Mrs. Hakseth's Third Grade Girls

Third Grade Girls September 2008 Third grade is an exciting year.  This year students move from being primary to intermediate students.  At this stage it is important for children to be motivated and excited about what they are learning.  This is also an exciting time as we discover all the fun and learning that can happen in an all girls classroom.  We are becoming a close knit group and are enjoying just being GIRLS together!  The chance to get away from distractions in a mixed class has been recieved with great excitement by the young ladies this year. We devote 80 minutes per day to Success For All (SFA) reading, where students actively participate in reading books at their level, as well as writing and sharing their responses to their reading. The focus during this time is to learn and practice the many different comprehension strategies good readers naturally use when they are reading. These include: making connections, questioning, visualizing, summarizing, making inferences and many others. During this time the girls have a chance to move rooms to work with others reading at their level, this means that struggling readers can get more directed attention while those who are at and above grade level are also being challenged. Writing is integrated throughout the entire third grade curriculum. Writer's Notebooks and monthly writing projects are just some of the many types of writing third graders are involved in. The daily Writer's Workshop is designed to support these efforts. Everyday Math is used daily to reinforce familiar math skills as well as to introduce new ones. A major component of daily math lessons is the time provided for students to talk math, to share problem solving strategies, and to learn from each other. We also spend time playing math games and working in smaller groups to challenge students and meet their specific learning needs.  Students quickly realize how their learning in the reading and writing is directly related to what they are expected to do in third grade math. Communication is the key to a successful year for all students! I check my voice mail daily as well as my school email: alison.hakseth@spps.org. I look forward to another wonderful year at North End Elementary!

Image Gallery: September 2008