest to protect the beautiful Northwest Environment. (If you find anything to tie into this weeks lesson; articles, stories, pictures, please send them with the students). The story we will be reading is a nonfiction article that gives information about real people. The strategy that the students will be modeling this week is monitoring their comprehension by comparing and contrasting. The easiest way to work on this skill at home is to compare the characters found in the story with what is happening in your child's life. Make a list of all the similarities and a list of all the differences. By verbalizing this your child will be able to make other connections as they build on their reading skills.

By the way, don't I have the best looking door! It is awesome! I have some wonderful room mothers that went out of their way to make a wonderful "Manners Meal," for Manners Day on our celebration of Valentine's Day. But the door, THANKS! It fits my personality. Kudos also go out to the wonderful "Teacher Appreciation Week" goodies from the PTA, it was all wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to appreciate us as professional educators.

Some more things that we are working on this week include Mathematics and Science.

In Math we will be finishing up Division for now, and move on to Geometry. Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised at how fast the students have picked up on Division, I know you have been reinforcing it at home, so keep up the great work. We will be covering many more concepts before Spring Break, including measurement, fractions, decimals and a review of multiplication, so we can do double-digit multiplication. Be ready for geometry because there will be some fun activities that can be done at home. Remember I usually always send home a Math assignment Monday - Thursday.

Science: we are studying the Solar System, but not in detail, just briefly. Most students latch onto the Solar System and try to find out more information, so be ready for some questions. Better yet, be ready to direct them to a library book about the Solar System. The biggest topic that came up last year was the fact that Pluto isn't a planet anymore. I have a couple of resources that will help the students understand the planets and be able to compare differences with Earth.

Overall, I see many improvements with the children both academically as well as socially. Their Reading Test that they took Thursday and Friday showed that many of the students have been working hard to be able to read faster, now I need to focus their attention on being better readers, and help them comprehend what they are reading. If you would like to hear how they did, you can wait until Parent Teacher Conference or send me an E-mail.

I plan on posting some pictures of the Valentine's Day - Manner's Meal, later this week, and maybe the Grandparent's pictures as well. Also please have your students bring in articles or stories about the Olympics so we can hang it on our bulletin board. I don't get the newspaper and I don't have TV reception so I am relying on their knowledge and their interests to finish decorating the bulletin board.

So here's to another great week.

Thanks,
Mr. Fisher

Week 22

Welcome to February. We had a wonderful week last week, the students worked hard and then on Friday were rewarded for their efforts. I have done the initial scoring of the block assessment and found the students have done well.

This week we will be moving on to an exciting unit with the theme "What's Cooking." Here are some of the things we are learning this week:

Daily Grams: 
Capitalization of roman numerals, and how to capitalize direct quotations, will be some new concepts.
Punctuation will review how to write lists, dates, friendly notes and a reminder that all sentences end with the proper end mark. (We still forget to put periods at the end of our sentences).
Parts of Speech: Adjectives (telling which one), adverbs (tell when), adverbs (tell where),  conjunctions, and possessive pronouns.
Sentence types is using the technical terms for statements = declarative sentences, questions = interrogative sentences, and commands = imperative sentences.

Spelling:
I almost forgot to update the words on SpellingCity.com. After review weeks, I find that the routine is broken not only in class with the students but also with me as I prepare for the week. This week's words use the aw sound. I almost confused the students this morning when I introduced this weeks words, I forgot that there are several ways to spell that sound. Here are the different ways to spell that sound: "a" as in ball, "aw" as in pawn, "au" as in pause, "ough" used in words like bought, and an additional phonogram "augh" is used quite frequently in common words like daughter. Have some fun with these words, I find it beneficial to use the words in sentences when practicing the spelling of the words, it helps the mind remember which way to spell it when we can associate a connection.

Reading:
The biggest thing we will be concentrating on this week is how to make inferences (guessing what will happen next). Have you ever read a story that ends with a silent ending, and you always what happens next, that is what we mean when we talk about making inferences. Another skill we will focus on is comparing and contrasting. This week we will look at how the main character, Rooster is different from the other characters like Pig. This skill can be used when you read with your child at night, because the child can relate with the character identifying how the character reacts to their situations. For example when I was a lad I always felt I had a connection with Encyclopedia Brown. Though my sleuthing skills never resulted in solving the next big case, I was always comparing myself with Encyclopedia.

Part of this week's focus is on the following verbs known as helping verbs:

 

I consider this a new skill, although we either use it correctly in our speech or we hear it when it is used incorrectly. A redneck would say, "I is going home." When we know that we should say "I am going home." Anyway I will be challenging the students to memorize the Be words: "am, is, are, was, were," the Do words: "do, does, did," and the Have words: "have, has, had."

Math:

We are working on division, and making great progress on our multiplication timings. The students are getting better at recognizing how to do multiplication backwards - to divide. 3 x ___ = 12 is the same as 12 divided by 3.  I know there are a lot of you helping them to break down the barriers in being able to understand this concept, thanks for your hard work. We are actually taking the Math Block Assessment, I feel the students are ready for this test. We will be taking it Tuesday, Thursday and Friday if needed.

Science:

We are studying earthquakes, we should have talked about this a few weeks ago, when it was relevant with the Haiti earthquake. The students should be able to give some good examples, about earthquakes. I know some of the students have even lived in other states susceptible to earthquakes.  This Thursday is the Science Fair for all 3rd - 5th grade students. I know of at least five of our classmates that are working on their science fair projects. Good Luck!

History:

Yes, I do want the students to draw a map of how to get from the school to their home. I will be checking on Google Earth to see if we can get home. The object is to help the students become aware of their own community, and in relation to maps, to see if they can accurately communicate directions to someone else.

If you look at our calendar we have the following coming up during February:

• Thursday, February 4th, (12:45 - 1:45 - time to see the projects) 3rd - 5th Grade Science Fair
• Friday, February 12th - Manners Day (Valentine's Party - at the end of the day).
• Grandparent's Day
• 5th Grade - Feb. 2nd
• 4th Grade - Feb. 9th
• 3rd Grade - Feb. 16th that is the day after President's day.
• 2nd Grade - Feb. 23rd

Thanks, that is all for now.

Mr. Ronald Fisher
3rd Grade Teacher
Century Elementary School
ronald.fisher@besd.net
http://mrfishersthird.blogspot.com