It was nice to see many of you last night for our presentation. Yet again - I felt like we could have spent another hour describing the year ahead but hopefully you got the gist!

We took a formative assessment in math this morning that included all the on-grade place value content in unit one. We reviewed the questions together and sent it home for review. Friday's quiz will include some of these items, but will include a number of 4th grade items related to place value, too. In addition, we have spent some time discussing how to compose a written explanation using math terminology. Last week's quiz included a written response question that was worth two points. Often times, students don't include enough information using math language, thus, resulting in a 1/2. However, occasionally we get answers that simply say "I used my head" or "I thought really hard." Clearly, these earn a score of 0/2. These explanations aren't new for 3rd graders - just difficult to put their thoughts into words. We'll get there!

Mrs. Rose continued working on our author study in the media center today. We will have two more sessions with her next Monday and Wednesday to complete our study of Cynthia Rylant. The students seem to really enjoy this!

As for LA, we continued discussing sensory details and practiced revising our written work while looking to "paint a better picture" in the reader's mind. In addition, I met with 3 groups today and reviewed/discussed comprehension as it relates to their reading response journals (RRJ). The big difference is that 3rd grade comprehension is more than simply retelling details from the story. We are working more towards understanding the more implicit ideas ( reading between the lines) to construct a deeper meaning...we have a ways to go with this but with practice and clarification it shouldn't be long...

Lastly, we had our first Stop and Think lesson with Mrs. Howard today. She introduced this month's skill - Listening - to the class. By the sound of the lesson, we need LOTS of practice. Please ask your child about the steps to demonstrating this skill.