First week back!

What an amazing first week back.  I must tell you how fortunate we were to lave Laurie Mekkelsen as our long term sub.  She really got our year off to a great start.  The community in our classroom is evolving strongly.  This group of third-graders really are fantastic and I look forward to the rest of the year with them.
In math this week we worked on subtraction, we are trying to be sure, that all students have a strong and masterful understanding of this operation as we work to get into multiplication.  The discussions we have had so far have yielded results that show me where we will focus over the next few weeks.

We have also come up with some ideas for classroom celebrations.  Within the PBIS framework, class member receive a small wood chip when they are doing what is expected, these wood chips are collected in a small bucket in the classroom, and when this bucket is full we stop and celebrate!  I, personally, love these celebrations as they are celebrations of a week's worth of doing what is expected, being a part of a community, offering small kindnesses (is this a word?) to one another...you get the idea.  The list of ideas we have for these celebrations this year, is full of tag games, and other super active and fun games!  I am looking forward (even more than usual) to filling up our bucket and celebrating.

In the coming weeks I will be delivering some assessments to students in reading and spelling.  These assessments are essential for me to know where to meet students in their learning, as well as to track their progress throughout the year.  These assessments are used for instruction and I generally report out student outcomes on them during our conferences on progress reports.  If, however, you would like to know the outcomes for your student sooner please let me know, and we can set up a quick meeting.

I hope you have enjoyed your weekend, and look forward to tomorrow morning!

Dave