Today is our 50th post - hopefully we haven't lost ya yet!

Math: We had our first lesson on multiplication and division today. As you're probably aware at this point, so much of math nowadays is driven by showing your thinking through strategies and applications. Well, today we practiced using an array as a strategy to solve multiplication problems. As you will see in tonight's homework, an array is a way of organizing the factors in a multiplication problem in rows and columns. This begins the foundation of multiplication fluency - the ability to "see" and compose a number in a variety of ways.

With that in mind, tonight's homework must include arrays for each multiplication problem. I'm at home so I don't have the page number in front of me but it's in chapter 7 if your child doesn't have it in their planner.

Language Arts:

Wildfires - Today we created a web to be used while rereading the text. This web will provide a springboard into our next activity for the book so it's completion is vital to tomorrow's task. In addition to completing their web, they should also reread their book.

Fair Day, U.S.A. - We met in group today to discuss their background knowledge about fairs. After a bit of prompting, our discussion moved from extremely broad (we ate food) to more specific (funnel cake). This is the type of specificity I expect from 3rd graders the first time we discuss a subject. Interestingly, almost all the students described who they went with which I found to be a neat "family" element of fairs... Tonight they are to reread their book and complete their RRJ prompt by describing their personal experiences at the fair using some details form our discussion. This will be used for a comparison/contrast task tomorrow.

Whales - They independently recorded three facts from the book prior to meeting with me. After sharing their facts, we read parts of the book aloud and unintentionally wound up in a prediction discussion regarding the purpose of blubber and what other animals may have blubber for survival...it took some time to connect the polar/arctic aspect but they eventually got it and we looked at a book about Antarctic Seals for comparison purposes. Tonight, they should read the seal book (says level R but it is actually a level L). This is their first complete reading so I suspect they'll need some help with it...

Math: We had a brief review to activate their prior knowledge prior to taking the unit three pre-assessment. This unit is loooooonnnnngggg and jammed with multiplication/division concepts. No, not purely the computation - they will actually apply strategies to solve that demonstrate their "understanding" of what multiplication/division mean...stay tuned for the strategies! We will begin our unit three instruction tomorrow.

Language Arts: Since I have been out a couple times in the last week, so we will pick spelling words due next Friday, December 14th later this week.

Each group began a new informational text...

Wildfires - They are to complete the definition part tonight, in addition to rereading the book for homework.

Fair Day U.S.A. - They are to complete the definition part tonight, in addition to rereading the book for homework.

Whales - They are to complete the comprehension questions in their RRJs and reread the book for homework. The answers must be in complete sentences!

Thank you for the kind thoughts and words from many of you regarding the passing of a member in my family...I will be out tomorrow but back on Wednesday.

On that note, a short version of the day's events!

Math Assessment is Tomorrow! Please review your child's quiz to clarify what is expected and how we use strategies to solve problems. Many students missed significant points because they didn't label their answers using the appropriate unit of measure.

Language Arts: We continued working with summarizing using our TFK from Friday's discussion. Specifically, we are working on identifying the main idea, supporting the main idea with specific support, and using our own words.