Week 1: August 21st - 25th

Welcome to Third Grade!

We are excited  for a new school year and ready for the FIRST day of school!  

REMINDERS:

• If your child did not purchase school supplies, he or she will need $5.00 to purchase a planner from the front office.  Third graders keep track of daily homework in planners.  This will be a great organizational tool for your child to learn to use this year. 

• Third graders need to go to the gym before school begins each day. They are welcome to walk to our classrooms at 7:50am. 

• Children will be counted tardy if they arrive after 7:55 A.M.

• Children will be counted absent if they arrive after 9:15 A.M.

• You are welcome to escort your child to class on the first day of school, but please allow him or her to enter the room independently.

·         Please send a healthy snack and a reusable water bottle daily. We have snack time each morning after specials.   Due to peanut allergies across the grade level, we ask that you send peanut free snacks and lunch items this year.

·         Your child’s lunch number will be the same as it was last year. We will have lunch numbers available for any child who might have forgotten. We eat lunch from 11:55-12:25 daily.

• Dismissal is at 3:00 P.M.  If your child will be picked up in a car in parent pick up, you must write his or her name on a piece of large yellow paper. Please write your child’s first and last name as large as you can on the paper. This will help the teacher on duty to see and call your child’s name in a timely manner.

• It can get chilly in the classrooms. Please send a light jacket, sweater or sweat shirt in your child’s backpack so that he or she will be comfortable. Remember to write your child’s name on the tag inside so that it can be returned if lost.

Reading and Writing:We will begin to establish expectations and routines for Reading and Writing Workshops this week.  In a workshop model, students are gathered for a quick lesson on a targeted skill or idea,.  Then, students are launched into independent work time where they get to try these skills on for size.  Finally, we close with a time to share and reflect on our learning.

We will work to organize our materials for Workshop.  One of the most fun activities we will complete this week is crafting our Writer's Notebook.  Students will need pictures, stickers, magazine cut outs, and paper to create a cover for their composition notebook that reminds them of experiences, family, friends, interests that they may choose to write about this year.  Materials should be sent to school by Thursday.

 Here's where we need your help this week:

• Gather pictures and materials to help your child build his or her Writer's Notebook
• Share your favorite literature (books, magazines, poetry) with your child
• Talk about your favorite moments from summer vacation (BIG and small)
• Establish home routines for nightly reading  

Spelling:  We will administer the Words their Way Spelling Inventory this week to collect information.  This inventory helps us see what your child knows about letters and sounds and how they work together.

Social Studies: Our first unit in Social Studies is Community.  This week we will get to know those in our classroom communities and create class contracts that explain how we want to work and live together this year.

Math: In math this week, we will begin setting up our math journals that we will use daily for word problems. We will discuss thing about ourselves that involve numbers: shoe sizes, address, phone numbers, age, number of family members, etc. Starting on Tuesday through the rest of the week, we will be jumping into place value. We will review standard form, word form, expanded form, and odd/even. On Thursday and Friday, we will spend time practicing how to round numbers to the nearest 100. We will review these concepts later in the first nine weeks as well. We will not have any math homework this week. 

Science:  During our science time this week, we will set up our interactive science journals. We will create a table of contents that will help us stay organized this year. We will brainstorm types of scientists in our world and your child will have the opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of a scientist. On Thursday and Friday, we will discuss lab safety and complete a gallery walk with science tools. 

Week 2

Reminders: First day packet forms are due Friday, September 2.
We have a school holiday, Monday, September 5.  We hope you will have a safe and fun Labor Day weekend.

Reading: We will continue to build routines and establish expectations for Reader's Workshop. This week students will continue to talk about our thinking while we read.  Students will participate in discussions on: What was the story about?  How do you know if you have picked a good book? What do you do when you get hung up on something in your book?  How can you track your thinking while you read?

Teachers will begin pulling students for reading assessments.  This time with your student helps us get to know them a bit more as a reader.  Please know that reading teachers will pull all 40 students for assessments during the month of September.  You do not need to prep your child for this reading time.  The assessment will give us a good look at a starting point for our instruction and guide our creation of small groups.

Classes will get to the library for the first time this week.  Our schedule is below.  We hope that many of you will volunteer in the library and help us navigate our way to great books!

Badrack/Jackson- Tuesdays at 12:40

Duncan/Ford- Wednesdays at 9:00

Rozzell/Scott- Thursdays at 9:00

Writing:  It was a pleasure to watch your children build their Writer's Notebooks this week.  It was a wonderful opportunity for us to get to know each other better and for the storytelling and sharing to begin!  This week in writing we will continue to build anchors and lists of stories we might be able to share.  Students will generate ideas and practice focused storytelling in partners before moving to writing in their journals.  
We'd love you help at home!  Cultivate a culture of storytelling at home.  Everyone LOVES a good story.  Stories we love to hear have a point and share an event we have in common with those around us or an interesting event that has made an impact on who we are.

Word Work:  This week we will administer the Words Their Way Inventory.  This assessment will be given three times throughout the school year to track students progress and developmental understanding of how words and spelling patterns work.  This assessment is not graded.  It will be used for information to help develop lessons and small groups that will target your child's learning needs.

Social Studies: We will introduce our Social Studies resources to students this week.  They will work to build their Social Studies resource folder and journal.  We will also use our story sharing in Writing to continue to build our classroom community.

Math:Last week in math we learned about classroom procedures and routines. We began reviewing some second grade skills. This week we will continue working on standard form, word form, and expanded form on numbers up to 100,000. 

This week we will be discussing in greater depth the value of each place.  The students will be taught strategies on how to compare and order numbers using the greater than and less than sign.  We will be introducing some new Math Station games to the kids to practice these skills as well. Last week, I encouraged your child to begin practicing their math facts every night or five minutes. The class blog has some great websites to practice - you can find these under the Math Websites page on the right side of the blog.

Science: We skimmed the surface in Science last week.  The kids made a title page and table of contents for their Science Journal and decorated them with Science Icons.  On Thursday we talked about “What is a Scientist?” We discovered all the different types of Scientists that exist and began working on our first project.  In Science next week we will be going through Lab Safety procedures and learning the names of many Science tools.  On Tuesday,  we will take a gallery walk with a partner and work on categorizing tools by tools that are used for observation, safety, measurement, or recording.

August 31st - September 4th

Happy Sunday Parents!!!

We made it through our first week!  Last week we spent some time learning third grade routines and expectations.  The kids have really been doing a great job so far and are enjoying 3^rd grade! 

Last week in math we reviewed some second grade skills with place value and introduced the thousands place.  We have been working on standard form, word form, and expanded form. 

This week we will be discussing in greater depth the value of each place.  The students will be taught strategies on how to compare and order numbers using the greater than and less than sign.  We will be introducing some new Math Station games to the kids to practice these skills as well. Last week, I encouraged your child to begin practicing their math facts. The class blog has some great websites to practice - you can find these under the Math Websites page on the right side of the blog.

We skimmed the surface in Science last week.  The kids made a title page and table of contents for their Science Journal and decorated them with Science Icons.  On Thursday we talked about “What is a Scientist?” We discovered all the different types of Scientists that exist and began working on our first project.  In Science next week we will be going through Lab Safety procedures and learning the names of many Science tools.  Towards the end of the week we will take a gallery walk with a partner and work on categorizing tools by tools that are used for observation, safety, measurement, or recording.

I am looking forward to another great week!

Love,
   Mrs. Duncan