3rd Grade

ISSUE 2 2013 · NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

Days

Issue 1 2013 · November

Editor

Jessie Barry

Contributors

Amanda Johnson

Any Stamper

Sally Baker

Jessie Barry

Allison Davis

Kelly Mitchell

Class Website:

http://www.mtnbrook.k12.al.us/cms/Mrs.+Jessie+Barry/12101.html

Electronic Mail:

barryj@mtnbrook.k12.al.us

Picasa Class Album:

Class Photo Album

All artwork is used under the Fair Use Act and is given

credit when due.

3rd Grade Days 2

3rd Grad

e Da

ys

3rd Grade Days 3

5

7

12

Featured :

Technology In The Classroom............7-8

Boosterthon...........9

Student Recognition……..10

Why 3rd Grade is so Important......11

2nd Nine Weeks Standards…..17-19

Favorites

A Note From Our Reading Coach…5

App-tastic....... 14

Calendars

November............15

December.............16

Teach

er’s L

etter Issue 2 2013 · November

Editor- Jessie Barry

Welcome! We are off to a fantastic 2nd

nine weeks of 3rd grade! Holiday

celebrations are right around the

corner, and I am sure we won’t slow

down until winter break. I would like

to wish your family a safe, fun and

memorable holiday season!

I have asked Sandy Ritchey, our new

reading coach, to be a featured

contributor. She highlights the

importance of lap reading at home.

Sincerely,

Jessie Barry

*I’d like to thank Miss Ferguson for the

idea of creating this wonderful

magazine! I hope you enjoy it!

Love THIS

3rd Grade Days 4

Add a little festivity to your table this Thanksgiving by making thankful turkeys out of pinecones. See the instructions here at The Domestic

Darlin.

“CHILDREN ARE MADE READERS ON THE LAPS OF THEIR PARENTS.” -EMILIE BUCHWALD

Sandy Ritchey is the reading coach at Crestline Elementary. She works with teachers to support their classroom instruction. She has been in education for 12 years.

By Sandy Ritchey 3rd Grade Days 5

Reading aloud should be fun and interactive. Ask your child questions during the book, like “what do you think will happen next” and make personal connections, “remember when,” that create a context for reading. This sets your child up for success—even adults need to understand the context of reading materials in magazines and newspaper articles. Laying groundwork for future independent reading is done when you first read aloud to your children: pause to confirm and revise predictions, ask questions and make connections. This teaches your child that understanding text is a process that occurs before, during and after reading. Before Reading Choose books you or your child can get excited about reading. There are so many books out there, don’t spend time reading ones you won’t enjoy! If you haven’t read the book already, scan it to get a sense of it before you start reading aloud. Plan an introduction—find links to personal experiences. Introduce the title, author, and illustrator. During Reading Read with fluency and expression. Children need to hear changes in your voice to indicate when you are reading dialogue. Vary your pace, too. Slow down to build up suspense and speed up during exciting scenes. Hold the books so your child can see the illustrations. Try to establish frequent eye contact with your child. Invite your child to question and comment but keep it focused on the story. Explain words and ideas you think your child might not understand. After Reading Sometimes a book will pique curiosity and lead to questions and conversation afterwards, sometimes not. It’s ok either way! Allow time for discussion. Encourage various levels of response with questions. Retell the story or reread it to enhance comprehension. Reading aloud is a great time to enjoy books together. The increased vocabulary, correct grammar and comprehension will come naturally. Soon enough, it will be your child’s turn to say “all by myself” and read these books to you. Then, it will be the chapter books and “just one more chapter before I go to bed, please?” Way to go mom and dad, you’re building a strong foundation of readers who WANT to read when YOU read aloud today. Jamison Rog, Lori (2002). Early Literacy Instruction in Kindergarten. Interactive Storybook Reading: Making the Classroom Read-Aloud Program a Meaningful Experience, 6, 49-55 Trelease, Jim. The Read Aloud Handbook. New York: Penguin, 2006.

3rd Grade Days 6

The integration of technology in education is no longer a "new" idea. Technology has become such an integral part of society, it is necessary to integrate its use in education in a variety of ways. The use of computer technology has moved beyond computer assisted instruction in the form of tutorials or drill and practice. Today's technology can provide teachers and students with opportunities for teaching and learning that were impossible in the past. Computers can be used as devices for communicating with people literally a world apart. They can also be used as tools to create instructional materials or as presentation devices to provide information in ways never before possible.

The simple fact that students exposed to technology will be more comfortable with it later in life is only one of the many reasons to use it in hopes of preparing the for the future. The Aspen Institute of Communication and Society also believes that students learn to control their own behavior when they carry out instruction, make decisions, solve problems, think critically, set goals, work towards goals, and then assess their programs when they have completed the goal- all skills needed later in life.

Computers in the classroom develop

important skills. In business, the ubiquity of computers makes understanding how to use them essential; thus, the use of computers can help enhance information processing skills. The ability to locate information, distinguish the important from the unimportant, think critically, work effectively in groups, and present information in many types of media are all aided by the use of technology in the classroom.

It is important to me that my students don’t simply learn how to use these technology tools for the sake of knowing them, but are able to consistently apply their technology skills to all instructional materials. It is only then that technology tools become interactive resources and learning aids that enable the students to demonstrate their knowledge and comprehension outside of our classroom.

Technology in The Classroom

3rd Grade Days 7

Prezi is a presentation tool that helps transform lack-luster, static presentations into engaging presentations that tell a story.

Instead of moving slide to slide, like a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, Prezi presentations capture content in a spatial context. Because of this, your audience may be more engaged with your presentation.

If you’ve been using PowerPoint, you can import an existing PowerPoint presentation and transform it into a Prezi.

Let’s take a look at some example presentations using Prezi that demonstrate how this tool can be used to take your presentations to the next level.

To learn more about Prezi click HERE.

Here is an example of how a student in our class applied classroom content to a technology tool. Through this Prezi, the student applied her knowledge of our classroom vocabulary words for the week, while at the same time creating a study aid for the rest of the class to benefit from that week. By sharing it, students are able to see that their work holds value as they share it with their classroom peers.

3rd Grade Days 8

A Letter From Our Principal…

3rd Grade Days 9

In each issue of the magazine, I would like to feature articles written by the students. If

there is ever something exciting going on in your life at home or

something educational your child would like to share with the class, please encourage

them to write an article for our classroom magazine.

3rd Grade Days 10

Children who have made the leap to fluent reading will learn exponentially, while those who haven't will slump By: Annie Murphy Paul Take a guess: What is the single most important year of an individual’s academic career? The answer isn’t junior year of high school, or senior year of college. It’s third grade. What makes success in third grade so significant? It’s the year that students move from learning to read — decoding words using their knowledge of the alphabet — to reading to learn. The books children are expected to master are no longer simple primers but fact-filled texts on the solar system, Native Americans, the Civil War. Children who haven’t made the leap to fast, fluent reading begin at this moment to fall behind, and for most of them the gap will continue to grow. So third grade constitutes a critical transition — a “pivot point,” in the words of Donald J. Hernandez, a professor of sociology at CUNY–Hunter College. A study Hernandez conducted, released last year by Annie E. Casey Foundation, found that third graders who lack proficiency in reading are four times more likely to become high school dropouts. Too often the story unfolds this way: struggles in third grade lead to the “fourth-grade slump,” as the reading-to-learn model comes to dominate instruction. While their more skilled classmates are amassing knowledge and learning new words from context, poor readers may begin to avoid reading out of frustration. A vicious cycle sets in: school assignments increasingly require background knowledge and familiarity with “book words” (literary, abstract and technical terms)— competencies that are themselves acquired through reading.

Meanwhile, classes in science, social studies, history and even math come to rely more and more on textual analysis, so that struggling readers begin to fall behind in these subjects as well. In operation here is what researchers call the “Matthew effect,” after the Bile verse found in the Gospel of Matthew: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” In other words, the academically rich get richer and the poor get poorer, as small differences in learn ability grow into large ones. But the Matthew effect has an important upside: well-timed interventions can reverse its direction, turning a vicious cycle into a virtuous one. Recognizing the importance of this juncture, some states have been taking a hard line: third-graders who aren’t reading at grade level don’t get promoted to fourth grade. “Mandatory retention” bills have already passed in Arizona, Florida, Indiana and Oklahoma, and are being considered in Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and Tennessee. But many education researchers say holding kids back isn’t the answer. The ideal alternative: teachers and parents would collaborate on the creation of an individualized learning plan for each third-grader who needs help with reading — a plan that might involve specialized instruction, tutoring or

summer school. Most important is taking action, researchers say, and not assuming that reading problems will work themselves out. It might seem scary that a single school year can foretell so much of a student’s future. But maybe we should feel grateful instead — that research has given us a golden opportunity to both build on what has already been accomplished or turn kids’ academic lives around.

3rd Grade Days 11

3rd Grade Days 12

Insight Wanted Want to share your opinion or ask a question?

You may be featured in one of our publications!

Contributors

Sally Baker

3rd Grade Teacher

Jessie Barry

3rd Grade Teacher

Allison Davis

3rd Grade Teacher

Laura Ferguson

3rd Grade Teacher

Kelly Mitchell

3rd Grade Teacher

Amanda Johnson

3rd Grade Teacher

Amy Stamper

3rd Grade Teacher

Sandy Ritchey

Reading

Coach 3rd Grade Days 13

App-tastic Our Picks

AppTASTIC

Third Grade Skills- Math $1.99 This app includes 120 math problems. This is a wonderful resource for learning 3rd grade math. A 2 time award winning 3rd grade teacher designed this app. All seven concepts in this app are taught into 3rd grade. It covers place value, rounding, patterns, money, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Third Grade Skills- Language Arts $1.99 There are over 150 questions on this app. This app is designed to help third grade students master language arts. This app includes graphics for each section, which will help all visual learners. Sections this app includes are: types of sentences, capitalization, punctuation, subject and predicate, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms.

Prezi Free Create and present beautiful presentations with Prezi for iPad. Get started by choosing one of their stunning templates then add your text and images!

Math Word Problems- Grade 3 $2.99 Practice grade specific math skills with “manipulative” that can be used as visual clues to solve problems. Select from multiple operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, probability, logic, and more.

3rd Grade Days 14

S M T W TH F S

1 2

Makeup

Picture Day

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Veterans Day

Program 8:30

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Veterans Day

No School

Scholastic

Orders Due (use code

GMWH4 for

online ordering)

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Interim

Reports Go

Home

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Wear your

favorite team

colors!

November

3rd Grade Days 15

·············Thanksgiving Holidays············

S M T W TH F S

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Holiday Program

at 8:30

(K parents)

send change of

clothes each day

Holiday Program

at 8:30

(Grade 1

parents)

Holiday Program

at 8:30 and

9:45 (Grade 2

and 3 parents)

Holiday Party

End of Second

Nine Weeks

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 1 2 3 4

Students

Return to

School

December

·····················································Winter Holidays·····················································

3rd Grade Days 16

································Winter Holidays································

Use addition,

subtraction,

multiplication and

division to solve

word problems

Use mental math to

decide if the

answers are

reasonable

Tell and write time

to the nearest

minute

Understand that the

area of plane shapes

can be measured in

square units

Measures areas by

counting unit squares

Round numbers to

the nearest 10 or

100

Find and explain

patterns in addition

and multiplication

tables

Measure area by

using what I know

about multiplication

and addition

Add and subtract

numbers within 1000

Solve real world

math problems using

what I know about

perimeter of shapes

Place shapes into

categories depending

upon their attributes

Write to inform and

explain ideas

Stay focused and

organized in my

writing

Plan, edit and revise my

writing with the help of

peers and adults

Use technology to

create pieces of

writing and to

interact and share

ideas with others

Organize short

research projects

3rd Grade Days 18

Watercolor Dots by PaperSource.com

Objectives A sampling of the many skills and behaviors

Use apostrophes

appropriately to

show possession

Effectively

participate in

discussions

Come to discussions

prepared to share my

ideas

Follow appropriate

rules for discussions,

such as taking my

turn

Say and write

simple, compound

and complex

sentences

Write on a regular

basis with stamina

for different tasks,

purposes, and

audiences

Explain how the

author uses

illustrations to help

the meaning in a

story

Read and understand

words with common

prefixes and suffixes

Research and use what I

have experienced to gather

information

Read fluently,

accurately and with

expression

Read words with

more than one

syllable

Explain how nouns,

pronouns, verbs,

adjectives and adverbs

work in different

sentences

Read third grade

words that are not

spelled in a regular

way

Correctly say, write

and use all types of

plurals nouns

Use conjunctions in

the correct way in

my speech and

writing

Make sure that all

of my subjects, verbs

and pronouns are in

agreement in the

sentences I say and

write

3rd Grade Days 19

Third grade children are practicing for mastery this nine weeks of school.

Ask questions to

help me

understand

discussions and

stay on topic

Explain my own

thinking and ideas

after discussion

Speak clearly and at

a good pace

Speak in complete

sentences to make

what I am sharing

more clear to others

Ask and answer

questions about

information I hear

from another

speaker

Figure out the main

idea and details of

what I see and hear

Report on a topic or

tell a story with correct

and appropriate facts

3rd Grade Days 18

Watercolor Dots by PaperSource.com

Objectives Continued…

Questions, comments, and ideas for the next issue are always welcome!