Lisa Samuels Third Grade

Reader's Workshop: Mystery Book Clubs The children will be working on being able to compare and contrast themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters. This unit will focus on the skill of interpretation by asking the children not only to follow the plot and solve the mystery, but to take away life lessons from studying the characters and plot. Here are some questions your children should be asking themselves as they read: What is the mystery?, Who is the main character and how do they go about solving the mystery?, What are the clues?, Are there suspects and should I be making a list? Writer's Workshop: Informational Writing Our children have had some experience with informational writing already and are ready to become more sophisticated in this work. They have demonstrated that they can introduce a topic and separate it into subtopics. The children made wonderful posters after becoming an expert on a topic of their choice. They are going to work on organizing their topic and subtopics and organizing their writing in separate pages so that appropriate information is grouped inside these subtopics. Our first step will be learning that writers of informational books study published writing, imagining the books they will create and paying close attention to ways published authors entice readers to learn about a topic. We will be trying on topics, choosing one that we feel we can teach really well. The children have picked their topics and are now researching for information. We have had a wonderful trip to thelibrary and Mrs. McDonald has helped us understand how to use the library for research and introduced us to the library web site that will help us with our research. Math: We have stated Unit 5: "Equal Groups, Multiplication and Division" Pages 39-43 in the student handbook will help you understand what we will be doing over the nex few weeks. Storypath/Science:The children have moved through Europe and Asia and will be exploring Australia, Africa and South America over the next few weeks.