Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “3rd grade”
The students and I know our classroom would have been a very different place without CIA this year. I know: CIA determined our reading block structures (we missed it when we had breaks between). CIA set a social studies theme that helped us with our actual social studies big ideas. CIA helped me facilitate student independent work habits in a …
My class has just finished reading our final CIA book of the year, Glory Be. As always, it is always bittersweet when we finish a book, but even more so with this book as it is the last time I was going to listen to the great discussions and ideas that my students have about a wonderful book. Spring seems …
It is hard to believe that another school year is going to be over in just a few days! It seems like it was just yesterday that started. With all the craziness that come with closing up a classroom for the year, and the fun activities that are scheduled, I find myself reflecting and thinking about what I plan to …
Forming the Groups When I heard that there were going to be book clubs that partnered up with the CIA books, I was more than excited to have my students to have a similar experience with book clubs that I’ve had. I decided to begin the book clubs the second week after Spring Break. This gave me plenty of time to …
“But it was so much fun!” This was in response (from my most busy girl) to a very long catch-up reading session, after which I drooped and said, “Thank you for sticking with it today. That was a lot of work!” When she said that, I perked back up. She was right—it was fun! We co-created charts (we’re old hands …
Making Connections Well, we are finally halfway through Martin Luther King Jr.’s biography! It feels like we’ve been reading this short book forever…and yet the students are not bored or in need of extra entertainment to stay engaged. They have taken the big ideas and the details to heart, searching each week in library for connecting texts and noticing protests …
When I’m meeting with small groups, my students are get this….. READING!!!! It is so great! All my students are reading books of their choice at their level. Some of my students are reading books such as Biscuit all the way to one of the books from the Goosebumps series. Making this happen in my classroom has been a long …
The third graders and I have been waiting excitedly to jump into our next CIA unit… Frustratingly, my actual start date of the Martin Luther King, Jr. biography unit kept getting pushed back, first as I gathered and prepared my materials, then as I fit it into our district unit of study in nonfiction, and finally as I stayed home …
The Importance of Background Knowledge Over the winter break, I went to go see the movie The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug. I really enjoyed the movie a lot! I’ve read the book, The Hobbit, saw the cartoon version as a kid, and watched the first installment of the series the night before. I’ve also read and then watched …
I cannot believe we are in the process of wrapping up the writing project that follows our read aloud The War With Grandpa. This unit just flew by. My students had such a fun time making connections with the struggle that comes with being in a disagreement with a family member. This was a great choice on Sarah’s part for …
Reader’s notebooks are so important to the development of reading skills. I am always reminding my class that we should read like and investigator and write like a reporter. The reader’s notebook helps us with both of these things. With CIA, students have the opportunity to practice many different note taking skills. The notebook is a tool they can use …
Synthesis Summary For our synthesis summary, we did the oral retell with our Turn and Talk partners. This really helped the students gather their ideas, think about the entire story, and prepare for the actual writing that was going to occur the next day. I had written the graphic organizer on the board, and also gave them the actual prewrite organizer …
Understanding Conflict Throughout Sarah’s units of study the discussion about conflict arises. I have realized the importance in the knowledge of what conflict is and different ways it can be solved. In my classroom mid-way through War with Grandpa, I will do an activity with my students using a word continuum for the word conflict. We will use register tape …
The Dark Emperor Poppy allowed us to jump off into other aspects of the Reader’s Workshop: word choice, fluency, partner reading with purpose, and much more. In the time between finishing Poppy and winter break, we have been gleefully exploring the poetry collection Dark Emperor as our primary text (as suggested by Sarah Collinge at the last class I attended.) …
This is my third year teaching CIA, and it has taken me this long to realize that when I’m working on the vocabulary with my students I’m also doing a word study. Yes, it may take us a bit more time to do the word study aspect, but it is totally worth it! Word Study It sounds weird, but I …
On the day of our Read-In, one student brought in a Poppy mouse she made with a rock by drawing on the face and tail and gluing pom-pom ears. Another student brought in an offering of acorns. We all got comfortable in our small gathering area and commenced to read. The students gasped. They cheered. Some reprimanded others for laughing …
Sentence Stems The use of stems in my classroom has completely changed the way I look at student discourse. Before the use of stems I would always expect my students to turn and talk in the fashion of think-pair-share. Then I realized I kept getting frustrated because the students were not sharing their thinking the way I was expecting them …
Beginning the CIA Unit We started the unit of study for Poppy after two weeks of Patricia Polacco practice with sentence stems, literary vocabulary, and talking about how character’s change. We are in the first quadrant, Collecting, of the CIA framework. After each lesson, the students practice the same strategy for half their independent reading time in a book I …
Wow! September has flown by. Let me catch you up to speed where we are at in Poppy. We have just finished the first quadrant and are closing in on the second quadrant. I am going to take a few steps back and share with you some of my ideas on kicking off Poppy. When we prepare our notebooks for …
Turn and talk, a tool for accountable conversations in most classrooms, has been my hope and challenge since I was first introduced to it almost 10 years ago. It seemed like the answer to letting students share what they thought, also not take up too much instructional time, and give them an opportunity to practice conversation skills with peers. Then, …
