Whew. What a week this has been! Last week we had a Grade Prep day on Tuesday and then Friday off for Veteran's day, so I had a really hard time coming back for a full 5 day week, but somehow we made it. Next week we only have two days of school! Woohoo!
Anyways, I thought I would share a bunch of different things that we have been doing since I haven't written in a while and I'll try to link everything I talk about in case you like what you see!
Math
In math this week we have been working on word problems.
If you have been following me for a while, you know that I LOVE Math Workshop. The only thing I don't absolutely love about math workshop is that it takes a LOT of time to create, print, and prep activities and you need a LOT of activities (at least, I think you do). I was struggling this week because Superteacherworksheets, my usual go-to, didn't have many activities for word problems that didn't involve multiplication and division. I ended up making some of my own and you can grab those for free here.
I also found this FABULOUS website and grabbed several of their sample activities for free. I'm considering investing in their grade level math centers because these were so nicely aligned with the standards and they were easy to prep and use! I just printed some of their easier task cards and worked with my kids who needed some review on different strategies for solving word problems.
Science
In Science this week we wrapped up our study of Plants and Animals. After completing all of the Science Fusion lessons, I had students go back and review everything we learned from the book by filling out this booklet, which was also a nice way of introducing/reviewing nonfiction text features.
I sent home the booklets and a study guide for students to prep for the test. I also created my own test because the Science Fusion one didn't really match up with our 3rd Grade Science Standards. Click on the links above or picture below to grab these resources for free!
Reading
In reading we are focusing on nonfiction/informational text this quarter. I used to find this difficult to teach because I personally prefer to read fiction, but so far I have been having a lot of fun with it this year! I did an intro lesson on how to preview nonfiction text and then gave students nonfiction texts at their levels to preview and read with their reading partners.
Next we worked on identifying the main idea and details and every day students met with their reading partners to practice this skill, met with me in guided reading groups, and/or completed a practice activity independently during our reading rotations.
In my guided reading groups I used the Comprehension Skill Packs from Reading A-Z for Main Idea and Details and just used different grade level packs to differentiate for my leveled groups.
I had my kids complete practice passages and questions from Readworks for independent practice and as a informal assessment. I differentiated this activity by pulling passages from different grade levels on the site. (This is a free site, by the way, and it has so many passages that you can search by topic, grade level, or even reading skill or strategy. I just went on and looked up Main Idea & Details passages and printed out 4 different grade levels to match the levels of my reading groups).
Writing
In writing, we are also working on informational text. We use Lucy Calkins for writing and, while I really like a lot of her minilessons and find the rubrics very helpful for planning what to teach, I am not the biggest fan of following along with her plans step-by-step.
SO, I decided to try something different this quarter and I created my own writing unit that I thought would work best for my students. I believe that it meets all of the same standards that Lucy does, it just breaks them down into a more strategic, kid-friendly approach.
Each day we completed one of the lessons in my unit. Every lesson consisted of me explaining our goal for the day, modeling how I used the graphic organizer to reach that goal, and then giving students time to talk to partners or groups and then use the graphic organizer themselves.
Here's an example: The first thing we did was choose a topic, so I modeled how I brainstormed a list of topics that I am an "expert" on and then I thought aloud about which one would be the best choice. Once I chose my topic I modeled coming up with subtopics (like chapters in a nonfiction text). Finally I modeled how to teach a group about my topic and use their feedback and questions to jot down notes for myself. Then I gave kids time do choose their topics, list subtopics, and teach their groups.
I also met with small groups to see how they were doing towards the end of the week and to work on writing leads (see below).
I will do a more in depth post on this writing unit soon, but if you are interested in checking it out, you can find it in my store by clicking here.
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