“Work Periods” Roll out

Every Tuesday – Friday from 10:45-12:15, your child has 3 half-hour work periods.

• Each of your children is in a small reading group for one of those half hours. This group is reading Aesop’s Fables. They are responding to a favorite fable in their Reader’s Notebook.

• Another half hour is spent in the Shared Space. Today children were drawing natural objects.

• The other half hour is spent in the classroom, doing independent work – usually literacy related, but sometimes there are other possibilities. Third graders are practicing writing in cursive. They now know how to write a, c, d, g, h, and t!

Here are some questions you might ask your child:

1.) What book are you reading in your reading group?

• (if fiction) What is happening in the story? What do you think might happen next?
• (if nonfiction) What is something new you learned? (or) teach me something about (the topic).What were the pictures showing?

(You might offer to do further research about the topic at home!)

2. What did you work on in Shared Space today?

• What were you proud of?
• What was a challenge for you?
• Did you collaborate with someone on your project? How did that person help you?

3. What did you work on in your classroom today during independent work time?

• What were you proud of?
• Did you complete more or less work than you hoped?
• What was challenging?
• Was there a time when you needed to solve a problem on your own today? How did you figure it out?

When asked what their favorite work period was, each day different children point to all three work periods. They are working hard, and they are (rightly) proud of their work! Go, third grade!