It's our 36th week together!

We're shakin' things up a bit in room 208! I've decided to flip our Math and Language Arts block so that we can get the "hard stuff" out of the way earlier in the day and I can capitalize on the time of the day where the kids seem to be more energized.  We've done this a few times over the last few weeks and it seems to work well for everyone. 

As part of the Math program, we have been looking at probability for the last week or so, and from those lessons I found we needed extra practice with our division skills.  Students are very good at using the cookies and plates strategy to divide.  Here's an older poster from the classroom where I've outlined how to use plates and cookies for multiplication. With division, students learn they simply do the opposite and start with the number of cookies to be shared among X number of plates. 

 

To take this to a higher level, we've started working on finding a fraction of a set of numbers, for example 1/5 of 25. There's a little chant we use to help us remember how to go about doing this. 

We didn't get to our Math Challenge today, where students would practice their skills independently, so we'll put that at the top of the list for Tuesday.  

This week's text of the week is called "I Got a New Game for my Brother" by Kenn Nesbitt, and like so many of our poems, it features a very funny twist on words.  As part of our discussions around reading fluency and what good readers do, we talk about how readers should try to make our reading sound like natural speech.  Given how short this poem is, it might be fun for us to try presenting it in character! 

On Tuesday, we'll read a very short story called "A Couch Speaks Out".  My favourite part of the day was when students visited with their elbow partner in our Breakout Rooms this afternoon to talk about what their couch would say if it could talk. Based on what they shared when we all returned to the main meeting, I think we may have a bunch of future comedy writers in our class! 

Thursday May 27

I have an extraordinary class.  

I was pulled away late yesterday afternoon to take care of a family matter. I didn't realize that I had not closed down our Google Meet.  When students went to recess, I left asynchronous work and a video explaining my situation and hoped they would be able carry on without me.  

I learned this morning that they returned to the meeting and carried on in a way that makes me so proud and hopeful for their future as responsible leaders and digital citizens.  They explained to me that they helped each other with the work I'd left, followed the expectations we have for both online and in person learning and then to top it off, the Student of the Day led the class in closing prayers.  

It was hard to keep it together this morning when they proudly shared this with me.  

What more could teachers and parents ask for than this?  We talk a lot about doing the right thing even if no one is watching, and how our conduct should be an example, not a warning to others and that was certainly demonstrated on Wednesday.  

Now on to today's (late) plan. Thursday was a fantastic day in our little digital space. We enjoyed Kahoots for the first time together as a class and they were very well received.  

In math, we're working on probability, but we're also revisiting concepts that need a little boost. Counting money is our focus right now, and any opportunity to strengthen this skill would be time well spent.  

Today we started using the blank pages in our agenda to learn cursive writing. The lines are perfect for practicing our letters and also help minimize frustration.  Here's an older blog post that talks about why I teach cursive.  

We didn't quite check off every item on our plan today, so some items will be carried over to Friday or Monday. 

Unused pages in our Agenda or "Homework Book" are perfect for
learning how to write in cursive. 

Wednesday May 26

It's Wednesday and this is our favorite way to start our hump day with a smile! We used this commercial earlier in the school year to talk about how as writers, we need to add lots of interesting detail to our writing to, just like this commercial, keep our audience engaged. 

This is our plan for today. I'm more excited about our Math Rewind than our probability work. I think there's only so much we can do with probability at the grade three level, but there is plenty for us to review as it relates to counting coins, finding a fraction of a set and understanding the hour.  

In their agendas, students are asked to review the Doubles Chant, which can be found here on the blog under "Math Chants."  I'd love to know how all those kids in that video feel knowing they're still teaching kids how to memorize their doubles facts all these years later.  Viewing the video is a fun reminder that the light is at the end of the tunnel. Soon we'll be back to school with carpets, furniture, songs and most importantly, each other.  

Tuesday May 25

Pre-Covid, this space was where I shared the day to day happenings, various resources and other tools used in my classroom with my students and their families. It was nice for folks to have a little reference desk of their own to use when needed. Throughout the pandemic, I've struggled to figure out just how I could continue to use the blog when so much of what happens everyday is *right there* in our Google Classroom.   

Each day, I'm required to share my plan with my students and their families and up until now, I've done so via twitter and within our digital learning space. Moving forward,  I'll post the plan here, and when I can, I'll add in a few notes and photos to support what we hope to achieve that day.  We don't always get everything on our plan done and that's typical of both a digital and in-person learning space.  Sometimes things take longer than expected, or we might need to abandon the plan altogether because a break is what the moment calls for. 

Now, I'm not getting off to a great start by posting today's plan at 4:00pm, but I'm sure it won't take long for me to find my blogger groove again.  

Here's what we did today! 

As part of our afternoon "Math Rewind", we've been using the 13-minute Odd Squad episodes to revisit concepts we covered earlier in the year.  Today we talked parallel lines, patterns and reviewed geometric shapes. We also had some related fun learning about Canusa Street: a town that runs along the US/Canadian border in Vermont and Quebec. You can read more about Canusa Street here. 

Recently, we've been making good use of the digital math manipulatives at toytheatre.com . As part of Math Rewind, we did some work with digital pattern blocks.  

We have two novels on the go right now.  The Wild Robot by Peter Brown is our novel study as part of our literacy block, while Gordon Korman's Zoobreak is our end-of-day read aloud.  Both are full of suspense and interesting characters!  Zoobreak is a little wordy at times, so in the interest of time and holding my audience's attention, I edit as we go (sorry Mr. K). 

And that was our day! 

Fingers crossed Wednesday's plan will be posted here BEFORE school starts for the day.