Carrboro School Grounds Workday

Come one, come all to help beautify our grounds!  Gardeners of all ages and experience levels are welcome.

We will be spreading mulch, weeding, and planting.  High school students can earn service learning hours by participating in this event.

When: Saturday, October 19th from 9am - 2 pm

Where: Carrboro Elementary School

Coffee and water will be provided.

Bring your own tools, gloves, and wheelbarrows.

Meet at the main entrance of the school to select your task and grab a coffee or bottle of water.

Contact Eileen Regan (eregan@chccs.k12.nc.us) with any questions. 

Thank you for helping our school look great!

Our Upcoming Visit to Orange County Historical Museum

On Thursday, October 17th, the third graders will be heading out to Hillsborough to the Orange County Historical Museum.  We will be touring the museum and learning about the lives of mill workers in Orange County in the late 1800's.  This will help build on what they have been learning about Carrboro's past.  This is a great experience for our third grade researchers.  To learn more about this museum visit this link: http://www.orangenchistory.org/

If you have not signed your child's permission slip, please do so as soon as possible!

This week in Room 207...

Check out this week's objectives!

Reading Objectives:

• Readers will practice retelling a story from the beginning to a partner.
• Readers practice active listening with a partner.
• Readers will practice making notes while they read to help them with their partner talk.

Math Objectives:

• Mathematicians will identify things that come in equal groups.
• Mathematicians will use pictures to show equal groups.

Project Objectives:

• Researchers will compile notes from our field trips.
• Researchers will compare Carrboro past and present.
• Researcher will begin to make plans for their project.

Writing Objectives:

• Writers will develop personal narratives about a small moment in Carrboro/Chapel Hill.
• Writers will learn how to use paragraphing to help tell the story and elaboration to tell more.

Finding a Partner...

Third graders know that everything is better with a friend and reading is no exception. Third grade readers now have reading partners.  These partners will work together to share their thinking about the books they read.  Students are getting to know their partners as readers by conducting a reading interview.  

Here are some of the questions we are asking one another:

• Can we look over your log and talk about how much you are reading at school and home? Are there times when you read more or less? Why do you think that happens?
• When you find books that are just right, what do those books tend to be like? What should I know about the books in your life?
• What are your goals for yourself as a reader? What are you doing to meet them?
• If you think back over your life as a reader, what have the big turning point moments been for you? Can you tell me more about one turning point? How did your reading change during that moment? What did you realize about yourself as a reader?
• Who has helped you as a reader? What did that person do that was helpful?
  
  
  Interviewers are taking notes, learning about their partner, and discovering ways that they can support each other this year.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Writers study author's craft...

Third grade writers studied a mentor text, Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse.

We worked in partnerships to find examples of powerful language that really pulled us in as readers. We looked for parts that helped us start the mental movies in our minds.  We starred these meaningful parts of the text and wrote about what made them powerful.

We found poetic language, great leads, sensory details, action sequences that helped us make mental movies, and much, much more.  We made a list of all the powerful parts and decided that we would try to use some of these same techniques in our own writing! Here are a few examples of our work.
  

Text - And that's when I see it coming, clouds rolling in, gray clouds, bunched and bulging under a purple sky.
"We like this part because it sounds really good and it's fun to say."

Text - Come on, rain!  I say squinting into the endless heat.
"I like how they say come on rain as in it hasn't rained for a long time."

Text - Not a sign of my friends Liz or Rosemary, not a peep from my pal Jackie-Joyce.
"We like how it said 'not a peep' from Jackie Joyce instead of  'no words' from Jackie Joyce."

Text - Come on, rain!  I say squinting into the endless heat.
"It (the lead) pulls me into the story because it tells us it a place that hasn't had rain in awhile."

Text - "Come on, rain!" I say squinting into the endless heat.
"I like it cause I can imagine what it's like in that heat."

Text - Three weeks and not a drop.
"Me and my partner like it because it said how many weeks it has not rained"

This week in Room 207...

Check out this week's objectives...

Reading Objectives

• Readers will learn how to work with a reading partner.
• Readers will practice thinking over stories with a reading partner.
• Reader will practice talking over their stories with a reading partner.

Math Objectives

• Mathematicians will fluently subtract using a variety of strategies.
• Mathematicians will solve word problems using what they know about subtraction.

Project Objectives

• Researchers will continue taking walking field trips around Carrboro to various historic sites.
• Researchers will take notes about what they learn and will take photos of what they see.

Writing Objectives

• Writers will examine their own writing and revise by further developing the most important part of the story.
• Writers will learn how to use paragraphing to help tell the story and elaboration to tell more.

Visiting Carrboro Graded School

Last week, third grade researchers visited the old Carrboro Graded School which is now Town Hall. Students learned that this school had not one, not two, but eight grades!  They also learned that class sizes could reach as high as 45 students per class and that the principal also taught 8th grade.  Students also learned about the beginnings of their school building back in 1958.  We are learning about Carrboro's history and thinking about how things have changed over time.

Introducing a Book to A Friend!

       

Third grade readers thought about the books that they love - books that are special.  We decided not to keep these books a secret, but to create a buzz about them and share them with our classmates.  Each reader chose a favorite book and wrote a recommendation for it.  We will create a wall of recommendations that we can use as a resource next time we are looking for our new favorite book. 

       

Rehearsing Leads

Third graders looked at leads from different texts and examined the many ways that authors can pull readers into their stories.  After studying these different leads, third grade writers chose one of their stories and rewrote the lead in two or three different ways.  Finally, authors chose the lead they felt worked best with their story.  Third grade writers work hard and make tough decisions!