Winter Break Homework

Hello there!  All kids should have a hard copy in their possession, but if lost or needing a reprint, here is a downloadable pdf of the Winter Break Homework packet.

More photos from Tribal Heritage Night!

A big thank you to Doug White (Michael Prince's grandfather) for these great photos!

Classroom News - December 18

Hi!  It’s been an exciting past ten days in the third grade, with many special guest teachers bringing unique learning opportunities to our classroom.  Only a few more days until the winter break - keep an eye out for a Winter-Break "Funwork" packet I will be sending home on Friday to keep those brains humming over the vacation.

Here's what we've been working on...

Math
We continue to investigate two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometry; last week, we practiced classifying and sorting "mystery collections" of 2D and 3D objects by their various attributes, reviewed different types of angles, and learned how to identify, sketch, and describe acute, obtuse, right, scalene, and isoceles triangles.  In another lesson, students manipulated tangram pieces to create various polygons. This week, it's all about quadrilaterals - we are learning how to identify and describe quadrilaterals based on their various attributes, and what qualifies a quadrilateral to be a parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, or trapezoid.

Here's a fun Tangram Math Art video to share with the kids:





If your child needs some review, click here to watch an excellent video from the folks at LearnZillion on how to describe and classify quadrilaterals - key concepts we've been working on in class. 

Writing
We were fortunate to have an author-in-residence for two days of Writer's Workshop lessons - local acclaimed author Rosanne Parry (Written in Stone, Heart of a Shepherd, Second Fiddle) came to our classroom and gave us valuable advice about writing.  We learned about how to create a great setting for your story, tips for fleshing out an interesting character, and how the arc of a good story works.   Here are Rosanne's tips for brainstorming story settings:
 
1. List 3 places you’ve lived or visited.

2. List 3 places you’d visit if it were free.

3. List 3 story settings that you’d like to visit.

What dangers or adventures are possible in my setting?

What is unique and interesting about my setting?

Thank you to Mrs. Fisher and Roseanne Parry for hosting the "Family Write Night" as well - hopefully some of you were able to make it out!

Having finished the Chinook Narratives, we've been working on persuasive writing this week as students draft, revise, and edit a response to this controversial Toys R' Us advertisement:



I showed the kids the commercial, and simply asked them what they thought this video was saying about kids and nature.  The kids had some interesting discussions and concluded that yes - toys are awesome and fun, but this ad has a problem: it doesn't match up with the love of nature they've come to find through hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, swimming, playing, and learning outdoors.  They are currently drafting passionate letters to Toys R Us.  

Social Studies - Tribal Heritage Night a Success!! (more photos to come, too!)
Last week, though cut short by snow days, was all about preparing for the Tribal Cultural Heritage Education Night.  Students worked on native plant posters and reviewed their knowledge of Chinookan lifeways and salmon ecology.  Greg Archuleta from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde visited our classroom and taught students Chinuk Wawa (language) basics, traditional paint-making, and dentalium shell necklace-making.  The questions the kids had during our closing circle were very earnest and thoughtful!  The evening event was quite special as well - we were honored to have Greg Archuleta, David Harrelson (Grand Ronde Cultural Protection Specialist),  Sam Robinson (Chair, Chinook Indian Tribe), Eric Bernando (Chinook Language Revitalization Expert), Savannah Ingram (Grand Ronde Veterans Queen),  Annette Ingram,  and Debi Anderson.  What a neat opportunity for the third graders to reinforce their classroom learning alongside members of our school, island, and nearby tribal communities.   We had a great turnout, despite our iffy weather - thank you all for coming out!!

Science
We learned more about fish anatomy in a hands-on science lesson where we dissected some rainbow trout in the classroom with our friend James Sterrett from LCREP. Students did a good job with this task. The room was abuzz with learning as kids were methodical with the procedure and inquisitive about the organs and their functions.  
Click here for a "virtual" fish dissection kids can do to review their fish anatomy:
http://www.portlandfreeschool.org/dissect-a-salmon.html

We also had Mr. Robert Weinman from The Beachwalk Project come and talk to our class about his amazing adventures paddling rivers and oceans both near and far to educate the public about protecting our precious watersheds.  The kids were pretty amazed at his stories!

Reminder: Field Study tomorrow (Thursday) morning at Wapato Park - it will be very cold, so please make sure your child is dressed for the weather!

That's all the news for now!

Warm regards,
Asa



 

Resources for Parents & Classroom News!

  Welcome Back!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed some time with family, friends, and loved ones.  I enjoyed getting to meet with you over conferences to talk about your child at school.  I am thankful to work with such talented kids and supportive parents!

Recommended Resources Following Conferences

Here are more math skill practice games and websites, book lists for budding readers, and other resources to help support your child’s learning.  Click on the links.

High-interest Chapter Book Titles for 2^nd/3^rd Grade Readers:

Galaxy Zack chapter book series

Captain Awesome series

Fly Guy nonfiction series

National Geographic Kids Readers (level 2-3) series

Fish Finelli by E.S. Farber

The Life of Ty: Penguin Problems, by Lauren Myracle

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

Claude in the City by Alex T. Smith

Murilla Gorilla by Jennifer Lloyd

Calvin Coconut: Hero of Hawaii by Graham Salisbury

The Great Cake Mystery by Alexander McCall Smith

Marty McGuire Digs Worms! by Kate Messner

Unlikely Friendships for Kids by Jennifer S. Holland

A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton

Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World by Candace Ransom 

Stella Batts by Courtney Scheinmel
Lulu and the Duck Pond by Hilary McKay

Violet Mackerel by Anna Branford  

Aggie and Ben, Good Dog, Aggie, Aggie the Brave, by Lori Ries

Math Support Games and Websites (compiled by Math Learning Center, publisher of our Bridges Mathematics curriculum)

Basic Addition

Speed Grid Addition Players select two numbers from a grid that equal the given sum. Timed game.

Math Lines The player races to pair numbers that add up to 10. Before your child plays, review the pairs of numbers that add up to 10. Site contains ads.

Basic Subtraction

Speed Grid Subtraction Players select two numbers from a grid that equal the given difference. Timed game.

Larger Addition

Falling Problems A beat-the-clock game in which the player has to decide whether an addition or subtraction combination will be less than or greater than 10. In a more challenging version, the player decides whether an addition or subtraction combination will be less than or greater than 100. This game is great for developing number sense and estimation skills.

Larger Subtraction

Falling Problems A beat-the-clock game in which the player has to decide whether an addition or subtraction combination will be less than or greater than 10. In a more challenging version, the player decides whether an addition or subtraction combination will be less than or greater than 100. This game is great for developing number sense and estimation skills.

Basic Multiplication

Times Square This game provides practice with multiplication facts as players race to be the first to get 4 products in a row on the game board. Use "guest pass" to enter game list & play against the computer.

Factor Dazzle Players score points for finding all the factors of target numbers set by their opponents. Your child may need some support to get started. Use "guest pass" to enter game list & play against the computer.

Multiplication Grand Prix Up to 4 players compete in this race car game by entering basic facts. Students can race one another or play against the computer.

All Basic Facts

Math Magician Specify facts to practice. Select from addition, subtraction, multiplication & division. Timed. 

Money: Subtraction with Decimal Numbers

Making Change The player finds the difference between a price and the amount of money paid. Then the player shows that change using the fewest coins and bills possible. Talk to your child about some ways to calculate the amount of change mentally. For example, can he or she add up from the price to the amount paid to figure the difference? Site contains ads.

Telling Time

Bang On Time The time is displayed in words. A player stops the clock when hands are in the correct position.

Watch and Learn An extensive list of links to games and activities to practice telling time.

Fractions

Identifying Fractions Game Identify which picture of a pizza represents the given fraction. Use arrow keys to choose the correct pizza. Select from 4 levels of difficulty. Turn off timer and sound if desired. One or two player game. Site contains ads.

More Games

The sites below contain some of the best games for elementary math students to play at home. Look through the sites to find other games for your child.
ABCya!

BBC Bitesize (skip money games on this British site)

Calculation Nation (register or use guest pass; for upper elementary & middle grades)

Cyberchase

Johnnie's Math Page

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

No Wapato Park Field Study this Thursday

We have so much going on with guest speakers and special programs these next two weeks (Writer-in-Residence Rosanne Parry, LCREP salmon lesson, a watershed clean-up presentation from beachwalkproject.com, Classroom lessons and Tribal Heritage Night with Grand Ronde members) we’ve decided to push our Wapato Field Study to Dec 19^th.  

What We’re Working On in the Classroom:

Math – This week we launch our unit on 2D Geometry!  In this unit your  child will identify, classify, describe, and compare 2 dimensional shapes, recognize shapes that are congruent (same size and shape) and similar (same shape), identify right, acute, and obtuse angles, learn attributes and ways to classify triangles and quadrilaterals, and calculate perimeter.  There will be a ton of new vocabulary - there are many words that we use almost only in geometry class. These words are important  because they let us name shapes and talk about them in precise ways. You can go to  www.mathlearningcenter.org/resources/materials/parents/parents3.asp to find a PDF of vocabulary words for this unit to refresh your memory and keep conversations going at home!

Writing – We are finishing editing and publishing our Chinook Stories, as well as learning some writing lessons from our guest teacher, writer-in-residence Roseanne Parry!  The author of acclaimed children's novels Written in Stone and Heart of a Shepard will be teaching two classroom lessons in the third grade this week, as well as hosting a Family Write Night in the school cafeteria on Thursday evening!  Super exciting!

Reading – After a week off, we are getting back into routines of Silent Reading, Partnered Reading, Guided Reading, and Reader’s Notebooks.  Sticking with chapter books from start to finish was a major goal discussed for many students during parent-teacher conferences; you can reinforce this at home by asking your child about what they are reading.

Social Studies -  We are creating Native Plant informational signage and displays for our tribal night, learning more about native fishing methods, and will be assembling Topic Books to reflect on our Chinook learning.   We are so excited for Tribal Heritage Night next Thursday December 12th!  

Science – This Friday, guest teachers from the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership will be coming to our classroom to teach a lesson about fish anatomy.  The children will dissect a small trout during this lesson - it is pretty amazing for most kids.   If your child feels a bit squeamish about dissecting a fish - no worries - we can find an alternative activity in another room. 

That's the news for now!  

Fondly,

Asa

Thanksgiving Homework

Click here for a downloadable pdf of the Thanksgiving Break Homework.  As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the assignment!

Field Trip this Thursday: Lelooska Cultural Center

This Thursday we head up to Ariel, Washington to visit the Lelooska Cultural Center. Follow the links below to get more information about the Cultural Center. There is a very informative article in The Oregonian and some outstanding photographs of some of the masks that we will see.

We will leave shortly after school starts on Thursday.  The forecast is for partly-cloudy with temp in the mid-40s.  Even though the dances and storytelling are indoors, it is an unheated space except for a small fire in the middle. Even on some warm May days it is cold inside this longhouse.  I can only imagine how chilly it will be in November. Please have your child dress warmly with sensible shoes. We will also be eating lunch at a nearby park that has covered areas in case it is raining during our visit there.

I will be sharing more information about the trip during the week with the class, so be sure to ask questions about the field trip this week. For now, click on the links above and share what you find out with your child!

Classroom News!

Writer’s Workshop

After researching the social hierarchy of a Chinook village, your child wrote a biography page for their Chinook character that included a name (based on Chinuk Wawa “Chinook Talk” ), their social status within the clan, and clothing. 

Having created their character, the students are now bringing them to life by writing a narrative in which their Chinook person is the protagonist.

First, we used prewriting activities to focus and generate ideas for writing our narratives.  Students used their Chinook narrative graphic organizer/planner to sketch, plan and recount the

1. Opening setting and characters

2. Middle events or happenings

3. Ending events and conclusion

From this organizer and planner, students have been composing their first draft (drafting) over the past 3-4 workshop sessions.

This week, we’ll be working on extending and reworking their writing (revising), and then editing and proofreading their work (editing).   We may send the editing portion home as Thanksgiving-break homework depending on how far we get by Thursday. 

We’ve also been learning how to make effective signage – we're working on making posters for our upcoming Tribal Heritage Night (see below)!

Reader’s Workshop

This week we’ve been using our read-aloud, Kutkos Chinook Tyee, as a mentor text to get ideas for our own Chinook narratives.  We’ve also been focused on Native Myths, reading titles like Storm Boy, Raven Returns the Water, The Chinook Origin Myth, and more.  We’ve searched for the themes embedded in these stories and found some amazing connections between the myths, and to our own scientific understandings of nature.

As our Chinook salmon eggs began hatching into alevins this week (so magical and exciting!), we dug into some nonfiction to learn more about this important stage in the life cycle.   After reading two different texts about the alevin stage, students compared and contrasted the most important points and key details presented in each source.  

 Math

This week we continued to focus on double-digit subtraction.  So far the kids have developed and practiced four strategies: the standard algorithm (aka borrowing or regrouping- the way that most of us learned), using Base Ten pieces, subtracting away “chunks” at a time, and using an open number line.

Here is a video I made for you and your child to review these different strategies- I highly recommend watching it together for a quick review:

Eventually, we encourage all kids to go for that borrowing algorithm (most efficient) - but we don't want to push it if they're not ready.   I am encouraging them to solve the problems two ways in order to check work and solidify conceptual understanding.

Chinook

We read and researched nonfiction texts to learn about Chinook social roles, Chinook words, and the types of clothing worn depending on seasonality or social standing.  

We had an amazing field study visiting the Cathlapotle Plankhouse on the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge!  It was a huge learning experience for our kids to compare and contrast what they had learned thus far about Northwest Coastal Indian homes, what they had built from mere shoeboxes here in the classroom – with this life-size plankhouse replica erected by the Chinook Nation.   There were many “a-ha!” moments, many connections made to their prior knowledge, and many new questions evoked.   We completed a giant Venn-diagram here in the classroom reflecting on the similarities and differences.

We also learned that we will be co-hosting a Tribal Heritage Night here at Sauvie Island Academy on Thursday December 12!   The kids are VERY excited that members from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde will visit and teach in our classroom, as well as co-hosting the evening educational event open to the public. 

Wapato Field Study

It was a wet one last week!   Students practiced their Core Routine of the Secret Sit-Spot (building stamina for sitting quietly and mindfully, honing nature observation skills).  Students also worked in groups recording observations and data from different habitat areas in the park.  We also learned more information about indigenous uses of some native plants with a short, student-led “each one teach one” hike.  

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Have you confirmed your conference time?  If not, call the office to schedule time with me as soon as possible.  I look forward to meeting with you!  During our time together, we will discuss your child’s academics (emphasis on reading and math) and behavior - looking at their strengths, needs, and suggestions for action both at school and at home.

Important Things Coming Up...

Nov. 21  - Chief Lelooska Field Trip (sack lunches needed)

Nov. 25-26 - Parent-Teacher Conferences (no school)

Nov. 27-29 - Thanksgiving Break (no school)

That’s it!  Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Asa