Terrific Tuesday

The word for this week is flexibility!!

Due to a large number of third graders involved in InView retesting, we had extra students in our classroom this morning.  The retesting will take place on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday this week.  Each of those mornings, 2 third grade teachers will help out with the InView retesting and their students will be disseminated into two other third grade classrooms.

Today, while we had some extra students, we focused on the inquiry project.

First, I modeled how to use their research notes to complete the organizer for the informational paragraph of the inquiry project.  Then the children reviewed my feedback and used it to improve and revise their research notes.  Next they used a screencast I created, as well as their notes, to complete the informational paragraph organizer.

WHile we had 10 extra students, I helped individuals to improve their research notes.  After our friends left, I began calling reading groups.  Since our literacy block, or guided reading group time, was shortened, I began with the Pink group, because I left off with them yesterday.

Pink:  We did a book walk together.  Then we reviewed and practiced using some vocabulary from the book.  After that I introduced "right there questions" as a strategy to improve reading comprehension.  We will be using the headings and illustrations to ask questions before we read in order to focus our reading and improve our comprehension.  I modeled asking and answering a question for pages 2 and 3 in our book.  I recollected their books because their homework is on MyON this evening.

Green: I did a brief book introduction for their next book, The Aztec Empire.  Then, together, we did a picture walk through the book.  After that, I began reviewing specific vocabulary, but we ran out of time.  The students have not received a copy of the book yet.  Homework will be on MyON this evening.

After our literacy block the students enjoyed outdoor recess and lunch.

When the students returned from lunch we began our math block.

During the small group, teacher-led instruction, we worked on writing related multiplication and division equations to represent and solve area word problems.

During math with a partner the children engaged in math discourse as they created their dream house and then determined the area for each room in it.

During the technology rotation, students once again visited Sumdog and worked with math concepts on their level.

Additionally, during the math block, there were several students who did not take part in our rotations because they were making up last Friday's quiz.

HOMEWORK is posted on Google Classroom.

After the math block we began a mini health education unit.  First we defined the concept of a medical emergency and identified examples.  Then we evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of using different kids of phones to call 911.  Next we defined and identified examples of medical non-emergencies.  Finally, we reviewed the difference between a true emergency and just needing to get medical help.