Mrs McKenzie's 3rd Grade Class: November 2013

Rainy Day Haiku

On Thursday kids wrote Rainy Day Haikus. It started when they arrived to class soaking wet. We turned out the lights and looked at the playground and the rain. Then we brainstormed ideas and images of the morning; red and white umbrellas, kids running to class, wet hair, a dark sky. In the afternoon, as the day was clearing, we took our notebooks outside and observed the aftermath of the rainy morning; puddles and reflections, fast moving clouds, peeks of blue sky, raindrops clinging to railings. Back in class, we wrote in the haiku form, three lines of non-rhyming poetry. The first line and the third line each have 5 syllables and the 2^nd line has seven. Most of us adhered to the rule and wrote beautiful, poignant poems about the power and beauty of nature. Enjoy a few of them now.

Trees shaking off leaves,

Giant raindrops on my head,

My clothes are soaking.

Gage

Clouds steal the blue sky,

They tell a story to me,

A storm is coming.

Maggie

Look up at the sky,

Downpour is on its way,

Everybody run for cover!

Eva

Rain comes pouring down,

All the umbrellas go up!

Raindrops cling to rails.

Ava

Trees droop as if sad,

Abandoned coat on the ground,

Twig fails to dry.

Alice

The foggy windows,

Kids running to their classes,

Water on the slide.

Beck

Raindrops drip off trees,

Wind races over my head,

Shoes and socks are drenched.

Stella

The lonely playground,

Sad, gray and drenched with raindrops,

The students in class.

Christian

In Reading Workshop we are working hard to develop the ability to dig deeply into text. We use the Scott Foresman Anthology to support learning skills and strategies for comprehension, fluency and vocabulary development. Kids are writing responses to the text, a hallmark of the Common Core Standards. Our team has had a lot of discussions around Walk to Read and have come to the conclusion that the numbers don’t spread out evenly enough to make it a good experience for third graders. Therefore we are going to continue to differentiate instruction in the Reading Workshop in our own classrooms. But we will be adding some new things to the workshop. First, I want to add some novel studies to the mix, but will need some volunteers to help. Our Reading Workshop is from 11:00-12:00 daily. (except late openings on Wednesday). If you can volunteer once a week for a book group or support group, contact me, please!

Conferences are coming soon. Our first evening of conferences is next Thursday, the 21^st of November. Then we’ll hold the others on the 25^th and 26^th. I’ll have reminders out to you this week. This is our time to meet please be on time. We are required to meet for 20 minutes but I book them on the half hour so that we have a little wiggle room. I look forward to talking to you about the progress of your wonderful children.

In math class we are finishing our second unit which has focused on Place Value and Subtraction. Please continue to practice math facts with your student. I plan to have an un-timed subtraction warm up for them every day this week. After this week we’ll begin our unit on 2D and 2D Geometry.

Play rehearsals for Portland: The Musical, are proceeding well. Kids have learned (not memorized) about half of the songs. We meet just about every week and Mr. Nelson shares his vast knowledge of Portland history with our students. He is a treasure and the kids hold him in high regard.

Thanks for bring me such a wonderful group of students ready to learn every day. I love working with them.

Valerie McKenzie