In reading we have been focused on the author’s purpose.  We know authors write for a reason.  They write to persuade, to inform, or to entertain (P.I.E.).  We’ve also noticed that sometimes authors write for more than one reason!

Look below at our authors purpose sort.  In this activity, we sorted books into the three categories based on the author’s purpose:

After our book sort, we started writing our own passages with a purpose.  Ms. Miedema gave us an item and a purpose and we got to work.  Some of us chose to share-out and we got to sit in the author’s rocking chair:

 

Authors Purpose by B.B. Funny (Item: Globe, Purpose: To Entertain)

It was Old World’s first playdate at New World’s place, so she was very nervous.  Suddenly, she figured that the New World was too far away from the Old World! What is she going to do?! “I must think of something!” She said. Then, after she thought and thought, she got an idea! “Hey, New World!” she yelled. No answer, “I said, New World”.  No answer. And then she remembered that the other half of the world is asleep! “Oh well!”

This author’s story prompted a great class discussion. We reviewed what we had learned about the New World and the Old World (especially their locations on the globe) and we went to this link to check out this map that shows the position of the Sun and the Moon and displays which parts of the Earth are in daylight and which are in night.

Authors Purpose by Lil’ Wings (Item: Globe, Purpose: To Entertain)

You don’t know how much I throw up!  Can you guess how much times I throw up? I throw up 5 times a day!! You know why? Because all people do is spin me! Do you know how it feels getting spun that many times?

This author’s story prompted another class discussion about the word “personification” and its meaning! Great story, Lil’ Wings!! Thanks for sharing this with us.

Authors Purpose by Baby Ninja (Item: Globe, Purpose: To Inform)

A globe helps us learn about continents and other countries. Because it has all of the countries in the world. Price 1.75.  P.S. Buy at Target!

This author’s story gave us a wonderful example of writing with two purposes! A globe for $1.75?! What a deal!! Ms. Miedema was certainly both informed AND was persuaded to go out and buy this globe 🙂

Authors Purpose by Animal Adventurer (Item: Globe, Purpose: To Inform)

To tell us where contenents and oceans are. A globe is a map of the earth but smaller and a globe is 3D shaped and it has an equator and a prime meridian. But the real earth you can’t see the prime meridian or the quator because a globe is a model of the earth and it is much more smaller and it shows the name of the oceans and contenents for example a continent is Asia or an example of an ocean like Artic Ocean.

So much great information! Thanks for sharing this with us Animal Adventurer!

Authors Purpose by Cupcakes Rule (Item: Rug, Purpose: To Entertain)

There was a new rug.  She saw how lovely she looked. She rolled down to see how the house looked she said “Wow!” but then she saw a big scary shadow it was a vacum! She rolled as fast as she could in to the box so she could hide.  She said “that was close!” After that she carefully rolled out of the box and was placed on the living room.  She was happy being a rug.  The End.

What a funny story about a rug! We were all really entertained.  Great job, Cupcakes Rule!

Authors Purpose by CS (Item: Book, Purpose: To Persuade)

Our store has the cheapest books on the planet.  All our books cost 2.99. “What about tax?!” Well who cares about tax. Our books are so cool that Obama reads them.

CS, you totally convinced the whole class to head over to your book store! Awesome job 🙂

Authors Purpose by Stefany (Item: Headband, Purpose: To Entertain)

There was a headband that was like the best. Every girl wanted the headband but it was the last one.  The boss said that they should buy more.  The workers of the store bought more but different colors and problem solved!

Great story with excellent problem solving! Thanks for sharing this with us Stefany 🙂

Authors Purpose by Lil’ Suzy (Item: Headband, Purpose: To Entertain)

There was a headband that went to the mall to look for diamonds for its hat.  When she found diamonds this other headband grabbed it and they started fighting for the diamonds. Then the other headband got them.  Then she jumped on the second headbands back until it gave up and gave it to her.  Then she paid for the diamonds and went home.

Oh no!! A scarcity of diamonds at the mall?! What an entertaining story Lil’ Suzy 🙂

Authors Purpose by P. Peace (Item: Book, Purpose: To Entertain)

Once upon a time there was a book called Lilly.  She was funny, silly, crazy, she liked to play games and jump and that morning she got dressed and went to school with no breakfast but when she got to school there was breakfast but she did eat breakfast at school.  When she got to her class she did her math and reading then when school was over she was hungry so she ate then she brushed her teeth, then she put on her PJs and her mom read a story, then she fell asleep and her mother too. The End.

What a great sequential story P.Peace! Thanks for entertaining us today in class 🙂

Authors Purpose by Tulisha (Item: Rug, Purpose: To Persuade)

We would all buy a rug from your store Tulisha!! You’re so persuasive:) Great work!

 

 Another great week!

Here are some things that happened:

We started our guided reading groups and book clubs this week during our reading block.  On Wednesday we were so absorbed in our independent reading and guided reading lessons that we didn’t even notice Mr. Barnes come in to visit.  He was kind enough to leave us a nice note 🙂

In social studies we have been reviewing the equator, prime meridian and the four hemispheres. These images really helped us:

(Images taken from Our World Far and Wide  Five Ponds Press).

We continue to make new discoveries daily with explorers Christopher Columbus, Juan Ponce de Leon, Jacques Cartier, and Christopher Newport!

Our classroom library display is set up to support our learning:

Today we focused on Juan Ponce de Leon! We can tell you that his adventures were sponsered by Spain, his reasons for exploring were to discover riches and conquer new land, he was the first European to land in Floria (near St. Augustine), and he gave Spain claim to land in Florida!

We have to new songs and motions to help us remember all this information:

Christopher Columbus (To the tune of “Oh my Darling, Clementine”)

Oh Columbus, Oh Columbus

Landed in San Salvador

He thought he’d found a western sea route to Asia’s Door!

Oh Columbus, Oh Columbus

Sailed for the Country Spain

Discovering the New World

Was a blessing, not a pain.

Juan Ponce de Leon (To the tune of “Row, Row, Row your Boat”)

Ponce, Ponce, Ponce, de Leon,

Landed in Florida.

Wanted to find riches and land,

For Spain and for his ma.

Watch out for a video of us singing and dancing along to these songs, coming soon!!

It has been a great week so far! We have a few new things in our classroom:

Ms. Miedema has been getting so many beautiful drawings and letters that they are now on display behind her desk for everyone to see!

Some of us have been forgetting to put our names on our work so Ms. Miedema created a “No Name” board. We are supposed to check this board daily to see if we recognize anything!

We have started our Reading Challenge!! We will each read 40 books by the end of the school year, that is 920 books total!! We will track our progress on the chart below.  After we finish a book we write a book review and put it in our reading pocket on the wall.  We also have the option to have it published on our blog!

Since we don’t post our names on the blog we discussed the word “pseudonym” and we all created our own! More on this coming soon! (We already have one student who has read 4 books!)

We are so proud of our September

Student of the Month

Congratulations!!!!

Every month each classroom nominates a student that has been a positive classroom leader and model.  In Room 40, we had a discussion about what qualities a positive leader has and what a classroom model looks like and then everyone voted!!  The complete school-wide list of students and their photos is posted in the hallway beside the front office.

Ms. Miedema is also  a teacher of the month.

This week we took the CogAT test Monday through Thursday during our typical I/E, science and social studies blocks. CogAT stands for the Cognitive Abilities Test.  It is a K-12 assessment designed to measure students’ learned reasoning abilities in the three areas most linked to academic success in school: verbal, quantitative and nonverbal. For more information about this test you can visit this website <http://www.riverpub.com/products/cogAt/details.html>.  These were long testing blocks but they certainly helped us build our testing stamina! Here we are taking a 1 minute stretching break after our very last test (apparently, we are a room filled with budding gymnasts!):

Because we missed all of that precious social studies time we had an incredibly productive block on Friday! Last week we mastered some map skills and geography terms that we will now use as we learn about four explorers, their journeys and reasons for exploring and their successes and achievements.

We started on Friday with: Christopher Columbus! We can tell you that Christopher Columbus traveled from Spain looking for a western sea route to Asia. Instead of finding Asia, he was the first European to discover a sea route to America! He landed in San Salvador in the Bahamas. We can tell you all about the “New World” and the “Old World” too.

Some terms we will be “discovering” in this unit are:

• Explorer: A person who travels seeking new discoveries
• European: A person from one of the countries in Europe

This poem about Christopher Columbus helps us to remember all the important information:

In 1492

In fourteen hundred ninety-two

Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;

He sailed through sunshine, wind, and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;

He used the stars to find his way.

A compass also helped him know

How to find the way to go.

Ninety sailors were on board;

Some men worked while others snored.

Then the workers went to sleep;

And others watched the ocean deep.

Day after day they looked for land;

They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.

October 12 their dream came true.

You never saw a happier crew!

“Indians! Indians!” Columbus cried;

His heart was filled with joyful pride.

But “India” the land was not;

It was the Bahamas (whisper: San Salvador), and it was hot.

The Arawak natives were very nice;

They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold

To bring back home, as he’d been told.

He made the trip again and again,

Trading for gold to bring to Spain.

The first American? No, not quite.

But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.

We cheer for him and say hooray,

Especially on Columbus Day!!

By: Jean Marzollo

Next week we will cover the following explorers: Juan Ponce de Leon, Jacques Cartier and Christopher Newport.

In Reading this week we have been easing into our guided reading groups- finally!! We are so excited to get started. We’ve also been working hard on understanding authors purpose.  To help us, we use our anchor chart:

Figuring out the author’s purpose is as easy as PIE!!!

P: To Persuade.  To convince the reader of a certain point of view.

I: To Inform. To Teach or give information to the reader.

E: To Entertain.  To hold the attention of the reader through enjoyment.

We will have more practice with this next week!

In writing we finally advanced to the drafting stage!  Here we are getting started on our personal narratives. We rotated our crowns from prewriting to drafting!

Have a wonderful 3-day weekend!! See you Tuesday.

Here is one of our favorite songs! It is requested a lot and we all know the tune 🙂 We listen to music in the morning before math as we put away our book bags and prepare ourselves for our day and sometimes while we do our independent work.

Vera Lynn’s Travellin Home

Vera Lynn is an English singer, her songs were very popular during the Second World War. Her voice sets a calm tone in our classroom- we love her!

We had a wonderful day together! Here is a glimpse into our social studies lesson this afternoon. We reviewed the locations of all 7 continents with our “Continent Song”. We have hand motions that go along with the song to help us recall the specific location of each continent on the map (we do a hula-hoop motion for Africa so we can remember that the equator runs right through the middle of it). Enjoy!!

 

Just a quick reminder to parents: Please send your students to school with water bottles to keep on their desks!! Sending students out of the class to get water from the fountain takes them away from our lessons and they can miss crucial information!

The importance of sleep: Please keep in mind that current studies suggest that children ages 7-12 get 10-11 hours of sleep per night!! Please visit the following website for additional information:

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children

I know that obligations, events with older siblings, and emergencies often keep you from getting everyone to bed on time but when you can,  please make your child’s bedtime a priority!! Thank you 🙂

Some highlights from our day today! See below:

In Math this morning we worked out in the hallways with a hands-on number line- so much fun!!

In Social Studies we learned two new vocabulary terms: Equator and Prime Meridian! We can now tell you that the Equator is an imaginary line that separates the earth into the northern and southern hemispheres and that the Prime Meridian is ALSO an imaginary line that divides the earth into the western and eastern hemispheres.

We can also tell you which continent is located in all 4 hemispheres! Ask us tonight!

Here we are at the end of our 5th week of school, and we have been BUSY!! The week started off with Back to School Night on Monday. It was so great to finally meet all the parents of my fantastic students, thanks to everyone who came out.  We gave you a lot of information all at once so if you need to clarify anything feel free to get in touch with me.  E-mail, phone or text -I am always available for you. If you missed picking up a magnetic business cards for your fridge let me know and I’ll get one to you.  In the meantime, here is my information:

We had a lot going on last week including a fantastic visit from ReSET on Wednesday.  ReSET is an education outreach program provided by SHPE-USPTO.  They will visit Cora Kelly about 6 times throughout the year and will conduct hands-on STEM experiments specifically designed for third grade students. On Monday, the three third grade classes along with 10 volunteers explored gravity, force and motion with parachutes and balloons! It was such a blast, and we learned so much. Win-Win! Here are some pictures from that afternoon:

In reading this week we explored character actions and motivation using two mentor texts, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by, Patricia Polacco and Ferdinand by Robert Lawson.  On Friday we started working on comparing and contrasting characters using Judy Bume’s book, The Pain and The Great One and the ever-cool Venn diagram! We’ll explore this more in the coming week.

In social studies we are continuing to dive into geography.  We learned a really cool song about the 7 continents and practiced a lot on Friday! We should have those continents down by now 😉 We also explored road maps from 6 states in the USA and located some map features we’ve been studying like the compass rose, scale, title, and legend. Ms. Miedema is proud to report that after reviewing the cardinal directions, the entire class got a 100% on a quick check on North, South, East, and West.  This coming week, we will explore the various ways we can use this cool new knowledge.

We were introduced to our word study books this week- you may have seen them at home Wednesday night. Eventually they will go home every night, but right now we’re still learning about all the different tasks we’ll have to do. Alphabetizing is an important one!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! See you Monday!