What an exiting one and a bit weeks it has been! We have spent a lot of time thinking about connections. We started by thinking about connections we already have by reading the book The Invisible String. We then created a journal page about out home connections.

 

Next, we thought about the connections we had within our class. Some people felt they did not have any connections because they were new to the school (me included!) and some felt they had connections to one or two people in the class, maybe because they played a sport together or were in the same class last year. Nobody felt really connected to lots of people in the class.

 We then played a game where example all the people who had a pet met together for a few moments. Can you believe everyone in the class has a sibling?! Through this game, we connected with people who have different things in common with us, like preferring either a quiet or busy environment, or speaking another language. We all agreed we felt much more connected after this game. This made us all feel a lot better.

We thought about how this made us feel safer and more comfortable and wrote about this using the Thinking Routine, ‘I used to think …. But now I think’.  For example, many students reflected that they used to think they had very few connections in the class but now they think they have things in common with a variety of people. Thinking routines are scaffolds, used to support students to grow in their critical thinking skills. In grade three we will use a lot of Thinking Routines!

Our work this week is to finish our 3D effect hand art and create a hall display showing the school how all of the students in the class are connected to each other. By re-visiting this idea, we will also be firmly grounding that belief within our students.

This week we also started our box project. We kick started this by reading The Most Magnificent Thing, where the main character of the book learned important things such as how failing is an important part of learning and how to keep optimistic through adversity. Growth Mindsets are important life skills and we will be learning and living them through the year.  Another story to help students understand the importance of perseverance and keeping positive is Mrs. Armitage.

We will keep you posted about how our project is going, the problems we encountered on the way and what we learned by experiencing challenges!

As a class, together we created a ‘Found Poem’ about feelings we have when we begin new adventures, such as starting a new grade. This type of poetry is really good at allowing children to show their understanding,  without having to worry too much about creating full sentences. As the students get more practice with Found Poetry, we will return to Found Poetry in the blog and show you how it works. At this stage, your child should know and be able to explain too!

We have also worked very hard at understanding what a really good book choice is and how to go about independently selecting books that are a ‘Good Fit’ for our current reading level. You can support this at home by having your child talk you through the I PICK selection process and having them pick out some books to read at home.  Even if your child is a good reader, it is important to set aside 15-20 minutes reading time at home every day. This should be done with an adult. As well as help to read challenging words, adults can ask questions about the text, such as ‘What did you just read?’ or ‘How do you think Sally felt when that happened? What makes you say that?’

Happy Reading!