Before I get into the summary of classroom goings-on – I'll begin with important dates/times you’ll want to put on your
calendar for these remaining days:
• This Thursday June 5 – Final, All-day Field Study @ Wapato
Park *sack lunch needed
This Wapato Field Study will take up most of the day,
running from 9am-1:45pm. We will
be meeting our pen-pals from Sunnyside Environmental School for some hiking,
nature awareness activities, lunch, and games. Drivers/Chaperones please RSVP ASAP
• This Friday June 6 – Walking Bridge Tour
in Downtown Portland *sack lunch needed
• Wednesday June 11 3rd Grade Author’s Tea - Imaginative Stories and More! from 10:30am-11:25am.
On this all-day field trip, historian Nathaniel
Hoover will lead us on a fun and informative tour over a minimum of three
Portland bridges. Along the way, he will discuss the history and structure of
each bridge, as well as its importance to the surrounding geography. I welcome as many adults that want to chaperone as possible - please RSVP if you are planning on coming and haven't let me know yet!
• Tuesday June 10 – SIA Spring Music Concert at the
Scappoose Auditorium from 7:00pm-8:00pm
• Wednesday June 11 3rd Grade Author’s Tea - Imaginative Stories and More! from 10:30am-11:25am.
Join us for tea, treats, and hear kids read aloud some of the fantastic fictional
narratives, poems, articles, and other pieces of writing they've produced this year. Sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, adventure? We’ve got you covered!
• Thursday June 12 – LAST DAY OF SCHOOL: CEREMONIES, AWARDS, FIELD DAY!
9:00 to 9:30am Assembly in the Gym for
standing recognition of volunteers and family members, Tom's Tree awards*
9:30 to 10:00 Individual student awards
and parent volunteer thank you’s in the
classroom
10:00 to 11:15 Field Day
11:15 to 11:45 Sack lunch in the
classroom
11:45 to 12:00 Closing Circle in the classroom
Got all that? Ok! Whew! Now, on to what we've been working on academically....
Math
We finished our unit titled Working With Larger Numbers
(multi-digit addition, subtraction, and place-value concepts). I am happy to see that nearly all of
the kids in class are more confident with triple- and quadruple-digit subtraction
- applying the “carrying” and “borrowing” algorithms with better accuracy and a
more thorough understanding of the place-value concepts that really make these
algorithms work. A minority are
still struggling with problems where there are multiple 0’s in the tens or
hundreds places – for example:
2008
- 458
I'll be doing some reteaching with a few kids this week. Here’s a
little video that is worth watching with your kids:
Over the last few days we worked on some real-life context-based story problems that touch on
various concepts we’ve learned over the year. Students used and shared a variety of
strategies to solve a problem where you had to determine the range of outcomes/combinations on a frozen yogurt menu. Kids attacked this problem with a
variety of approaches (tables, graphs, multiplication), and we had a great discussion forum with different
groups sharing out. I am
really trying to drive home that good problem solving is more than just getting
the correct answer – it’s about communicating, proving, discussing, defending
how and why your solution works.
Writing
In Writer’s Workshop, we're finishing revising, editing, and
publishing our Imaginative Stories. These pieces show significant growth in these young writers’ stamina, ideas, word
choice, and conventions. It has been a joy to see how
their favorite authors’ writing styles have influenced their own writing as
well!
Reading
We've been reading the classic book Runt - by Marion Dane Bauer:
Deep in the Minnesota woods, four normal sized pups—Leader, Sniffer, Runner, and Thinker—are born to a wolf pack. Then comes one last, very small pup. For him there is no name but Runt. Runt struggles to learn the ways of the wild alongside his brothers and sisters but often makes mistakes, many of them serious. When he feels the displeasure of the other wolves, especially his father, he withdraws more and more. The way Runt discovers his own worth makes for a uniquely moving tale. As is true with all good animal stories, it reflects our own world and reminds us of what it means to be alive.
On top of all that, this book has been a great echo of the the learning we've been doing about ecosystem relationships, food webs, and human/wildlife interaction issues.
Deep in the Minnesota woods, four normal sized pups—Leader, Sniffer, Runner, and Thinker—are born to a wolf pack. Then comes one last, very small pup. For him there is no name but Runt. Runt struggles to learn the ways of the wild alongside his brothers and sisters but often makes mistakes, many of them serious. When he feels the displeasure of the other wolves, especially his father, he withdraws more and more. The way Runt discovers his own worth makes for a uniquely moving tale. As is true with all good animal stories, it reflects our own world and reminds us of what it means to be alive.
On top of all that, this book has been a great echo of the the learning we've been doing about ecosystem relationships, food webs, and human/wildlife interaction issues.
This week our nonfiction reading focused on learning about the different types of bridges, and taking notes on their different design elements, building materials, and examples from around the world. Reading passages from books as well as the internet, we're again practicing using text features (table of contents, index, headings, bold print, etc) to locate specific information, as well as how to summarize the main idea in our own words.
As always, we continue our core routines of silent, independent reading and notebook reflections every day. Sometimes, we even get outdoors to read if weather permits :)
Social Studies & Science
Oakwood Park
The last week of our Oakwood Park Storyline was quite interesting! Students came to school one day to find that several of the wetland and/or water-loving animals had gone missing or left the park. We brainstormed potential reasons for the animals' departure, and students did a quick-write from the perspective of their Oakwood character - what would they think or have to say about this? What would they do? This provided a fantastic authentic assessment of kids' ecological understandings - on their own, they discussed potential causes such as migration patterns, limiting factors (food/water/shelter), erosion and water quality, and possible pollution problems. I was blown away at the sophistication of some of their thinking!
After that, to model how community members might deal with a pollution issue - the students read about a real issue (increased coal train traffic in their community) and came up with a role-play skit modeling how their Oakwood character might deal with it. Students had interesting ideas - from contacting news organizations/journalists to educate the public, conducting their own citizen-science tests on the water quality, and organizing boycotts and protests to get their voices heard.
Finally, to wrap up our unit - we were able to interview a local expert on wildlife parks! Oregon State Parks Manager John Mullen visited our class and fielded questions for an hour from the kids about his career, experiences, and details about managing wildlife parks and what it entails. He was quite impressed with some of the high-level questions they had ("How can we get more woman park-rangers?", "What kinds of costs are there to keep a park going?", "What kinds of issues do you have to work on?") It was a very informative visit, and kids were so taken with John that they lined up for his autograph at the end!
The Physical Science of Bridges
We've been building and testing a variety of different bridges this week in class - and Friday worked on an experiment where we looked at the variance in load that could be held by beam, arch, and arch-with-reinforced-beam bridges. The students are doing a great job communicating their results and conclusions in a way that tied back
to their testable question, demonstrating their proficiency with these key Oregon science standards:
3.3S.1 Plan a simple investigation based on a
testable question, match measuring tools to their uses,
and collect and record data from a scientific
investigation.
3.3S.2 Use the data collected from a scientific investigation to explain
the results and draw conclusions.
These last days of school we'll continue delving into physical
science, and learning all about bridges:
how they are planned, built, and the physical forces at work. Please note that if your child
does not have the time/materials/support to build a bridge at home by Monday June 9th – I will be keeping the classroom open during recesses this week and
have materials on hand so they can build one at school if need be. I also have a ton of cardboard tubes, scraps, popsicle sticks, and other stuff if your child simply needs some materials to bring home to work on it.
That's the news for now- stay tuned for my summer reading
lists, and suggestions on how to keep academic skills sharp until September...
Here's a picture of Jamie, myself, and fellow Sauvie staff after running the Starlight Run yesterday. My first 5k! Woot!
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Here's a picture of Jamie, myself, and fellow Sauvie staff after running the Starlight Run yesterday. My first 5k! Woot!
Fondly,
Asa
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