We're sorry it took so long to get this post out. It has been a very busy start to the school year! Mrs. Dusel and I are excited that the third graders wanted to continue their lunch group and were very excited to continue! They agreed that we have many Unthinkables, which we are still learning strategies on how to defeat! We started off our lunch group by coming up with our Lunch Group Norms. Students decided together on awesome skills such as listening to the speaker, taking turns talking, using manners, and keeping your brain in the group! We decided that we should start by practicing our conversational skills. After all, we need these skills to have book group discussions, math group discussions, and just chats with friends. We talked about how conversation is a lot like a "tennis game." You and your partner have to share something in a back-and-forth manner. If one partner talks all the time (One Sided Sid ALERT!), the other partner will have a total BOREDOM ALERT! So, we have been using this anchor chart...
We have discussed the importance of asking friends questions (Defeating Un-Wonderer) and recalling the facts they tell us about themselves. By remembering information about friends, we can ask them questions on other days to start a conversation. It helps us add to our "People Files" or "Friendship Files" (see right) about our friends. This also makes our friends feel good about us and want to continue to be our friends. Ask your third grader about playing "spaghetti and meatballs" in lunch group. They are doing a great job asking friends questions, recalling fact about friends, and sharing out to the group what they have learned about their friends. Practicing this during dinner time or family time would be a great way to carry-over these skills into the home setting. I bet there is a lot about Mom, Dad, and siblings that your third graders don't know.
Have a superflexible week!
-Mrs. Meinecke and Mrs. Dusel
