I hope that everyone enjoyed their Labor Day extended weekend. 

This week our PBS (Positive Behavior Support) focus was Accept Responsibility.  Tuesday morning, the 3rd grade class held an assembly to address ways we can Accept Responsibility at Emerson.  Thank you 3rd grade!

On Tuesday our class got right back into working on learning our daily routine.  We start each day with morning classroom procedures (making our lunch choices, getting our chairs, putting away our things, returning our homework, etc) and then go directly into Structured Recess when the 7:45 bell rings.  After Structured Recess, the students attend their daily specials class.  This year, Joplin is on a rotating Special schedule.  We now have A-D days that rotate on a daily basis.  For our class A & C days are PE/Music days, B days are Art days and D days are Library/Computer Lab days.  We are still getting the hang of knowing exactly which day we are on, but it will all fall into place over the next few weeks.

After specials, we move directly into Writer's Workshop.  This week, we worked on writing using the four sentence types (declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory).  We also made a list of our Fierce Wonderings, those questions that make us think but may never be answered.  The students really had some deep thoughts during this session, which made for some great conversation!

After Writer's Workshop, our class moves onto Math.  This week we focused on equal groups, arrays, and area.  Students need to continue studying their multiplication and division facts to help them solve more complex problems.

Math leads into lunch.  We continue to share our lunch with the Kindergarten students.  5th graders have been a great help in teaching the K students the ropes in the lunch room.  The behavior has been so great!  The 5th grade will be enjoying a lunch in the classroom (our outside if weather permits) next week, due to their excellent cafeteria behavior!

When we return to our classroom after lunch, we go into a period of time called Eagle Time, as the year progresses this time will be dedicated time for students to receive additional assistance in areas where they may struggle.  Right now, we are using this time to talk about current events through watching the CNN Student News Podcast (more information about this podcast is available at cnnstudentnews.com).  After watching the news, we listen to our current class reading.  Right now, in celebration of Roald Dahl month we are reading The BFG.  It is a humorous book that I really enjoy sharing with the students.

After Eagle Time ends, we move into our Reading period.  During reading period students may participate in Individualize Daily Reading or we may read as a whole group from our reading book.  This week, we started a theme in our reading book called Nature's Fury.  Our first reading selection was about earthquakes.  We will also be reading about storm chasing and volcanoes throughout this section.

After reading, is free-play recess.  I know this is a favorite of a lot of students.  It allows for a lot of good social interaction and exercise after a long day in the classroom.

Once recess is over, we return to finish up the day in either Social Studies or Science.  Remember, Mondays & Wednesdays our class will be in Social Studies with me, and on Tuesdays & Thursdays our class will be in Science with Ms. Lawrence.

If you have any questions or comments please don't hesitate to co