Monday, December 10, 2012

We met in Casey's room today. Christy shard updates from scheduling committee. We all agree that we need more common planning time and consistent schedules. Shared the idea of 1 hour for lunch and sharing recess responsibilities. 
Progress monitoring- we all gave the noun, verb, adjective pre-assessment and discussed how many words fit in more than one category. We are going to use the same one for the post assessment. Some of us created word study words and had them categorize into noun, verb & adjectives for this week. 
Next meeting-in Christy & Katie's-Christmas celebration & context clues. 

Monday, December 3, 2012

Meeting in Amy's Room-
*Shared Joy Day ideas to help Theresa while she is out on Jury Duty
*Progress Monitoring?
    *we agreed on vocabulary as our first focus for progress monitoring
    *Amy, Kim & Christy are taking "Robust Vocabulary" book study 
    *Shared "Word Wizard" activity from week 1 of book group
    *First focus will be "Parts of Speech" because we notice that all students have difficulty with the application of Tier 2 words. We are going to create a pre-assessment to give before our next meeting. Bring the results to our next meeting. Katie will make this up based on holiday. As a team, we will focus on the areas that we have identified as difficult through Christmas Break.
    **After break, we will focus on context clues. 
*Requirements for "evidence" is on a checklist which Kim shared with us. We need to make sure that examples of all of these are dropped into our APPR file. 

Next meeting-Casey's Room on Monday, December 10th

Monday, November 26, 2012

Meeting in Kelly's Room
*No Evening Story Fest
*Cynthia DeFelice is coming on February 11th-Kelly has picture books and chapter books to share
*OSOB-Kelly, Katie & Christy are on the committee that meets tomorrow
*Joy Day for Kelly is 11/30 and everyone else is doing it on 12/7
*Joy Day is on our own-we will be doing our things in our room & have decided that we are going to make our parent gifts on this day
*SIT update-bring in books for Book Swap
*Testing shifts for NYS ELA-no listening, 4 books in 3 days (Day 1 30 MC questions, Day 2 has books 2 & 3-MC & short responses, Day 3 all short & extended response questions), 70 mins each day, rubrics have been provided for extended responses. All passages are 500-600 words
*NYS Math-Book 1-30 MC, Book 2-31 MC, Book 3-5 short response, 3 extended response

Monday, November 19, 2012

Our team had previously set a goal to partner up and develop an ELA unit on a complex text based on a concept from our S.S. curriculum. However, we all determined that the type of resources that we were looking for, were not readily available. We also came across important information related to "ELA CC modules" and therefore, decided to explore engageny.com at our grade level meeting, rather than work on a unit. We felt a bit lost, but after looking at the modules as a team, we felt like we had a slightly better idea as to where to go with a CC unit. Our first focus is going to on Module 2A.  
Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween! We met as a team and identified the need for non-fiction complex texts that align with our 3rd grade curriculum. We split up and research the different parts of our SS & Science curriculum. We found excellent resources that are part of archived editions of National Geographic Pioneer issues (On Thin Ice, Living with Lions, Fantastic Feathers, etc). We emailed administration about how we can access these archived issues with an access code (which we need). Administration followed up with a staff email about how often we use the issues and in what way.
Our team chose specific content areas and buddied up with someone. We will not meet as a group next Monday, November 5th. Instead, we will meet with our buddy to create a new Common Core unit. This unit will be shared at our next group meeting on November 19th in Joe's room.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Meeting in Kim's Room-all team members present.  Introduced Kristen as a student teacher. We created a matrix for ELA. Christy emailed it to the team. We all agreed that our children did not do well overall. The format of the test and types of questions were challenging for all students. 
SIT Update from Kim-Supporting the Middle Learner survey on 2 students from our class. Complete and return it to Kim at our next meeting on 10/31. 
Instead of meeting on Monday the 29th, we are going to meet in Theresa's room on 10/31 right after early dismissal. We will work on the SLOs organizer (that we will receive at our Staff Meeting on Weds) and set common goals all together. 
Are we going to dress up all together for Halloween?
Our next CC Non-Fiction unit is going to be on The Deadliest Predators from National Geographic Explorer.  We will all need to read the article before next Weds. Come to the meeting with Tier 2 & 3 vocabulary identified to share out. Then, we can decide on a unit focus. Gail Palmer is getting the password to use for the NGE app.  
Christy will copy the Web of Life from Superintendent's Day file to our Grade 3 file. Create a CC file folder in our Grade 3 folder in the W:Drive. Most of us are starting the unit on Lightening this week and will go to the Web of Life next. 

Monday, October 15, 2012

Meeting in Christy & Katie's Room (all team members present)-
*Discussed Pre-assessments and developed a template for Math. Christy sent this out. As a group, we went through and identified what kind of question each one on the test is. There is a total of 22 points for math. We identified what type of question each one on ELA was. We did not yet create an ELA template. 
*CC Units-some are starting the CC Unit on lightening next week. Others will start within a month. 
Next Monday, we will look at choosing a new unit to create from National Geographic to use. 

Monday, October 1st, 2012

Meeting in Casey's Room-Casey, Kim, Amy, Joe, Christy, Katie, Kelly
*Shared Open House Handouts for Parents-Casey is sending math strategies, and turning reluctant readers into enthusiasm and Christy will send quick reference chart of what 3rd graders will learn and the DRA benchmarks.
*Open House-picture with job (Amy, Kelly & Kim in color 4x6) and the rest of us in black and white. One big piece of black paper should be outside of the Multi purpose room and we will all place their 4x6 pictures on it. Our writing pieces will be back in the classroom. Casey will make the notes and Amy will put up the black paper.
*Caine's Challenge-Kim will type up letter for home and materials and will add our event to the on-line website. *Katie will make a sign about Caine's Challenge for Open House display. There will be a total of 28 homes/businesses in our "Village"
*What are the times for Open House?? We are not sure of what hour is for 3rd grade.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Amy's Room-Those who are present today include: Kelly Fede, Amy Conte, Christy Neu, Casey Charles, Katie Caprino, Kim Hart, Theresa DuPont, Joe Kuhn, Kim Hart

We talked about our fear of the unknown concerning new requirements, but agreed that we feel better about it this year than last.

Christy is going to copy ccls math book and give copies to team to use to support math units.

Habits of Mind
Continue with journal and read aloud
The Giving Tree- Joe and Kim cried

Gap Analysis

Split and looked at ELA and Math

Gap Analysis for ELA
Author's purpose
Locate info in text to solve a problem
Summarizing a conclusion from main idea
Read unfamiliar text to understand data
Writing organized responses
Make predictions, draw conclusions and make inferences about events and characters


Math Gap-
<, >, =
Terminology and shapes 90 degree angle
Strategies to add/ subtract with 3 digit #  and regrouping
Estimating # up to 500
Single digit mult & division in word problems





Unit 1 Investigation
Discussed how to grade investigations assessments
Casey shared handout about addition strategies that she shared with at open house
-Challenging students in math because Unit 1 can be easy for some students. We shared brain teasers and other extension ideas
-Different ways to get to 100 and sharing student thinking

-Caine's Challenge- signed out the Multi Purpose Room
Kim will scan in The Big Orange Splot which we will read to prep kids for the project
At the Cardboard Village- Kim has a book to share about a cardboard village with statistics that ties in community around the world.
Each class will be in groups of 6 to work on a project and create something
Students will create house or business
Casey discussed planning sheet- plan what they want it to look like, materials they think they will need, if they get permission they can bring in materials from home

We are providing cardboard, masking/ duck tape, construction paper, markers, piper cleaners.
Students may not bring in paint and glitter- what they bring they have to be able to carry in- parents
may not bring supplies in for students

Conference Forms
- form with behaviors and goals
- strengths/ improvement
- Math, ELA, Work Habits, behaviors
- update form with HoM
- report card example
- extra copy of  beginning of year letters for parents if needed

ELA gaps
- authors purpose
-

Next meeting- bring conference form and open house parent handbook

3rd Meeting-September 24th, 2012

Grade Level Meeting-Kelly's Room
   *SLOs-not sure what we are expected to do-hoping that we will be given more information at the Staff Meeting on Wednesday.  We will meet on Thursday at 11:45 in Amy's Room.
  *Dictionary Assembly is tomorrow at 9am. Be sure to tell kids about Rotary.
  *SIT Announcements-Mike needs a list for science supplies to be reordered. We need 7 of everything. (Butterfly Coupons, Magnet Cardboard Cars, Wisconsin Fast Growing Plant Seeds-NO RADISHES, soil, fertilizer, plant quads, petri dishes, 4 butterfly nets, .  Caine's Challenge needs to go on VE Cal. Thursday, November 8th is Parent University-PBIS is looking for volunteers.  Report card dates are on VE Cal.
  *Caine's Arcade Challenge- 4 CardBoard Homes per classroom to be displayed in 3rd grade hallway through Open House week. Eric Neu is working on cardboard collections to be delivered. Kim will scan in The Big Orange Spot for each classroom to introduce the projects. Groups should plan ahead.
*We will meet again on Thursday.

Monday, September 17th, 2012

Joe's Room (with Kim, Kelly, Amy, Theresa, Katie, Casey, Christy & Deb L.)

*Casey shared first part of Interactive Read Aloud Resource-should we all start with the Genre section of interactive read alouds since we haven't done pre-assessments. All 3rd grade members will be attending the Grounds for Thought on IRAs (except for Katie & Christy who took it last year)

*Math & ELA assessments should be completed between Oct. 1-5 (includes DRAs), assessments are then scored _____? and then SLOs are developed based on assessment scores.  There is some confusion on dates, as it states that pre-assessments are scored on 11/11 (a Sunday) but goal meetings are on 11/1.  The team has emailed Tracie about this.  **Tracie returned email and said she thought it's 10/11/12. Will we be given time off to score? How does this work?

*Everyone on the team will be starting DRAs the week of September 24th. 

*Group discussed questions related to contract that did not pass.

*Open House is October 10th. Grade level ideas-Wordle with words from classmates about each student, student heads (all will do this), HOM careers-a picture of each student holding what they want to be when they grow up and then choosing a HOM that they will focus on this year to help them choose a goal for the year. Deb said that we can make a Grade 3 collage outside of the library. This will part of our scavenger hunt. *Let staff know that we will be using the space outside of the library until Oct. 11. *Slideshow of class pictures can be on the Smart Board. 

*Everyone has started reviewing HOM with their classes.  We have done 2-6 lessons each so far. Joe shared a fun idea about creating, imagining, innovating to hand out a blank piece of paper to each student to create something from within 12 minutes. Most have started daily reflections in the journal. Deb L. is starting to pull together HOM books to help us teach each one (based on Casey's list she shared with us last week). 

Next Meeting is in Kelly's Room!

9.10.12 Meeting

Theresa’s Room 9/10/12

*Shared Daily ELA with the team

*Casey shared Daily Math AM work & are both will be used as morning work 

HOM Journal was created by Casey and shared with the team. There is a list of books that go with each Habit of Mind. Casey emailed this to the team. We are asking Deb L. to pull some books to support our team. Many people introduced the journal to the kids today. Kids will choose 3 at the end of each day that they are most proud of using and check that off. Joe is having the kids include a written response to two questions related to HOM.

*Start with Nutrition unit-exploring the food groups-Need DROP in resources to Village-->3rd Grade-->Science  and use choosemyplate.gov

GRADE LEVEL TO DOS:

        *Book Logs were recreated from the resource, Teaching Reading in Small Groups.  We are going to have the kids track their reading the week of DRA assessments (last week of Sept/first week of Oct).  The logs should be used to help us better understand the reading patterns and habits of students. We will then share out successes/challenges with the book logs at a mid-October meeting. 

*Interactive Read Alouds will begin mid-September (first unit is Activating Prior Knowledge) which is when we will implement the Complex Text unit on Lightening. All teachers will do this except for Kelly, as she is going to take the session on Interactive Read Alouds being offered in October by Tracie.