Art Appreciation

We would like to thank Mrs. Wengronowitz for planning and implementing an awesome Art Appreciation lesson last week learning about the artist Mark Chagall.   The students had fun using pastels to replicate some of his techniques in creating their own masterpieces.  Enjoy the pictures from our event.  We also would like to thank Mrs. Kuhn for helping to assist with our class.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Our class had a great time learning all about Chinese New Year with Mrs. Davenport today!  We enjoyed learning about the Chinese New Year festival, history, legends, the Lunar calendar, and traditions that are done.  Mrs. Davenport also shared a couple of books about the holiday.   The students will be bringing home "red envelopes" full of chocolate coins that children in China enjoy receiving from their parents during the New Year. (Typically, Chinese children have their red envelopes filled with money.)   They are also bringing home oranges that symbolize good luck for the New Year.   We thank Mrs. Davenport for the fun morning!

Chicago Podcast and Westgate World's Fair Links

It was great to see many of you at Westgate's Open House last Thursday night!  Your students have been working so hard these past couple of months and I'm so proud of all of their work and accomplishments!   What a great group of kids I'm fortunate enough to teach everyday!  :)

I know that several of you couldn't attend last Thursday's Open House and/or had a hard time hearing the podcasts with all of the crowd.  Here's a link to our podcasts that is posted to our class webpage:   http://hynekclass.weebly.com/a-weekend-in-chicago-podcasts.html

Here is also a link to our movie created by Mrs. Szabo of our Westgate World's Fair night:  http://hynekclass.weebly.com/westgate-worlds-fair.html

Enjoy the Snow Day and hope to see you all back to school on Tuesday!

Wow!   It's hard to believe that we have already completed three weeks of Trimester 2 and now ready for Winter Break!   The kids have been working so hard and are starting to get deep into the routines of being 3rd grade learners.   

Today all students were able to participate in our All School Holiday Sing.   In the afternoon, our class was able to gather in the Commons to eat holiday cookies while listening to several stories read by our administrators.  

I hope that you have a wonderful, safe, and restful holiday season and Winter Break with your families!   I look forward to continuing to work with your child in 2014!  :)  See you all back on Monday, January 5th.    


Here's what has been happening in our class:

Literacy Time:

Over the past month, we have been working with the literacy strategies of monitoring our inner voices to focus our thinking when we read.  We have also been learning how to fully comprehend what we read through a text by stopping, thinking, and reacting to what we read.   In addition, students have been exploring and noticing the various text features when they are reading non-fiction books. Individually the students have been practicing how to track their non-fiction thinking with their guided reading books..  

Grammar:

The students have been working with distinguishing between common and proper nouns, the rules of making a noun plural, and present and past-tense verbs.  

Writing:

Our class just completed our Personal Narrative Unit in writing this past week.  During Writer's Express (WEX) time, we continued to work hard learning about the important elements to include in a personal narrative. Together, our mini-lessons have focused on writing our paragraphs in a more logical and organized manner. In addition, we continued to make sure that our work focused on a single moment in time. Our lessons also stressed the importance of having a logical structure that focused on one event, utilized strong verbs, had good sensory detail, and had proper sentence mechanics in our writing.  

This week, the students picked a final piece from all of their daily writing that they wanted to perfect and enhance.   As a result, the students typed their pieces into Googledocs. Afterwards, they conferenced with me for suggestions of corrections and enhancements.  

Math:

The students just finished Unit 4 in math that focused on introducing multiplication and division fact strategies, using arrays to demonstrate the meaning of multiplication, working with multiplication and division word problems, determining the area of rectangular shapes, and collecting data to discuss the topic of probability and chance. This week the students had fun practicing their multiplication facts by creating multiplication array cities.   

The students have been doing a spectacular job of practicing their math facts on Xtramath.org! I have certainly noticed quite a difference with quicker recall and memorization of their facts because of this practice.   I appreciate all of you parents making sure that they are practicing their facts at least 3 sessions a week.  Our goal is to have all students have their addition and subtraction facts mastered by the end of February so that they can begin to memorize their multiplication and division facts.  Your student is welcome to practice their facts over Winter Break, but please know it is not a requirement.

Social Studies:
Our class just completed our Chicago Unit with Mrs. Cerniglia and Mrs. Kleist in the LMC.   The students were able to be involved with center time activities that included higher order thinking skills that involved analyzing Chicago photographs and videos, comparing Chicago historical texts and statistics, and listening to old time Chicago songs.

Currently, in the classroom, our class is getting our exhibition displays ready to show at our 3rd Grade Westgate World's Fair.  Information was sent home last week.  We hope that you and your families can join us in the Commons on January 15th from 6:30-7:30 pm.  We cannot wait to see you all there!   

A BIG THANK YOU goes out to all of our parent classroom volunteers!

• We would like to thank Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Corwin, Mrs. Kuhn, and Mrs. Wengronowitz for coming in during months of November and December to help conduct our Reader's Theater groups..  
• I also greatly appreciate Mrs. Leu, Mrs. Owen, Mrs. Wengronowitz, and Mr. Stahr for for coming in to do all of our copying over the past month.
• Thank you Mrs. Georg and Nathan's grandmother for conducting a wonderful Art Appreciation lesson on mosaics for the students. 

Thank You Lieutenant Colonel Corwin!

We certainly appreciate Mr. Corwin (Victoria's dad) for coming into our classroom on Veterans Day to share his experiences of serving as a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marines Corps.  Mr. Corwin served in the Marines for 28 years!   We thank Mr. Corwin and all other military veterans for their service to our country.  

October/November Classroom Snapshot of Events

Here's what has been happening in our classroom:

Reading:

Throughout whole group CAFE strategy lessons, our class has been working with the comprehension strategies of  determining the author's purpose for writing (to persuade, inform, or entertain the reader); learning how to generate questions when we read; and learning how to summarize a passage.   Additionally, we have been learning how to be more accurate and fluent readers by reviewing the various strategies of  being a voracious reader; learning how to read appropriate level texts that are a good fit; and being able to cross-check what we read for understanding or to skip a word we don't know and come back to it or substitute another word that makes sense.    

We also have been having mini-lessons about how the students can monitor our own comprehension when they read.   Together, the students are learning how to "follow their inner conversation"  and "notice when they lose their way" when they read independently.    As the result, the student have been learning how to listen to the voice in their head when they read and stopping to "fix-up" problems when their comprehension breaks down.

During our extended vocabulary time, the students have been working with homographs. These are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings. Additionally, the students have also been using the website called Dictionary.com to learn how to find the various definitions of words having multiple meanings.  

The students are beginning to settle into the routines and practices of guided reading groups.  I have placed your child in a group and provided them with an appropriate books that I feel matches their reading strengths and capabilities. Our guided reading time involves assigning students chapters to read independently and meeting several times a week with me to work on comprehension, fluency, and extended vocabulary skills.    Afterwards, they can complete one of their Weekly 5 assigned activities.  Throughout the year, your child may be moved to a different guided reading group depending on their needs. If your child has a difficult time finishing their guided reading assignment during the scheduled 60 minute literacy period, they may be asked to finish it that night for homework.

Grammar:

Over the past month, the students have been working on determining the difference between finding the subject and predicate in a sentence. We also have been learning the proper way to combine two sentences that are alike by using a comma and the words "but" or "and" to make one compound sentence. Additionally, we have been working on learning how to capitalize proper nouns and the rules for making words plural.  

During literacy time, the students had fun practicing these skills with the following web pages. Feel free to lick on these links to view and play the web site games at home: Rags to Riches , Compound Sentences, Rats, and The Plural Girls.  

Spelling:

I appreciate all of the hard work that each student gives to spelling each evening. Please continue to make sure that they are sorting their words correctly into their various spelling categories. The goal of our spelling program is for the students to learn and retain the spelling rules and word patterns for future use in their writing. The nightly spelling sorts and activities will help your student to reach this goal.

Writing:

Throughout Writer's Express (WEX) time, our class continues to work hard learning about the important elements to include in a personal narrative. Together, our mini-lessons have been focusing on writing our paragraphs in a more logical and organized manner. In addition, we are continuing to make sure that our work focuses on a single moment in time. Our lessons have been stressing the importance of utilizing strong verbs, good sensory detail, and proper sentence mechanics in our writing.

During conference time, parents will be able to view all of our stories in our WEX binder. Parents will also get to read our first published personal narrative that we just finished writing,  revising, conferencing, and editing last week in a program called Googledocs.  

Math:

In October, our class completed Unit 2 in math that involved adding and subtracting whole numbers. The students have been working hard learning about fact families, extensions of addition and subtraction facts, two and three digit addition and subtraction problems, "What's My Rule?" problems, parts-and-total number stories, and comparision number stories.   We will wrap up Unit 3 this week that involves learning about both the U.S. Customary and metric forms of measurement.  Our final test on Unit 3 will be on Tuesday.  

A BIG THANKS goes out to all of the parents that helped your child to start an Xtramath.org account.   Everyone did a great job with logging into the program and settling into the routine of practicing their math facts.   I appreciate all of the help and assistance with making sure your child completes at least three rounds of math practice a week.  

Social Studies:

Our class just finished up learning about the history and landmarks in Chicago.   We still will continue to work on extended enrichment activities twice a week in the LMC with Mrs. Kleist and Mrs. Cerniglia that focus on Chicago and Illinois.  

Currently, the students have been put into research groups to work on our "Weekend in Chicago" podcasts.   Within their group, their job is to research and plan a weekend in the Windy City.    Through the research, the groups are taking notes on attractions and activities they want to visit,  restaurants they want to eat in, and finding a hotel they want to stay in. (Please click here to view the websites that the students are researching from.)  After they have researched and planned their weekend, their group will be creating a podcast to share with the rest of the class about their fun-filled weekend.   Once our podcasts are finished, we will post them on our webpage for all to view.   

A BIG THANK YOU goes to all of our parent classroom volunteers You are all amazing!

We would like to thank Mrs. Tiedge for setting up our fantastic Sign-Up Genius volunteer lists.  

I would also like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Stahr, Mrs. Leu (Esquivel), Mrs. Owen, and Mrs. Wengronowitz for coming in this past month to make copies for our class.    There's still a lot spots available to come on in to help copy during the months of January through May.   If you're interesting in volunteering, please click on this Sign-Up Genius link: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fabad2ea5f58-copy

We were able to have two successful Reader Theater sessions. This is where the students are put into a small group with a parent and are asked to read aloud from a short play script. We certainly appreciate Mrs. Kuhn, Mrs. Stahr, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Corwin, and Mrs. Butler for coming in to assist and monitor each of our groups!  

Our class was also able to experience our first Art Appreciation last month.   We would like to thank Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Georg for conducting a wonderful art lesson about Chicago architecture.   

We also would personally like to thank Mrs. Kuhn for taking time out of her busy schedule to take inventory on our Science boxes that just arrived!

Thank You Mr. Valathur!

We would like to thank Mr. Valathur (Srimathi's dad), for coming into our classroom to give such a fantastic presentation and teach us all about the Indian holiday of Diwali.    We learned so much and had a great time!  Enjoy some of the pictures from our event.