Grade 3 Highlights (Learning in Action!)
Mr James Grade 3 (December, 2023)
Daily Language Review - A Typical Monday First Period
Students enter class and know to immediately sit down, grab a pencil and get ready to begin. Once the teacher starts the timer, they have five minutes to work through a five-part, grammar-themed activity.
Students must correct the grammar and punctuation in two deliberately incorrectly-written sentences. There are then four general questions, which range from phonetic spellings and plurals, to tenses and word meanings. We mark these together as a class, and children are asked to correct their own mistakes.
Next, students practise their listening skills by writing a sentence that is said aloud by the teacher. The correctly-written sentence is then displayed on the screen, and the children must edit their writing.
Following this, the current week’s phonics sound is introduced with a bag of fun realia. The children take out objects one by one and name them, whilst also identifying the new sound e.g. /wh/ whale. We then sing a fun song and students brainstorm as many words as possible.
Each week we have five focus words containing the phonics sounds. Each day, we practise orally pronouncing the words; we decode them through chunking (breaking down the words into segments), and finally, we learn their meanings through short games.
Revisit and Reinforce
In period two each Monday, we will have a mini whiteboard review quiz. The teacher will ask students to write current and previous weeks’ phonics and sight words, and they are included in other questions to test their knowledge.
Mr Hare Grade 3 (November, 2023)
Our Book Report Journey
Every week, we have our guided reading lessons to aid in our reading skills and guided writing to improve our writing. We also visit the library once a week for time to read books we enjoy. The teacher looked at these activities, and decided to combine them together! Writing a book report!
We started our book report writing by learning exactly what a book report is. We read an engaging book together and discussed it as a class. After reading the book, the teacher introduced us to the “Book Report Notes” handout. The teacher guided us through using the handout with the book that we read together. The next step is our trip to the library!
At the library, we took our time to choose books that we were interested in and excited to read. Once we found our books, we sat down to read them and write our notes. There were many great books chosen! We did a great job reading our books and walked out of the library with pages full of notes about the books we read. Now its time to write the reports!
In the classroom, the teacher gave us a quick review of the expectations for paragraphs and even helped us by providing a main idea for each paragraph in the form of questions to answer. We began our writing swiftly and the results speak for themselves. The finished reports were amazing!
Mr B Grade 3 (November, 2023)
Counting on Context Clues
Reading is one of the four main language skills of English, and is therefore incredibly important in our school. In 3.4, we have been reading a lot! All students, as well as the teacher spend a period of time reading each day, in an effort to not only improve our reading skills, but to also develop our reading confidence.
As we continue to improve, we continue to challenge ourselves! When we challenge ourselves, we begin to encounter difficult words, which can ultimately deter us from wanting to read.
To overcome this, the teacher taught us how to use context clues when reading! Context clues allow us to find hints in sentences and pictures which help us make meaning of difficult words.
We began by reading simple sentences that had a missing word. As a class, we discuss what the missing word could be. We read the sentence multiple times to get an understanding of its subject, and we also observed pictures which were able to give us additional clues. We then chose an appropriate word!
Once we had learnt how to use context clues, we put our skills to use by reading a book called ‘Baloney’. We first observed a list of nonsense words from within the book and tried to understand their meaning. Of course, without context, we were unable to understand them. As we read the book, we were able to use context clues to help us identify the meaning of the nonsense words!
3.4 students now have a strong understanding of context clues, which helps them every time they read!
Mr Drew Grade 3 (October, 2023)
Thematic Writing
Halloween is a fun time for kids, and also a great time to learn some new things, and do some fun classroom activities. We started by learning about where this holiday came from and why we do things like dress up, carve pumpkins, and try to scare others!
The students read some facts about Halloween and its history in a Powerpoint. Halloween was a time where people believed that spirits could visit Earth, so to scare them away, people wore scary costumes and carved jack-o-lanterns.
These costumes were inspired by old folktales about monsters, and of course, this was used as an opportunity to learn the English names of these spooky characters.
The students then used their imaginations and a story planning worksheet to get ideas for a Halloween-themed story about characters such as the monsters we learned the names of earlier.
We also read a few Halloween storybooks for more inspiration in our stories. The students spent some time writing their ideas in their journals into a story form with a beginning, middle and ending.
For their Daily Talks, students told the stories aloud with the lights off for an extra-spooky and fun effect!
It was a fun way to get into the holiday feeling, and the students came away from it with good memories, as well as some new knowledge. A great strength of a Bilingual education is not just the language skills we learned, but the knowledge of cultures outside of our own.
Mr John Grade 3 (October, 2023)
A Fun Journey into Verbs
Recently class 3.3 embarked on an exciting journey into the world of verbs. The lesson was designed to make learning about verbs both enjoyable and interactive.
We began with an engaging verb song that set a lively tone for the class. Through a visually appealing PowerPoint presentation, students were introduced to the basics of verbs, with examples that showed their role in sentences.
The importance of verbs in daily life was highlighted, making students realize how integral verbs are in their everyday actions, from playing to eating.
One of the most anticipated activities was verb charades, with a twist. Three to five students acted out verbs while their peers watched attentively. The audience had to guess and write the verbs on whiteboards. This interactive game made learning about verbs dynamic and fun.
Following the high-energy charades game, students transitioned to activity work. They practiced constructing sentences using model sentence starters, and drawing pictures to illustrate the verbs they used, which solidified their understanding.
To reward their hard work and enthusiasm, the teacher organized a verb organizing game. It was a moment of laughter and celebration as students reinforced the importance of action in the learning process.
In conclusion, 3.3 had an engaging day filled with verbs brought to life through songs, charades, and lively discussions. The students left with a newfound appreciation for verbs, understanding that they are the dynamic force behind the sentences in their daily lives.
Mr B Grade 3 (April, 2023)
Word Study - A Variety of Activities
Throughout the school year the students in Grade 3 do a weekly exercise called Word Study. The purpose of Word Study is for the students to understand how to read (and write) words using taught phonic sounds. And also to learn high frequency words (Dolch words). We use a variety of resources to help the students learn: These include PPT’s, Videos, dictionaries and worksheets.
Firstly, we look at a PPT consisting of 15 words. The first 5 words are a revision of the previous week’s phonic sound. We will ask students to read the words to check their understanding as well as practice their pronunciation of the sound. Then we will move on to the next 5 words, which are the focus sound for that week. We will show the sound and use a video to reinforce the new sound. After that, we will practice the new sound with a variety of activities including the use of nonsense words, where students will make up words using the focus sound pattern to reinforce use of the sound, not just the reading or memorized words. After that, we will show the last 5 words which are the high frequency words or Dolch words.
Finally, we will check the students understanding of the high frequency words by having them look up the dictionary to check the meaning of the new words. The students will write down the example sentence from the dictionary and then create and write a sentence of their own on worksheets.
Using a variety of different activities, as well as a lot of oral work, help students to remember the sounds and pronounce them correctly. Then when they need to read or write words with those sounds they can do so successfully.
Mr John Grade 3 (April, 2023)
Guided Reading
Guided Reading classes are an instructional approach used in Clifford to help students improve their reading skills. In our guided reading class, a small group of students work with the teacher and TA who provides support and guidance as they read and discuss a text. The students in each group are reading at similar levels, and the teacher selects texts that are appropriate for their reading levels. During or guided reading class, students begin by reading a text that has been selected by the teacher. The teacher and TA may provide some guidance as the students read, such as asking them to read a certain number of pages or to stop and summarize what they have read so far. The teacher may also model reading strategies, such as decoding unfamiliar words or making inferences based on the text. After the students have finished reading, the teacher leads a discussion about the text. In addition to reading and discussion, guided reading classes may also include writing activities. The students may be asked to write responses to the text, such as summaries, character analyses, or predictions about what will happen next in the story. These writing activities help the students to develop their writing skills as well as their reading skills. Because the teacher works with a small group of students, they are able to provide individualized support and feedback that is tailored to each student's needs. This can help students build confidence in their reading skills and develop a love for reading. In conclusion, guided reading classes provide students with an opportunity to improve their reading skills in a supportive and engaging environment.
By reading, discussing, and writing about texts, students are able to develop their reading strategies, comprehension skills, critical thinking skills, and communication skills.
