Weekly Updates: Marathon Edition

NEWS/EVENTS

It was wonderful to meet with many of you for Parent Teacher Conferences this past week! Please feel free to email me with any follow up questions, and I promise I will respond as quickly as possible.

If I did not give you a green envelope prior to the start of conferences, please check your child's communication folder today. The green envelope contains the school survey- it is so important that these are completed! Please double check your child's folder and fill this out for our school. The participation is what matters most- it is essential we get your feedback as a community!

• This Friday is the Third Grade Science Fair! Please be should to read the email I forwarded from Mr. Bender about specifics for the day!
• The State ELA exams are taking place on Tuesday March 28th, Wednesday March 29th, and Thursday March 30th. As the dates get closer I will send out a separate email to discuss "day of" plans.
• The state Math Exams are Tuesday May 2, Wednesday May 3, and Thursday May 4th.
• TOMORROW SCHOOL IS CLOSED DUE TO THE FORECASTED BLIZZARD! This official announcement was shared over NYCDOE's twitter account. I discussed the idea of students planning their own reading marathon across genres if they can't get outside tomorrow!

CURRICULUM

Reading: A week and a half ago we officially started "marathon training" for the upcoming state exams. Our philosophy behind this training (aka prep in disguise) is that all year long the work we have been doing has prepared us- we are simply transferring what we have learned to a testing structure. For the month leading up to the test we are approaching training with the lens of 4 different bends:

1. Literary texts (1 week)- Narratives, Fiction
2. Narrative Nonfiction (1 week)- Biographies and other forms 
3. Informational Texts (1 week)
4. Mixed Genre (1 week)- Folk Tales, Poems, Plays, etc

The major focus across each bend is setting up expectations within genres and understanding how texts seem to go as they dive in and read. I have attached a chart so you can reference the work we are doing in class! On Fridays we are hosting "Marathon Long Run Days" when our focus is on building stamina over an extended period of time, but across different genres and texts. On these Fridays students are encouraged to come in wearing comfortable clothes with a wide variety of texts. During each of these bends students will be pulled for small group work based on their areas of need. For example, some students will receive strategy work with how to approach a multiple choice question, while others might get support road-mapping or marking up a text. I will be using data from previous assessments as well as current student  to determine what each student needs support in. 

Each week we start off we a shared experience (together as a class), and each day there is a slow release (day two is with a partner, day three is independent but then checked by a partner...then the last day they work independently). Students are getting a lot of exposure to different texts and question types in class. 

During conferences I have discussed specific areas for students to focus on during reading and writing. Please use my suggestions to plan any additional practice for your child! Email me if you have any questions!

Writing: Our writing marathon prep is also split into several bends to approach the "writing about reading" that is required on the state exams.

1.  Short Response (1.5 weeks)
2. Introduction to Extended Response (1 week)
3. Raising the Level of Extended Response (1.5 weeks)

Throughout week one students learned to analyze questions and consider "What is this Question Asking Me to Do?" After marking up the question and reading it carefully with a partner, students FIRST conduct an oral rehearsal, then plan their work using boxes and bullets. Within the boxes and bullets structure students answer the question in the box, and lift two details from the text to support their work. Finally, students write their response. Students will be pulled for extra support based on different needs discovered from previous assessments. Minilessons during this bend involved helping the kids understand the difference between a strong verses weak detail, how to answer a question, and how to use a checklist to double check their work.

This week we are starting to get familiarized with Extended Responses, which are very much like baby literary essays in disguise! This structure is not new to the kids- it is just being used in a way that involves answering a question rather than developing their own theories about a text. We will spend a day or two breaking extended responses into smaller, more manageable parts (the bullets), and then continuing to practice with an oral rehearsal before planning.

Math: This week we are officially launching our next math unit of the year- fractions. Throughout this unit students will be learning how to find equivalent fractions, compare and order fractions, and use number lines to plot, order, and compare fractions. Students will also solve a wide range of real world problems using fractions. We will start math marathon training in the upcoming week. If I gave suggestions for areas of practice for the exams during our conferences, please use those areas as a place to review.

Social Studies: Last week we finished our work with Empatico after studying a Weather Hazard with a group, developing a solution prototype, and presenting our ideas to a partner school in Arkansas! The kids had a great experience with this work! Our next unit is Folk Tales- we will explore this new genre in parallel to marathon training, and will learn how Folk Tales allow us to better understand the culture, land, economy, and history of a region around the world.

Weekly Updates 2/13-2/17

NEWS EVENTS

• Tomorrow is Family Friday! Our event/activity is the third grade African Dance performance. The show will start at 9:05- please have students arrive by 8:50 in costume so that we can help them get set up for the show. It's going to be amazing!
• I am forwarding a very important email from Mr. Bender today regarding the upcoming state exams. A family curriculum connection is taking place Wednesday March 1st.
• Tomorrow I am posting a parent teacher conference sign up for our March conferences. I will email when the link is ready!

CURRICULUM

**The week after break we are starting "marathon training" for the state exams. There will be a lot more information to come. PS 11's approach to test preparation is that our work from throughout the year transfers to work leading up to the test. We believe the kids will be calm, confident, and ready after our "training sessions." We have a marathon theme to help make this work fun and exciting.

Reading- Students have been working in character book clubs for the past two weeks. As a group they are carefully studying their main character as well as influencing secondary characters, and using elements of story mountains to predict and anticipate the structure of their stories. Groups develop a work plan each day and jot in preparation for a club discussion. We will continue this work through "marathon training."

Writing- Students are in the midst of a "Baby Literary Essay" unit, which is like a reading response in disguise! Students reflect on texts and develop a bold claim, and then mine through the text looking for evidence to support their theory. We are focusing on crafting clear and powerful introductions and are balancing details with explanations. This work will be very beneficial when we start to explore short and extended responses during our marathon training.

Math- After learning strategies to calculate the area and perimeter of quadrilaterals and other rectilinear shapes, students from both math groups have been recruited to help Ms. Mackenzie and I design blueprints showing the best way to arrange furniture in our classrooms. Students are putting together the draft of a plan, and will submit a final blueprint after getting feedback from their math partners. If students would like to work on this over break as a HOP option, they will be given the opportunity to do so. The most efficient blue print will be tried out by the end of the school year!

Social Studies- After researching different weather hazards as part of our Empatico pilot program, students have committed to a specific weather hazard and will brainstorm possible solutions to make the lives of people that face that hazard better. They are working with a partner school in Arkansas and offering feedback and suggestions to each out. Yesterday we connected synchronously with other third graders and it was very interesting to hear about their weather experiences.

Weekly Updates 1/17-1/20

NEWS/EVENTS

• This Friday we are visiting Circle in the Square to see the students' written plays performed! All parents are invited to meet us at the theater to see student plays. If I receive a list showing the order of performances I will share it with you to help you plan accordingly. After randomly selecting parents to join us on the trip, I'm please to share that Jennifer Weiss, Alfina Chanti, and Alex Levi will join us as chaperones to accompany us on our subway ride. Please let me know if you are unavailable or if your schedules have changed. We will depart at 9:00 sharp by the main front security guard, and will be back by lunch at 12:24.
• Next Friday is Family Friday, and the entire third grade is hosting a wax museum. After reading about a range of biography subjects, students selected one subject on Friday that they would like to research and create a poster on, and next Friday they will come to school dressed to resemble their subject to be part of an exhibit. Students will have time to work on this all week in class, and posters will be provided. If students want to continue working at home as a HOP option they may, as long as the work is completed by Wednesday 1/25. I have attached a rubric. The way the museum will work:
• Teachers will hang posters the night before.
• In the morning, students will come to school dressed for their exhibit. They will find their poster on the 5th floor and remain by the exhibit.
• They will select a pose to hold until a parent presses their "button" (a sticker) which turns the exhibit on.
• Students will recite a blurb about their subject, then go back to holding their pose.
• I will email again before the weekend with a more formal invitation and last directions.
• It has come to my attention that Google Classroom logins haven't been working for many students. Mr. Fier and I are looking into this, and hope to fix technical issues as soon as possible.
• I found out that students will be given new, separate Google Classroom Accounts that are tied directly to the Empatico pilot project we are part of. I asked if we could merge these so students have only one account, but alas the accounts need to be separate. More information to come.
• I have attached the African Dance song students are learning. Please encourage students to practice their song once a day. The final African Dance performance will take place on 2/17, February's Family Friday event.
• Because of Friday's trip, we need to reschedule the 1/20 Mystery Reader date. I am trying to find a new time with the library.
• Last week for Shared Reading we read an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Ms. Rosevear put some AMAZING resources up on the PS 11 Showme page for further enrichment. Check it out! https://ps11showme.com/

CURRICULUM

Reading: This week we are exploring jot structures to best hold research, such as parallel timelines, boxes and bullets, and cause and effect structures. We will use some of these for our poster projects!

Writing: After creating categories for evidence for our big bold persuasive claims, students are working to elaborate within a category using examples, descriptions, statistics, and anecdotes. We will also try to create paragraphs for different categories, and use transition words to connect our ideas to examples. Toward the end of the week we will revisit introductions, conclusions, and counterarguments.

Math: After reviewing attributes of shapes we the next two days we will wrap up out Geometry mini unit and take the post assessment this Thursday. Our next unit will be Multiplication, Area, and Perimeter.

Social Studies: For the next 3 months our participation in the Empatico pilot program will take place during the Social Studies block. This past week we did a gallery walk learning about different weather events around the world that deeply impact life. This week students will start to learn more about specific events.

Weekly Updates 1/3-1/6

Happy New Year, Families of 3-509!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday break with family and friends. We have a lot of exciting things to look forward to in 2017! Read on for our most recent updates!

NEWS/EVENTS

• Our class has been selected to participate in a new pilot program called "Empatico." This program is sponsored by KIND bar and the focus is on "Weather Woes" and how understanding the impact of weather around the world builds empathy and understanding of others. We will be using Google Classroom as the digital platform for this work, and will partner with a satellite school in Arkansas to do some synchronous work. We are thrilled to be part of this, and are launching next week. I will make sure ALL students can access Google Classroom by that time. Please make sure the photo/video release forms sent home today are filled out and returned.
• On Friday January 20th all of 3-509 AND THEIR FAMILIES are invited to Circle in the Square off Broadway to watch student written plays performed! We are departing for the theater at 9:00 and will return just before lunch. Families not chaperoning are welcome to meet us at the theater to watch plays. Once I have a performance list I will share it so you can estimate roughly when your child's performance will take place.
• Family Friday is January 27th- the theme will be a Biography Wax Museum! More information to come in the upcoming week.
• Portfolios went home the Friday before break. If your child left early before they were distributed, it will be brought home this week.

CURRICULUM

Reading: Our last bend of the nonfiction "Reading to Learn" unit is focusing on Narrative Nonfiction- specifically biographies. This week we are looking at ways that biographies capture qualities of fiction and nonfiction texts, and will explore new jot structures to capture new information, such as parallel timelines (subject life/historical events).

Writing: This week students are committing to a bold thesis statement for a persuasive speech, and will take that speech through the writing process. In addition to considering the audience, we will sort and categorize evidence to structure our speeches, and consider different ways to elaborate.

Math: Today we launched a two week mini unit on Geometry to prepare students for the next upcoming unit, Area and Multiplication. In this mini unit students will study attributes of shapes such as sides, angles, vertices, categories/families (quadrilaterals, equilaterals) and practice sorting and describing them. This work will help support calculating area of shapes later on.

Social Studies: Next week we are launching the "Weather Woes" program as part of our partnership with Empatico.

As always, please do not hesitate to email me if you have any questions.

                                                

Weekly Updates 12/5-12/9

NEWS/EVENTS

• Our next Family Friday is Friday December 23rd! Our theme of the day will be using a main idea tool kit to help tackle and identify main idea in nonfiction texts.
• Please return portfolios if you have not yet done so! Our next round of updated materials is going home Friday the 23rd, so we will need them returned to prepare them.
• We are going to start using Google Classroom as a way to share assignments and create projects with students! Please see the attached letter for more information about policies and how it will be used. More information to come!

CURRICULUM

Reading: This week we launched our first nonfiction reading unit of the year: Reading to Learn. Throughout the next few weeks students will immerse themselves in informational texts and read with the intention of learning new information and capturing that information through various jot structures. We will spend a great deal of time reflecting on main idea. Although readers are reading nonfiction during the independent reading block at school, at home we are going to ask them to continue to read at least 30 minutes of fiction a day. 

Writing: For the past week and a half students have been publishing pages that will go into their informational writing books. If students did not finish this work, we are asking them to spend some time at home finalizing chapters and sections. We will glue all chapters, pages, and text features into books later this week/early next week. We are asking students to try to finish publishing by next Monday 12/12. This week we are launching our next unit- opinion writing! We started this unit by watching a real student address the UN to call for action regarding global pollution. After watching this students created lists of topics (locally and globally) that they have strong feelings about. Later this week we will start to develop a thesis statement that captures the big idea of a speech, and will work on backing those ideas with evidence/reasons.

Math: Both math groups are continuing to explore the relationship between multiplication and division and properties that can help with this work such as the distributive, associative, and commutative properties. Students are using a wide variety or models to understand when each property can be used, and will transfer this work into building fact fluency.

Social Studies: Students will take what they have learned from nonfiction jot structures and apply it to taking notes about the United States. This year we will engage in several country case studies, starting first with our own. We will explore how the land, culture, economy, and history impacts a country.

Weekly Updates 11/14-11/18

NEWS/EVENTS

THANKSGIVING PLAY:

• On Wednesday November 23rd  the third grade is performing the Thanksgiving Play! Families are invited to view the play at 9:30 am that morning! PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS THE ONLY FAMILY PERFORMANCE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SIGN YOUR CHILD OUT AFTER THE SHOW (due to travel for Thanksgiving), PLEASE FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS MR. BENDER RECOMMENDED FROM AN EMAIL I FORWARDED ON MONDAY.  Thank you!
• On Monday November 21st we are going on a walking field trip to The Hudson Guild to perform the play for local senior citizens. We will eat at PS 11 and then leave at 12:30. Any parents interested in chaperoning are welcome to join us! The walking trip slip is due back by Friday.
• Our class costume is a yellow shirt and jeans. We are asking students to bring this to school for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thanks for your support!

A Special Note About Reviewing Student work:

One topic that frequently came up during conferences was finding strategies to frequently stay updated with student work. Here are some ideas we are putting into place:

1) One day each week reading notebooks will be collected by Ms. B. On those designated days I will provide student feedback. My hope is that this will encourage students to make notebooking part of student life at home and in school. Here is my schedule:

Red Herrings: Monday

Gumshoes: Tuesday

Crime Solvers: Wednesday

Sleuths: Thursday

2) Each week I am going to post charts and tools I've used to help teach students concepts during minilessons.

3) I've encouraged students to lead a weekly family conference. During this time, ask students to bring home their reading, writing, and math notebooks, and discuss the work and goals they've been focusing on throughout the week. I might enlist some student to help me create a video to model this! I'll keep you posted!

CURRICULUM

Reading: This week we started our second bend of mystery book clubs. Students are recognizing patterns and trends in mystery books that will help them set expectations for next books. We are encouraging partners to jot clues, predictions, suspects lists, and ideas while reading in order to bring rich conversation topics to partner meetings.

Writing: This week we reflecting on a range of strategies to elaborate within chapters of our informational texts. We are adding facts, examples, statistics, anecdotes, and trying to balance facts vs. opinions. Towards the end of the week we will start to develop book introduction and conclusions. I've attached a link to a PS 11 Showme tutorial I made to help students with elaboration.

Math: This week we are continuing to exploring the inverse relationship between multiplication and division, and using properties (property of zero, commutative property, associative property) to help tackle problems.

Social Studies: We are working on note-taking and are rotating through a variety of US centers.

Weekly Updates 11/7-11

NEWS/EVENTS

• It has been so lovely meeting with families over the past week for Parent Teacher Conferences. I look forward to chatting with many of you in the week to come!
• Today I sent out an email with some information regarding the Thanksgiving play from Ms. Sarah, Ms. Golub, and Ms. Wurman. Please check this out, as it contains information about the class costume colors and rehearsals.
• On Monday November 21st we are going on a walking trip to the Hudson Guild Senior Center to perform (and practice) the Thanksgiving play. A trip slip will go home for this tomorrow.
• The Third Grade Thanksgiving Play is right around the corner! The show is open to parents on Wednesday November 23rd at 9:00. The Thanksgiving play is our Family Friday celebration for the month of November.
• Today the kids came into school sharing a range of emotions from the election. We started off the day with an opportunity for them to privately free write about their thoughts, and then we had a brief class meeting and an opportunity for students to reflect on feelings (without getting into politics and specifics). We linked this conversation to the importance of listening to PS 11 Student Council candidates as they work to make changes on a local level.
• Each week I am going to start to attach strategy charts referenced in the classroom to give families a clearer picture of the work we are doing in the classroom!

CURRICULUM

Reading- Last week we launched our next reading unit- Mystery Reading! Students are working in partners to read several books across a series, paying attention to the mystery, the crime solver, and other important aspects of mystery texts.

Writing- Last week we started our newest writing unit as well- Informational Writing! Students have selected an informational topic they are deeply committed to and will create a book about this topic over the next 4 weeks. After creating a table of contents students crafted mini tables of contents within chapters to help structure the contents of each section. Next week we are going to work on integrating expert terminology into our informational books.

Math- We have also launched our next math unit this year- Multiplication and Division. This week mathematicians are exploring the different ways products are interpreted in a multiplication problem. We are creating a running list of strategies to use when calculating such as using an array.