"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today we officially started our Fairy Tale genre study with a focus on Cinderella.  I have read aloud the original Cinderella fairy tale and now we are focusing on fractured fairy tales.  We started today with Prince Cinders.  This fractured fairy tale includes BIG, humorous changes to the main characters, setting, and even the glass slipper!  We always have fun with this unit and studying different fractured fairy tales, versions, and adaptations.  Ask your child the difference between the three!

"It's Monday...time for ELA TESTING!!!"

We continue our SBAC testing this week with our English Language Arts testing.  Testing will be all week except for Wednesday, which will include a very important classroom activity to help us prepare for testing on Thursday and Friday.  Please remember to get a good night of sleep, eat a healthy breakfast, and be ready to ace your test!  I am so proud of the work that these third graders have done so far, keep it up!  The finish line is in sight!

  

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
~Mahatma Gandhi~

We are continuing our unit on Social Change.  This week, we continue to study the sub-themes of kindness, acceptance, and compassion.  We are reading Those Shoes and Each Kindness.  Each of these books have the class thinking about how to treat others and consider how others feel.  Check out the book, Those Shoes, and book trailer of Each Kindness below!  Last week, we read books with similar themes, including Nadia's Hands and The Sandwich Swap.  In Book Clubs this week, we will read different texts about Mahatma Gandhi, a man known for his strong beliefs and dedication to equality, freedom, and peace.  He has inspired many heroes of our time, including Dr. King and Nelson Mandela.  Ask your child about him this week!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

We are continuing our Social Change unit with a study of kids who make a difference in our world!  This week, we are studying a man named William Kamkwamba in his book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  He changed the lives of people in his village of Malawi by creating a windmill made of junkyard parts.  His windmill brings electricity and water to the drought-ravaged and starving village.  We are also reading "Here's My Dollar" in book clubs.  This book teaches about a girl named Angel who helps save a zoo by collecting one dollar at a time.  Both of these selections tie into our last week of Read to Feed!  Remind your child that kids, too, can make a difference!  

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

We are at the start of a new reading unit!  Today, we started taking a close look at books that promote Social Change.  These are books written with a unique theme that is meant to inspire readers.  These books help make our world a better place.  The theme of Social Change is often hidden deeply in MANY books we read!  Social change can include books that teach equality, tell about how to treat others, examples of charities, and examples of problems and solutions in our world.  We are starting with a mini study of books that include people with disabilities and how to treat everyone with kindness and compassion.  Two wonderful books include Be Good To Eddie Lee and Looking Out For Sarah.  Ask your child about these books!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

We are wrapping up our Biography genre study!  In book clubs, students collaboratively developed a Google Presentation based on notes they took while reading texts on their "person of study."  On Friday, the class did an excellent job presenting on the person they studied in book clubs.  Ask your child if you can check it out at home in their rockyhillps.com account!  It was neat to hear about each person and learn why they have a Biography written about them.  This week, we are wrapping up our Biography study with a mini study of Jacques Cousteau.  We are reading Manfish over the next few days, then The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau.  We will compare and contrast our learning from the two texts, and add knowledge we obtain from the Cousteau website.  Ask your child what character traits they would use to describe Jacques Cousteau!

Read Across America Day!

Wow, what an exciting afternoon we had!  To celebrate "Read Across America Day," we attended a school-wide assembly.  During the assembly, Mr. Nozik read aloud If I Ran the Zoo  by Dr. Seuss after we sang Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!  Then, we learned about why animals should not be held in captivity and what we can do to protect their habitats.  We got to see and learn about a snake, bearded dragon, macaw, kangaroo, chinchilla, and tortoise.  This was the kick-off to the 2014 "One Book One Community" event.  Tonight, your child will bring home The One and Only Ivan.  Please encourage them to participate by reading the daily assigned pages included in their packet.  We also kicked off the 3rd Grade "Read to Feed" campaign.  During the month of March, we challenge students to collect pledges for each book they read.  These pledges are donated to the Rocky Hill Food Bank.  In the past, we collected nearly $2,000 to donate!  While students are not required to collect money, students must read and log their books as part of their homework assignment.  Happy reading, enjoy Ivan!  

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

It's been awhile since we've had school on a Monday!  Our Biography unit is up and running!  Last week, students were introduced to the Biography genre with an overview on the key elements of a Biography.  We used Milton Hershey as our mentor text.  Students learned that Biographies are books written about people who made special achievements in their lives.  These people are brave or determined.  Good readers of Biographies notice: text features, what society was like during that time period, specific events in the person's life, including struggles or challenges, specific character traits, and more!  Over the next few weeks, students will participate in lessons on Helen Keller and Louis Braille.  These two people are true heroes who persevered to achieve great accomplishments in their lives, which continue to impact people today!  Students will also begin Book Clubs!

 

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Happy Monday!  Today we continued our sea turtle study with our final reading and note taking assignment.  Students worked in book clubs to read and notice author's structure or craft, tell about their new learning, and draw and describe a text feature on their final text.  Tomorrow we will review the texts, particularly One Tiny Turtle, which integrates beautiful craft throughout the story of a turtle.  Students will compare and contrast how the author of this book wrote differently from the others, which are more traditional informational texts.  Then, finally, we move on to our Mystery unit at the end of the week!  

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  As we start the new year, we are diving right in to working hard with our reading!  This week, we are reviewing our non-fiction reading skills and strategies from before break with a study of sea turtles.  Students will read four different texts and will integrate their learning across texts on the same topic.  Students will apply their learning of text features, text structure, and author's craft to these different texts.  Today, we started with Gail Gibbons book Sea Turtles.  Students will read and take notes on the unique features of these non-fiction texts.  Another favorite book of mine that we will read is One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies.  Next week, we return to fiction reading with a Mystery genre study!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today, we continued our Gail Gibbons author study after attending an assembly with a wonderful story-teller!  Today, students continued to notice Gail Gibbon's use of different text structures and text features in the book Deserts.  We noticed a variety of text structures, including description, compare/contrast, main idea & details, and cause-and-effect.  The variety of structures help the author share their information in the most appropriate way.  We also noticed many of her commonly used text features once again, including diagrams, vocabulary words, cut-aways, and even in-sets.  Ask your child what these features are and how they help us understand her book about deserts!  Happy reading!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

It's Monday and we are back to a full day's work!  It was great meeting with everyone over the conference days!  Today we started our author study of Gail Gibbons to wrap up our non-fiction unit of study.  She is a well-known author of non-fiction books who has written over 170 books!  Wow!  We will study how she structures her writing (main idea/details, compare/contrast, cause & effect, sequence of events, description...) and her amazing text features.  She will be a "mentor author" for our non-fiction books that we are writing!  Check her work out and ask your child what his or her favorite Gail Gibbons book is throughout our study!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today we started our mini study of animal homes.  As a class, we are reading and discussing the story, Animals Homes, and discussing the main idea, supporting details, and HOW the details support the main idea.  In Book Clubs, students are reading about how different animals build their homes, including birds, spiders and insects, and mammals.  Animals are truly architects and engineers!  During reading, I shared a video of weaver birds building their nests with my "bird" book club.  Check it out!  It's amazing how well they sew!  At reader's round-up, I shared the video below that shows how prairie dogs build their complex burrow system.  Happy reading!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today, we wrapped up our unit on Antarctica by reading about a "Whale of a Debate."  We read the article "Sea Hunt," featured in Time For Kids magazine.  The article discussed two points of view on hunting whales in Antarctica, including both the Japanese (pro) and the IWC (International Whaling Commission-con) points of view.  In our class, most students sided with the IWC, but three students thought Japan was right for hunting whale for scientific research, food, and as an oil resource.  Which would you side with?  In addition to reading critically and debating a point of view, students were also exposed to digital text features, including video links, voice recordings of the text, and vocabulary boxes.  Wow, what a great job our class did with 21st century reading skills!   

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today we started our non-fiction genre study!  Our unit, Navigating Non-Fiction, will focus on reading strategies that are specific to the non-fiction genre, including determining the main idea & supporting details, making predictions, and asking questions.  Students will begin with a study of Antarctica.  Do you know the differences between the Arctic and Antarctica?  Check out this article!  As a class, we will compare and contrast how authors write about the same topic by reading a variety of texts on Antarctica and penguins.  Check out the penguins of Antarctica forming a huddle to keep warm in the frigid temperatures and whipping winds of Antarctica!

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

This week, we are studying how different authors of similar texts portray their message about a similar character.  We will read and compare and contrast the poem "Watchman" to the books Scarecrow and The Lonely Scarecrow.  We will carefully study vocabulary terms that are important to understanding the scarecrow character.  In addition, students will be exposed to blogging!  Check out our kidblog!  Students will begin blogging about their reader's workshop books in class.  Blogging is a great way to share good books, as well as comment on what our classmates are reading.   Directions on how to appropriately comment on blogs will be sent home soon if your child wishes to do that at home.  However, school time will be provided for blogging!  Happy reading!  Perhaps enjoy a good book outside today….

Amazing Pumpkin Characters!

Wow, your pumpkin characters are AWESOME!  If you are unable to make it to Spirit Night and want to see the class's pumpkins, check them out here!

 

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

What a week we have ahead in Reading!  This week, we will finish our Gooney Bird books in book clubs!  We are studying Gooney Bird closely as we wrap up our character trait unit.  In addition to pin-pointing appropriate character traits to various characters, we are also studying ways that characters and their traits drive the events of the text, their motivations, and actions that contribute to the sequence of events in the text.  Students will view, participate, and apply learning to a series of lessons by learnzillion.com that review how to do a "close reading" of literature on The Story of the Three Little Pigs, with a focus on character traits.  Check it out with a subscription FREE with a google account.  It's an excellent resource.  Happy reading!  And I am REALLY looking forward to seeing your pumpkin characters on Wednesday!      

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

Did you know that a man once tight-rope walked between the two World Trade Center buildings?  It's true!  Ask your child about Philippe Petit, an aerialist who "spent almost an hour walking, dancing, and performing tricks a quarter of a mile in the sky."  This was a 'character' who demonstrated traits including bravery, courage, and determination in the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.  He was goal-oriented and a risk-taker.  Check out real-live footage of Mr. Petit!  Although we read this book at the end of last week, it's such an inspiring story, I really wanted to share it!  We will continue our study of character traits and discuss what moves/contributes to the actions of characters in a story.  We are currently reading different Gooney Bird books in our book clubs and observing her grow and change as a creative, fun-loving, unique character!

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

Today, we continued to discuss our reading strategies/thinking while reading post-its with a focus on Author's Craft.  We talked about John Updike's use of literary devices in his poem, October.  We made great connections to how we feel in the month of October.  However, students were a little stumped on what "frost bites the lawn" might look like in the early October morning.  Perhaps show them one morning!  We also noticed that he intentionally writes with beautiful craft, including personification, similes, metaphors, and imagery.  We discussed some new terms, too, including idiom, hyperbole, and assonance.  See if your child knows these literary devices!  We also continued our discussion of Gooney Bird Greene, noticing that the author writes with a lot of repetition in her story.