Mrs. Thorp’s Third Grade Blog

Speaking and reading are  so obviously connected, that it almost seems unnecessary to write this post.  However sometimes the obvious has to be emphasized.

We want our children to be good readers, but at times we get too busy to listen to our children talk.  Converstion builds vocabulary and when vocabulary is expanded reading comprehension grows too.   Here are some tidbits of advice:

• Talk to your child regularly about everyday things, the weather, what is on the news, TV shows, music, sports, what you did during the day, places that you have been together etc.
• Eat meals together as a family at the dinner table.  Talk about your day, ask them about their day.  Go around the table and ask everyone to tell about the best part of their day and then about the worst part of their day.
• Listen, listen , and listen some more.
• Ask  your child for their opinion on different topics.
• When you have gone some place special talk about it on the way home in the car.
• Read the paper or a magazine together and talk about what you have read.
• Encourage your child to ask lots of questions.

Remember the more conversations that you have with your child, the greater his/her vocabulary will be and the bigger the vocabulary the better the reader your child will be.   A bonus to all of this is also that your child will feel loved and valued as a person by you.  This will go a long way to empowering your child to do well.

I just read an article from the Detroit Free Press where Dr. Danny Brassell, associate professor at California State University-Dominguez Hills, suggests that parents help their child make a school year scrapbook.

One way to do this is to buy a three-ring binder that your child can add pages to during the year.  These pages may be stories that your child has written during the school year, math papers, hand writing papers, awards, art pictures, photos or whatever your child wishes to remember for the school year.

Making a scrapbook may have many purposes:

• It may serve as an incentive for children to do their best so that a certain paper may be put into the scrapbook.
• It may serve as a way to encourage reading as they reread papers that are put into the scrapbook.
• It will be a good remembrance at the end of the year.
• It will show your child’s progress in learning as he/she  compares papers from the beginning to the end of the school year.
• It can promote creativity as your child decides how to decorate certain pages making it fit your child’s personality.

Let me know if you try this and how it works for you.

When my son was young,  he was not a big fan of reading.  He seemed to always   have something to do that was more fun.  My husband and I had to  turn to bribery to get him to read.  One time my husband said he would take him out to lunch at a restaurant of his choice if he read a certain number of books.  He read the books and went to Red Lobster as his choice.

I have been reading more and more about how to motivate boys to read.  I came across this blog, Guys Read.  The author lists many books that boys have read and reccommend to other boys.  Check it out.

By the way, my son does love to read now.   Not sure when he started to like it,  it may have been when he wasn’t required to read, or when he could pick out the books that he wanted. He made it through high school and college and graduated with honors.

Hope this helps if you are a teacher or a parent and know some little guy who just isn’t getting into the reading thing!

Not all students come to school excited to learn and ready to absorb everything the teacher says.  Some children are just not motivated and for these students teachers and parents have to work together to find an answer.  Here are some ideas.

• If you are a parent of an unmotivated child, talk to the teacher and if you are a teacher of an unmotivated student, talk to the parent.  Parents and teachers can give each other ideas as to what works for them.
• Sometimes students are unmotivated because they are afraid of failing.  In their minds it may be easier to do nothing than try and fail.  If this is the case, the teacher may have to give the child something easier to do so that they can succeed and very slowly add something a little harder.  Success breeds success.
• Big Bird from Sesame Street used to say that everyone makes mistakes.  For children who are afraid to make mistakes, I would remind them of this.  Making mistakes is how we learn.  When a child can learn to take a risk and try to do something on his own, he/she should be complimented even if she/he  did not succeed.
• Some students  may have been helped too much in the past and they have not learned how to work on their own and so they will not work unless an adult is right there to help them.  If this is the case, remind them that you have other students to help and that they can work alone, but you will be back to help in five minutes (or whatever  amount of time you want to suggest) to help.
• For some students rewarding them with a small sticker for the exhibiting the  behavior you desire will work.
• Have a class discussion on good work habits may work also.  Ask them for imput  on how they are motivated.
• Reading  stories to the children about people who were motivated to work hard and discuss with the students the results works also.  Some good examples are biographies of famous Americans or sport’s heroes.  People who come to mind are Michael Jordan and Helen Keller, but there are many others.

I hope these ideas are helpful to someone.  If anyone reading this has ideas that worked for you, please leave a comment.

Teaching organization skills to your third grader can be one of the most challenging yet one of the most important  skills that you can teach, one that will carry over into their adult life.

How do you get started?

1. Buy a backpack and at least one or two pocket folders.
2. Label the folders or the pockets of the folders with “PAPERS TO TAKE HOME”  and  “PAPERS TO TAKE TO SCHOOL”.
3. Make sure your child puts papers into the correct pocket and remind him to do the same at school.
4. If your child has homework papers to take to school or a note to the teacher, have your child put it in the folder and then put the folder into his backpack.
5. Keep the backpack in the exact same place everyday.  This way he/she will always know where it is.  If the pocket folder is taken out of the backpack, remind your child to put it back into the backpack.
6. NEVER do this for your child.  A third grader is old enough to do this on his own.  If he forgets and leaves the folder at home because he did not put it into his backpack but left it on the kitchen counter, then he can take the consequences at school for forgetting.  He/she will remember the next time.
7. When your child remembers to have everything in the right place, a word of praise will go along way in ensuring that he/she remembers again.
8. Some children will earn this quickly and for some it will take a good chunk of the school year.  It is worth it and your child will reap the benefits of learning to be organized all through his/her school years!
9. One last thing.  Every once in a while have your child do a thorough cleaning of the inside of the backpack.  You will be surprised at what he/she has been hauling around to and from school for many weeks!  (half eaten cupcakes, broken pencils and crayons, small toys, coins, old papers)

Here in the midwest parents and children are getting ready or at least thinking about getting ready for school to start.  What can you do to help your child be ready for that first day of classes?

• A week or two before  school starts, have your child gradually start waking up earlier.  This way he/she will be ready  for sleep earlier and by the time school begins in September, your child will be able to get up and going in time for school to start.
• If your child has not cracked open a book or read much during the summer, it is not too late to start.  Teachers can usually tell which children have read during the summer and which ones have not. If your child is young, read to your child.
• Practice basic math facts with your child.  Adding and subtracting if they are going into third grade or younger and multiplication and division if they are going into fourth grade and higher.
• Take your child to the school and introduce him/her to the teacher.  This will ease your mind and your child’s.
• Ask your child what he/she thinks they will learn in school this year.  What would they like to learn?

What else do you do to help your child be ready for the first day of school?  Let others know, post a comment.

How can you, as a parent, make reading more fun during the summer?

Well, if your child is into sports try these ideas from the Women’s National BAsketball Association (WNBA):

On this website you can download a reading chart where your child can keep track of the number of minutes he/she reads each day.  At the end of the week when you go to this website, your child can record the number of minutes read and get a WNBA bookmark to use.

Looks like a fun way to encourage your child to read.  Try it and let me know how it works for you.

It is so important to read over the summer.  Children who do not read over the summer can lose many of the reading skills that they learned during the school year.  Now according to this article in the Times Colonist teachers can tell when school starts back up again which students have read and which ones have not.

I encourage you as parents to read this article.  Let me know what you think.

Bird watching is not just for senior citizens!  Children can have lots of fun during the summer watching birds right in their own backyard.  Here are a few websites that can get you started.

• Bird Sleuth gives you a great start by providing with a project guide to download.  It is excellent.  Try it!
• This Bird Search Guide is also wonderful.  It will help you identify the birds that come to your backyard and help you identify the different sounds of each bird.  Very cool!
• Wild Birds Unlimited is another great resource for you.  If you have a Wild Birds Unlimited store near you, take a trip to visit it.  You and your child will enjoy it.
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website has a web cam of different birds.  You can see birds building nests, feeding their young and baby birds hatching.

If you and your child enjoy wild life and being outdoors, this is a great summer time learning experience.

Let me know what you think.

Teaching your child how to tell time just takes practice, everyday practical experience works best.

Having a clock that your child can move the hour and minutes hands is a great way to do it.  Here are some possiblites:

• Go to a garage sale or flea market and buy an old analog clock. It does not even have to run.
• Go to a teacher store and buy a toy clock.
• Make a clock out of a paper plate and a brad to fasten the minute and hour hands to the clock.
• Check this web site out which has a clock with movable hands.

As with any learning, patience is key.  Your child will learn at his/her own pace.  Have fun with it.