We have had such an exciting and busy two weeks that I have completely forgotten to update the blog! Between an awesome field trip to the planetarium (thank you so much to everyone who came!) and our end-of-year reading assessments and preparing for 3rd grade testing and bridging ceremonies and parent/teacher conferences and the 3rd grade party on top of all our normal lessons and activities, we have kept very busy.

I have to say that some of my most rewarding moments as a teacher have happened, too. Our year-end DIBELS and UURC reading assessements are almost complete and our class has shown so much growth in their reading abilities, both in fluency and comprehension. I am watching their math skills explode as they move more quickly through small fact fluency as well as large operations concepts. As a more specific example, the third graders have been working hard on rounding this year: rounding to ten, rounding to hundred, rounding on a numberline, rounding to sum, rounding to estimate products, reverse rounding… you get the idea. It is an abstract and challenging concept and they have been frustrated by it many times. This past week when we began a new lesson to review rounding, one of my third graders immediately said, “Oh, this is easy! Rounding is no problem!” They all agreed and it was amazing to see an obvious reminder of how much they’ve grown. I’ve had similar situations with both first and second graders in the last few weeks and they are excited and proud of what they’ve learned. Those moments are what makes teaching wonderful! Thank you for letting me share them with your children!