What a week it's been in third grade! Our transition back from Thanksgiving Break was a smooth one. Students eagerly jumped back into learning and did a great job of completing assignments, working together, and participating in classroom discussions! In math this week, our focus was on establishing an understanding of multiplication and division as inverse operations. We reviewed multiplication and division concepts and applied our learning by solving word problems and even algebraic equations! Our math warm-ups this week were dedicated to making reasonable estimations. After making initial estimates an explaining their reasoning, third graders were provided clues to the actual answers. It was so fun using a process of elimination to solve. Click on the pictures below... can you make the correct estimate? Literacy this week was all about analyzing cause and effect relationships. We first reviewed the meaning of cause and effect, then applied our learning to various examples. We concluded the week with the article, "The Killer Smog". It detailed the Great Smog of London (1952) that brought the city to a standstill and the eventual creation of the Clean Air Act. It was certainly a tragic event, but led to some positive changes. In Social Studies, third graders learned all about the climate, landmarks, and culture of the Southeast Region. Students researched a southeastern state during their asynchronous learning time. While we were all together, we enjoyed learning about the various foods, tourist destinations, and types of music that all originated from the Southeast. We made it through our first week of remote learning and third graders did an AMAZING job! Students were challenged to not only learn and communicate remotely, but adapt to using new learning platforms and Zoom. One of our biggest challenges this week was navigating Schoology in the midst of our Zoom meetings, which was no easy task. I am so proud of students for remaining calm, cool and collected. Of course, none of us know just how long this remote learning journey will last, but I am so proud of students' hard work. The responsibility and respect they demonstrated this week is commendable. Way to go! In literacy this week, one of our learning objectives centered on descriptive language. Our goal was to bring adjectives and descriptive writing from mild to spicy. Sometimes, we get used to using mild descriptions like good, bad, fun, or big. We could improve our writing by using spicier words like: fantastic, dreadful, exciting, or humongous. Doing this makes written work more colorful and draws a reader's attention in! This week, our learning also focused on the theme of gratitude. As a class, we discussed how we define gratitude and gratefulness. We then transitioned into a discussion of the phrase "take for granted." Students learned what the phrase means, as well as came up with examples of things in their own lives they're guilty of taking for granted. Some examples included: parents, siblings, houses, technology, school, meals, and toys. The book, Those Shoes, served as an excellent example of taking things for granted and really drove home our gratitude learning! In math, our learning objectives centered around a review of rounding and estimation. As a class, we noted how we are constantly making estimations without even realizing it! Students put their skills to the test with two estimation tasks. We had a great time discussing what estimates were too high and too low. It was fun to see how accurate third graders can be! The time has come... our transition to remote learning! Please carefully review the information below. Feel free to contact Mrs. Minatta with any questions. Learning Platform - Schoology Schoology is the learning platform we will be using for remote learning. Students access Schoology by logging into their myCherryCreek account. Assignments will be organized into folders. Students simply click the folder corresponding to the week and day. Their morning (asynchronous) and afternoon (synchronous) assignments are located in separate folders. Online Meeting Platform – ZOOM Students will use Zoom for our daily synchronous meetings. Please be sure to download the Zoom app on your child’s computer/device. Zoom works much better when you have the app downloaded and you don’t go through the web browser. If you don’t download the app, your child won’t have access to all the features of Zoom that we will be using. During our Zoom meetings, it is important that students follow the guidelines below so that we can make the most of our time together. Daily Schedule Students will have asynchronous and synchronous learning time each day. Please see below for more information. 9:15 – 12:00 Morning Asynchronous Learning This is independent work time for third graders. Each morning, students will have assignments to complete during this time. Assignments will be posted in Schoology. I will go over their assignments with them at the end of each day so they know what they will need to work on the next morning and how to access it. Morning (asynchronous) and afternoon (synchronous) assignments are often linked, so students are expected to have accessed and completed their morning assignments prior to our daily start time at noon. We will get to a point where small groups meet during asynchronous time 1-2 times per week, but we will ease into this! 12:00 – 3:00pm Afternoon Synchronous Learning This is direct instruction time with Mrs. Minatta. Students will log into Zoom each day and receive 3 hours of direct instruction time. We will follow a Green Day and Blue Day schedule, which impacts the content covered each day. On Green Days students will have science/social studies instruction and on Blue Days students will have a specials class (PE, gym, music, STEM or ROAR). Attendance
Students are expected to engage in synchronous and asynchronous learning each day. Attendance will be taken. If your child is sick and will not be in attendance, please call the attendance line at 720-554-3295 to excuse them. Lunch Third graders need to eat lunch during their asynchronous time (so before 12:00pm). There are scheduled brain breaks during our synchronous time together. Students are welcome to grab a quick snack during that time if needed. Grading Teachers are expected to grade during remote learning. Grading is intended to measure proficiency of the Colorado Academic Standards. Students will be able to access grades/feedback on assignments in Schoology. It's been a busy week for third graders! Students kicked things off with a review of addition regrouping strategies in math. Third graders also took on a few challenges and number talks that encouraged them to stretch their mathematical minds and engage in critical thinking strategies. One key focus this week was number sense. It's an important skill that students will be working on throughout the school year. This week, our number sense activity was called “Game of Totals.” The activity is a fun way to develop an understanding of quantity and ways to make a total of 25. It allows students an opportunity to count, add, keep track of totals, and use visuals to see the sum. See the game rules below… Can you stretch your thinking? In writing this week, third graders were focused on composing stoplight paragraphs. This is another essential skill, as students will eventually be writing multi-paragraph essays! Luckily, third graders are starting off slow and focusing on the major components of one successful paragraph: hook, topic sentence, details, explanations and a conclusion. Students will continue practicing stoplight writing into next week, where they will take on an opinion-based topic: Do you have to write thank-you notes? In reader’s workshop this week, third graders were focused on visualizing and making higher-level predictions. Our mentor text, Stone Fox, is helping guide student learning. The book provides ample opportunities to mentally picture major story events, and its cliffhangers are a great way to practice making predictions! Next week, students will continue with this work and also engage in verbal/written story retells. As stated previously, my maternity leave will officially begin in the coming days! Mrs. Pell will be your point of contact as we move forward. Have a great couple of months- See you in November! The start of this school year has been like none other, with third grade students acclimating both to new classroom routines as well as COVID-19 related regulations. All have taken these changes in stride, and students’ sense of responsibility is certainly impressive! To begin building the foundation of our classroom community, third graders have been participating in a variety of ‘get-to-know-you’ activities that center on the uniqueness of each individual. In celebrating our differences, we aim to develop a sense of comfortability and safety amongst one another. This will ultimately create a strong, supportive classroom community in third grade! One activity that spearheaded this work was “Behind My Mask…” Students drew themselves in masks, but underneath are their smiling faces! Students were encouraged to show creativity in depicting themselves, and each did a phenomenal job! Another exercise that centered on building relationships was forming our classroom promise. Students brainstormed in socially distanced partnerships and small groups to determine what promises our class should live by in order to show ROAR behaviors and support one another. Below, see students in action and this year’s completed promise! Third graders also engaged in activities that centered around a variety of mentor texts. These included: The Name Jar, Alma, Wilma Jean: Worry Machine, Finding Your Spot in the World, and Rosie Revere, Engineer. Students used the texts to explore concepts like diversity, inclusion, and the pursuit of goals.
Next week, we will continue to work toward building strong relationships and showing kindness to peers. Students will also jump into third grade curriculum and will begin our first math unit, reader’s workshop, stoplight paragraph writing, and map skills. Our classroom is all set up and ready to go! Now all that's missing is the third graders... Even though our room looks a bit different than in years past, one goal remains the same: To maintain a classroom environment that encourages student success and builds community amongst its learners. To achieve this goal, we will take things day by day and work "together" in creative ways that we haven't before! This will push us to think critically, be flexible, and listen to one another.
As we gear up for the start of in-person learning, there are some new routines and procedures that we will all be getting used to. Click the "3rd Grade Essentials" link below to learn more about what to expect this school year. See you soon! Welcome back to school, third grade families! My name is Kelli Minatta and I am eager to get this 2020-2021 school year started. First things first... I know that this is an unprecedented time in all of our lives. Many of us are unsure as to how things will go, and the school year itself is riddled with uncertainties. Rest assured, we are in this together. The Cottonwood Creek Community is one that strives to support each and every individual, and in doing so builds a network of connectedness. I know that with flexibility, patience and even some humor, we will achieve great things this school year! This website will serve as an information hub, a place where you can find all you'll need in terms of third grade. On it, students and parents can find important information on our curriculum, homework, upcoming projects, parent paperwork (permission slips, volunteering opportunities, etc.), and even a short bio about Mrs. Minatta. The blog portion of the website is updated about once a week with the latest and greatest third grade happenings. So take some time, explore the site, and get ready to have an awesome year! Please stay tuned for more information to come! -Mrs. Minatta Well, we made it! It has certainly been an interesting school year, full of ups and downs. I hope you all feel good in knowing that you've worked hard, made long-lasting friendships, and tried new things!
The next two days, we will be celebrating all we've accomplished! Join Mrs. Minatta and your classmates on Zoom Monday AND Tuesday at 10:30am. We'll be playing games and looking back on this crazy third grade year. Congratulations- You did it!! :) Congratulations, 3rd Graders! You made it to our last full week of remote learning! This has been an interesting (and sometimes tough) time for us all. I am SO proud of your hard work, responsibility, and positivity during our remote learning journey. Remember to finish strong... You can do this! |
Author
Mrs. Minatta is a third grade teacher at Cottonwood Creek Elementary. See and read all about what third graders are up to throughout the school year! Archives
March 2021
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