Down the Hall in Room 177: Guess Who?

Getting to know you! Getting to know all about you!!! One of the age old traditions of "back to school" is some form of getting to know you activities. Well, at HSA, in Ms. Amstutz's class, this year, since most of the students already knew each other, we put a bit of a twist on things. We spent the second week of school getting to know how to phonetically spell each other's names.

One of the most frequently asked questions of a third grade teacher is "How do you spell_______?" And, those who have had Ms. A. as a teacher before know that I very rarely will simply tell you how to spell a word. I will ask "What tools do you have that will help you figure out how to spell that word yourself? Have you tried to use them?" In a future post, my third grade students will show you how we do this in the classroom so that you, can use this strategy at home. It really works! We must remember, that we don't always have to spell perfectly, but we always have to spell to be understood. Eventually, we will learn to spell a word perfectly, but when first learning, it is ok if we make a mistake as long as our reader understands what we mean. If we use what we know (our tools) we can help our reader do just that! Here are just a few of our third grade names spelled phonetically:

Ngone Gonay
James Jamez
Kaylin Kaylin

Abubakr Oboobocker

Mid-week, after reading Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, students began writing a "Guess Who" riddle. Our riddles are a series of statements that leave the reader guessing as to who is being described. In this interactive display, readers will be able to lift the flap to reveal the answer. Students are looking forward to fooling their parents at upcoming parent's nights...so,get ready to GUESS WHO!