September Proclamations from 3Pz!

Welcome to the 3Pz newsletter! Wow! Where did September go! I’d like to THANK all of you for your support and encouragement with your child advancing to Third Grade. I love Third Grade and I hope your child is enjoying it as much as I am! We have learned a lot about and from each other over the last month. I have had the pleasure of getting to know your child… their likes, what they love, their favorites, and their not so favorites. I look forward to their smile each morning and their hug, handshake or high five at the end of (and throughout!) the day. I am excited about the rest of the year ahead… the learning engagement, the fun, the power of knowledge that they will discover within themselves, the learning responsibly, the independence and the learning accountability.

The Common Core has affected and changed how I teach but it hasn’t changed me as a teacher. My teaching philosophies and values remain the same. ~ I have high (but reachable) expectations for your child, build upon his/her successes, differentiate learning and… will continue to make learning fun, positive and engaging. However, it is up to your child to take on the responsibility of being an engaged learner. If I see that your child is struggling and/or needing to be challenged with their learning, I will provide individual and/or small group instruction for him/her. In either situation, your child needs to put forth effort and energy into their learning. He/She needs to be an engaged learner! One of my (many) goals this year is to teach your child how to be a successful, self-reflective, engaged, independent learner. These are life-long skills that will help your child continue to succeed throughout their educational career and in life! Along the way, he/she will learn about the importance of collaboration and accountability among many other goals and objectives.

What can you do to help? How can you help with this? Please continue to ask your child about his/her day. This is so important! It shows that you are interested in him/her and in what/how they are learning. The ‘Forever Journal’ is a good source and will primarily focus on one thing(maybe two) we either learned or reviewed for the day. (Paragraphing is a writing skill your child is learning about and so I’m taking this writing opportunity to reinforce it.  ) I am constantly asking your child “Why?; Explain… ;How did you get that answer?; Think of another way to answer that question.; Tell me about…” As a parent, you can do this too! Not just with their learning at school but with almost everything they do! Below are some ways that you can inquire with your child about their day at school…

Tell me about … what you wrote in your Writers Notebook today.
Explain what you did in math today? What number situations did you practice and how did you solve them?
Who did you work with today and why?
Where in the world did you go in Social Studies today?
Explain three things that you wrote about today?
What entry did you make in your Literacy Binder today? What was the mini-lesson about? Why do you think Mrs. Pritzl is teaching you about that?
What goals did you set with reading, writing and/or math today and why did you set those goals?

Feel free to reverse the rolls and have your child think of questions to ask you about their day. He/She can then give you clues so you can guess what he/she is thinking about. Your child could also give you multiple choice answers to their question. I think you’re getting the idea that it’s imperative that your child does the thinking, the explaining and the solving. You’ll be amazed at your child’s thinking abilities ~ !

Our Engaged Learning during the month of September involved…

ReadingWe have Reader’s Workshop every day! This reading time is so important and vital for your young reader to progress with his/her reading strategies and skills. I will soon be done with testing all the students. This reading test will help determine what reading level your child is at with comprehension, accuracy and fluency. The reading lessons that we learned this month are below:

Good readers read like they like it!
Good readers set goals for what they want to do!
Good readers read with expression, read smoothly, read without stumbling and read for understanding. “I just read…” “I just heard you read…”
Good readers read with their eyes and in their mind. (Reading without pointing and reading quietly.)
Good readers read like the words matter! (Be an engaged reader and read with EXPRESSION!)
Good readers recognize when they have lost the story and then go back and use strategies to fix it. (When the movie in your mind gets blurry, go back and reread!).
Good readers treat their reading like…GOLD! (Choose to have a positive attitude about your reading!)

We have written “Reading Responses” in our Lit. Binder and have used post-its to note special passages while we are reading. Ask your child about some of the ‘Post-it’ codes he/she has used while reading.

Writing Wow! We were Red Hot Writers during the month of September … we were sizzling! ~  We are writing in our Writer’s Notebook, in our Amelia’s Notebook, during word work, in our Diary, in our Morning Message notebook, in our Math SAB (Student Activity Book), in our cursive handwriting packet and during our Social Studies time too! Our day is filled with A LOT of reading, writing, spelling and editing. Often, the first activity of the day is writing in our Morning Message notebook, our Amelia Notebook, in our Diary or writing an ‘Oodle of Doodle’ story. We reflect daily on the reasons why and skills that will help us improve even more in writing. We refer to the 5 W’s and 1 H (Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?) to help us with our writing ideas. We are writing small moment narrative stories using the help from the anchor chart (one of many) below.

A Storytellers Voice “SHOWS…NOT TELLS!”

It…

…describes actions that took place.

…uses dialogue.

… describes what we saw, heard, smelled, tasted or felt.

… describes images around the storyteller.

Please ask your child about the narrative stories that they have written and what they are about. Hopefully, he/she will be able to tell you about some of their writing pieces using a storyteller’s voice and not a ‘boring… snoring’ one. Keep that pencil/pen moving 3Pz! I’m very proud of your hard work and progress with your writing! 

Math Here are some of the math concepts that we learned this month as we tried to achieve some of the math Common Core Standards/Learning Goals…

Identify and use patterns to multiply and divide with 2, 5, 9 and 10; Practice building fluency with 2, 5, 9 and 10 fact families
Use multiplication and drawings to represent array situations and the commutative property
Write and solve equations using variables
Quick 9’s multiplication
Wrote an equation and solved many story problems; Supported our math answers with ‘proof drawings’.

Our math time (60+ minutes/day) is at the end of every day. It hasn’t been easy for the students to ‘leap’ into a math series and be expected to understand new math concepts, symbols and vocabulary. I have a great deal of faith that we will persevere!  I continue to tell the students to keep their mind open… “Your mind is like a parachute. It only works when it’s open.” How can you help? You are doing a great job of helping your child with their math homework if he/she needs it. It is a lot to process and some students just need a bit more time to absorb all the information that they are learning so the extra reinforcement and encouragement at home is greatly appreciated. Another very important practice that you can do with your child at home is to practice the multiplication/division flash cards daily. This is a very important practice that will help your child gain confidence and needed assurance. We move along very quickly so having your child’s mind open and having a positive attitude with the willingness and confidence to learn, will help your child progress in math. Again, thank you for your time and efforts at home. 

Social StudiesWe’re traveling around the world! We have learned about the seven continents, the four oceans, the equator, the prime meridian, latitude lines (which are also called ‘parallel lines’) and longitude lines (which are also called ‘meridian lines’). We have learned more about cardinal directions, a compass rose, symbols on a map, how to read a map and a map scale. We have learned how to find places on a map using the latitude and longitude degree numbers.

Miscellaneous Important Info…

Please refer to the ‘Pritzl’ Web page for birthdays, Expert presentations and important dates that you will want to note on your calendar. Thank you!

Please continue to read and sign your child’s green assignment notebook. Changes and other announcements as well as assignments will be in there! I check your child’s assignment notebook every morning so notes, appointments and messages can be written in this notebook as well.

Thank you for reading this and have a groovy month ahead!