Math: We worked on a few different things today. Warm-up was a review of multiplication strategies and the grouping property. Whole group lesson was on solving division problems using repeated subtraction. Please look in at their homework for an example of this. For a small group of students, we spent some additional time working with the grouping property and used tiles to help solve the product.

Homework:

Most of the class should finish their division packet. Many are close to finished but please have them review the work they have already completed, too. I'm finding way too many mistakes because they rush through their classwork to minimize the homework!

The small group should complete the odd problems on the reteach side of their worksheet.

Language Arts: We continue our push on summary writing. Please look at the feedback in their RRJs to determine what a quality summary in 3rd grade should include. Almost across the board, I'm not seeing improvements on the very items I refer to in their previous work which indicates they aren't paying attention to my instruction/feedback. On the surface it may seem like finger pointing, but upon reading the feedback you'll see how there is limited application of many of the corrections I'm noting/looking for...I truly believe it's effort-based.

Math: We had an excellent class today. We took a formative assessment on multiplication and practiced building arrays while introducing additional ways to solve multiplication problems. Tonight, please review their formative assessment because these items will be on the Friday quiz.

Language Arts: We got back on track with spelling by spending quite a bit of time on prefixes. They didn't seem to know anything about prefixes and base/root words so we discussed the meanings of "re__" and "un__." In addition, we developed a huge list of words for this spelling list. Homework is not due until Friday the 21st!

In small groups we introduced new books/magazines. In short, I have three groups using Kids Discover (link is to the left) and one group working on an informational and fictional text on hippopotamuses. More on these tomorrow!

I had a meeting after school so this will be short since I have kids to tackle in the family room...

Math: Most of the class should complete their classwork today on page 171. A small group spent quite a bit of time today working on a rather challenging multiplication matrix, if you will, that involved a tremendous amount of problem solving. This group should complete #3 of the challenge side and all of the problem solving side.

Language Arts:

Wildfires - We are almost finished with or partner summaries from the end of last week. This has been a daunting, yet completely appropriate, task that should drive home the point of writing in your own words.

Fair Day, U.S.A. - After considerable time and energy spent building up to the comparison/contrasting paragraph, we took what was expected to be the final step towards completing this task. However, based on my individual and group conferences, it was blatantly apparent that we ave a considerable amount of work to do with regard to meeting the demands of the prompt/question. When asked if they reread their work prior to my conference, most said no. Then, after walking away, guess who was quick to come back having "reread" their work...uh-huh... you got it! Well, the short of it is this...

• "IF you actually reread your written work to evaluate if you met the demands of the prompt/question, AND you didn't see any need to make a single change (even grammatically, spelling, punctuation) then I have serious concerns as to your efforts in rechecking your thinking."
• As for "meeting the demands of the question," this means that you have considered EVERY aspect of the prompt/question and adequately explained your response as it relates to the intent.

Most didn't even use their Venn Diagram as a tool to help them compose their paragraph even though the prompt began, "Using your Venn Diagram..." In most of their RRJs you can see my feedback for this task. I expect this to be redone if noted (I suspect you will too!).

The Highway Turtles - We began reading a new book today that we will use to investigate a magazine about rivers later in the week.