Third Grade with Room Nine: September 2013

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Review Week

We had a very busy week reviewing all that we have learned this first quarter in room 9. We have come a very long way since that first day of school. We have said goodbye to 2 friends, and welcomed 2 new ones (maybe, even 3 starting on Monday). :)
We have become excellent tweeters, on our way to expert tweeters. I can't wait to introduce #hashtags next week! It's going to be so much fun!
We have started to explore and become better ipad users. We are also LOVING xtra math, and information was sent home this week so that the kiddos can access and practice those math facts at home!
We spent some time this week talking again about being proud of who you are, and not ashamed. Only, this time we talked about facing our fears, and doing things that sometimes make us nervous. We also talked about not being afraid to share what we know, and how it is expected that we talk when people are talking to us. I gave the kids quite a challenge on Friday and I am so very proud of what they were eventually able to do. Below is our edited iMovie video of fiction vs. nonfiction. We will continue working on this over the next week or two, and will work in smaller groups and will create even better videos to explain the difference between fiction and nonfiction. BUT, getting these kids to talk on camera was quite the task.

I have signed the class up for THREE Mystery Skypes in the next few weeks. This is going to be very challenging for them, and we have a lot of work and practice to do before we will be ready, but I am SO excited to watch them grow through this project. We are doing some pretty cool things in room 9, and I am determined to share my love for learning with this Phoenix world!

Have a great week, see you after testing!

PS. Speaking of fears --- here is me facing one of my fears... I jumped from a 50 foot cliff a few weekends ago! :)

Sunday, September 22, 2013

The craziness of the past two weeks

Whoa! The past two weeks in room 9 have been crazy, to say the least. We have completely renovated the classroom set-up, added a reading "nook", and our donorschoose project was fully funded, so our IPADS have ARRIVED!

We have struggled the past few weeks with content. It is SO hard to teach subtraction to students who haven't yet grasped a real understanding of number sense. We literally had to stop, and go backwards, and start with basic addition. We spent an entire day focusing on how to get to a power of ten mentally in our heads. I still don't believe our whole class has grasped this yet, even. We broke down addition pretty far this week, and I think we've got a good hold on the addition algorithm. Throwing in numbers in the 1,000s is still pretty tricky but we are making gains and progress!
Now, for subtraction! PHEW! Somewhere along the way, these kiddos were taught the subtraction algorithm, BUT they have no clear understanding of number sense, AND they are not capable of using the subtraction algorithm appropriately or correctly. I ended up completely scratching the subtraction algorithm from their brains. I don't want them to even try to use it. They aren't developmentally ready to even attempt it yet. We introduced adding up (counting up) as a strategy and the lightbulb clicked on almost immediately for SO MANY of them. It is so much easier to teach the commutative property of addition when they can see the numbers working in and out with each other together. Some of them are still struggling with counting up as a strategy but I am hoping with more progress and intervention, they will be able to grasp it. The struggle is that we still haven't mastered basic addition facts for some of them, so adding up takes a long time. BUT, they are seeing it and see it as easier than the algorithm so that's what we are focusing on.
Next up in math is multiplication and I am super super nervous about introducing it. We are going to spend a few days this week still working on addition and subtraction, before introducing the idea of area and counting square units. I am super nervous for multiplication and but my main focus is success for these kiddos and we are going to get there, even if we have to take a longer time than our "pacing guide" allows.

Reading content has been up and down these weeks too. Our main focus has been the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts. They are starting to grasp the features of each, and are able to distinguish the difference between both, for the most part. :) We breezed through character traits pretty quickly, but I think we need to go back this week and talk about how we use the way a character acts to describe their traits, instead of what the character is described to "look like". Finding main idea and theme goes back and forth between grasped and struggling. They are usually pretty good at finding the main idea (now that we have distinguished that the main idea is NOT the topic of the article or passage) but finding supporting details that actually support the main idea is a struggle, and will be our area of focus this week. Theme is a very very hard topic to teach. Most fiction books that we have been using don't have a clear theme, and some actually have several themes that the students could pick from, so it's hard to teach. It is also hard because a theme is something that should be related to the reader's lives and these poor kiddos live such different lives than the average third grader reading the same stories and passages.
We will get there though!! We will!

We are exploring many ways to use our ipads in our classroom. We have started using xtramath as a rotating "center" for morning work each day. I am hoping this will help with fluency in math facts, especially addition and subtraction. Hopefully, we will eventually be able to move on to multiplication fluency soon! We have been using them during our daily five time as a listening center, and spelling city for word work. I am exploring options for streaming books for our listening center BUT am having issues finding free or cheap books to download. Our internet connection is not stellar, so technology is quickly becoming a frustration when it should be an ease and help! Again, we are working on this!

Here are some pictures from the past two weeks.. . we have been so busy!!

We have been playing Top it! It is an addition game that I learned from Everyday Mathematics in Michigan. There is also an app for the ipads. The kids love playing. They don't know this yet, but next week, we will be introducing top-it for practicing subtraction facts! They love playing games, and I love that they are learning and working together while they are playing!

We worked in partners to re-create the rock cycle!

Part two of our science investigation. Crushing the mock rocks to break apart the rock/earth materials and separate the minerals. (because they can't be broken down any further)

Part Three (Separating for evaporation)

See you next week in Room 9! Woohoo, we love third grade!

PS We owe a huge, and special thank you to everyone who helped to fund our donorschoose project for our classroom ipad minis. We are so very grateful for all the generosity, especially from my personal friends and family members back home! <3

Love,

Ms. Nieahus

Saturday, September 7, 2013

A short week that was jam-packed

Phew! We survived our crazy week! It was only 4 days, but we crammed SO much learning in, that it seemed like a such a long week!
I have my phone back, so I am back to taking many more pictures of the students working. Our main objectives this week were to learn about rounding numbers to the nearest ten and nearest hundred. Rounding to the nearest ten was the easier task here. UNTIL we threw in 4, 5, and 6 digit numbers. I thought I was so prepared with awesome lessons this week, but the kiddos were not grasping the concepts as fast as I anticipated so some of our activities were probably not as beneficial as they should of and could have been. BUT, we survived. The post-assessments showed mixed data. Some students really ended up mastering the concepts, but others were still struggling on Friday. Next week, we are using rounding to estimate sums, so hopefully some more practice will help!! We will get there! I can't believe it's already almost mid- September. Time is flying by so fast!!

Our reading focus this week was back to fiction, and we focused on characters and character traits. They LOVED watching an episode of Charlie Brown about bullying. AND they did SO well listing character traits of the characters. When it coms to reading though, they still seemed to struggle a bit with the concept of re-reading the text to answer the questions about the characters. Hopefully more practice next week with main idea and theme will help!! Practice, Practice, Practice and exposure, exposure, exposure!

We celebrated Joaquin's birthday on Friday. It was a sugary-filled assessment day! I think we had a fun week overall, and would love to share some photos with you!!
But first -- A free TPT product -- we played a game called, Roll, Write and Round this week. Get your copy of the worksheet today! :) Free download!!!

Roll Write Round - TPT

Our week ...