Learning to Type: A Crucial 21st Century Skill

This winter break, when your child (or you!) needs a bit of quiet time, have them jump onto the computer and practice their typing skills!  This year, we are focused on trying to improve students' typing capabilities and the only way to improve these skills is through practice and familiarity.  A great first step is having your child type up their Holiday Project, spelling sentences or other small assignments weekly.  Additionally, Mrs. Bradley has collected a bunch of great sties on her blog that help students learn to type! Check some of them out!

Scholastic Writing Contest

Here is the link to tonight's fun little extra credit writing assignment!!!

All I want for...a Happy Holidays!

This holiday season, I am putting together a little wish list for parents.  As you do your holiday shopping, please consider giving to our classroom community!  Here are some things we could really use:
-Headphones that plug into laptops.  Soon we'll be getting a class set of chrome books (Yipee!).  I want to be able to have student use them during center time to listen to books and answer questions and also to play math games that reinforce skills from lessons.  Many of these require sound.  I'd like headphones that go outside of the ears so they can be shared, rather than earbuds,
-Hardcover Books. As you can imagine, the books in our class library get a lot of use and wear and tear, especially the ever popular "Diary of Wimpy Kid" or "Big Nate" books.  I'd like to start re-stocking and replenishing.  Also, any high-interest non-fiction books about science and nature would be wonderful.
-Addition, Subtraction or Division BINGO. I have a very popular Multiplication BINGO.  I'd like to add to the collection for review and challenge.
-Your Time. If you have any time to make copies, feel comfortable laminating and cutting our items, helping me to organize my class games and center, this would be a holiday gift the whole class (especially me!) can benefit from! Also, classroom visitors are always fun and exciting for the students- can you donate an afternoon to share with us about your career or to help do a hands-on experiment or project? I would love to have some help at our "Holiday Party" at the culmination of our December project- please e-mail me if you can make it!
-Cleaning Products. I use small pump bottle of hand sanitizer as my bathroom passes and go through it pretty fast.  Also, cleaning wipes- both baby wipes and Lysol wipes, as always very useful to have in stock.
-2 new fish and vacation fish feeders. Our bottom feeder has passed away (RIP Stompy) and our tank is starting to look a lil green.  We could use a new fish or 2 to brighten the place up.  3 and 7 day feeders are always good have for winter, spring break and long weekends.
-Fun Classroom Supplies: Handy things that all teachers can use: Colored Sharpie Markers of different sizes, regular Crayola markers, post-its in fun shapes and colors, neat stickers, stamps and stamp pads...


Thank-you for all of your contributions to our classroom!!!

Homework Assignment!!!

I spoke to many parents about the new math curriculum this week at conferences. I stumbled upon this video tonight and I think this teacher does a great job of putting many of my thoughts on Common Core math into words.

I know it can be frustrating, but I truly see students who are better equipped to think deeply about math and give quality explanations for their strategies.  It is certainly going to take some time for everyone to adjust- students to have received the curriculum in each grade level, teachers who are experts on all of these strategies and at building this conceptual understanding, and parents who feel capable and empowered to continue to work with their children at home, but we are on the way!

Please watch it and share your thoughts!

Here is the link to the video.

Fresh New Start!!!

Oh no!!! I've been having some blog troubles and can't seem to upload any of my awesome pictures of my students working super hard!  I'll report the problem to google and add some pics soon- but since I wrote this post LAST WEEK it is time to finally give up for now and just post it.


It is hard to believe it is the beginning of marking period 2.  Last week and this week, we will spend talking about setting an important academic goal for marking period 2 and monitoring progress across the next ten weeks.

I'm very excited to meet with all parents on November 10th and 11th and discuss your child's progress. These meetings are so important in ensuring we work together to help move your child towards excellence in all areas and ensure their school experience is the best. If you haven't already sent me back your form letting me know if you can make your conference time, please do so this week.  I am making my best effort to find a time that works for every parent. Now that I've had this blog for a few years, check out some of my tips to help your child at home based on past conferences here and here.

We've done some interesting things to wrap up marking period 1- including learning some new math games and centers during our multiplication unit and building simple vehicles in science. See photos coming soon!

Community Service Projects

This month, Grade 3 students have their first big take home project assignment: to complete a community service experience and present all about it to their classmates.


This Friday, the first portion of the project is due: students will turn in their plan for what type of community service experience they have selected and their timeline for getting the project completed by the October 28 due date.


You may have noticed that we are assigning slightly less homework this month because we want students working on high quality projects and presentations.


So far, two students have turned in some great project ideas.  Samantha plan to volunteer for the next two Sundays at a local food bank through her church.  Raquel is making bandannas for a local animal shelter to help dogs get adopted. Raquel is hoping to expand this project and collect bandannas from fellow Grade 3 students.  A flyer will be coming home about this with some information on what she is looking for.  If you have a crafty child who is looking for a fun rainy-day project, check it out!


Read more about the Montgomery County Humane Society

Wrapping up Addition and Subtraction!

Across the next two weeks, we will wrap up our review of addition and subtraction.  Although this was a review of grade 2 material, we did introduce some new and interesting strategies that can be used to add and subtract.  We also focused on strategies that help us to be most accurate and efficient!

Here are some pictures of students demonstrating strategies they know to the class.  Raquel practiced the "Counting Up Algorithm" of subtraction at home with her mom and came in and taught it to the whole class!

Very shortly, we will be diving into multiplication and division!  Your child needs to have a strong foundational mastery of addition and subtraction basic facts to be successful in this area! Each Friday, we take a timed basic facts quiz.  Currently, the goal is that your student can complete 50 addition facts with accuracy in 2 minutes. In a few weeks, we'll do a few subtraction timed quizzes and then we will begin the work of beginning to memorize our multiplication facts.  You should see these quizzes coming home each Friday in your student's take home folder.  If the quiz is not complete, this is a good indication that your child needs to spend 5-10 minutes each night drilling these facts through flashcards, worksheets and online games. Please contact me if you need support in this area.