Week 19: January 15th-19th

Week 19:  January 15th- 19th 
Reminders: 
1/15:  School Holiday We hope you all had a fabulous three day weekend!
Force and Motion Science Quiz is on Wednesday, January 24th!

Reading:  Your readers will continue to dive deeper into nonfiction text features.  We will learn how to navigate detailed maps, diagrams, tables, photographs, and captions and discuss how these features support our understanding of the text topic.  As nonfiction readers, we access information from these various features and tools within the text in a different way than fiction stories and poems we read.  It takes practice!  We will continue to model and think through informational articles about Earth's resources, a tsunami warning system, and sea turtles.

Writing:  We will begin the final stages of our poetry writing unit this week.  Your writers have been hard at work drafting a variety of poems since returning to school in 2018.  We will end our week choosing some of our favorites to revise and edit.  We will prepare some of our best as well as favorite poems to publish using Google Docs.  We will celebrate our hard work within our writing community early next week. 

Social Studies:  We worked our way through academic language associated with maps and map skills last week and will apply what we learned this week.  We will practice interpreting maps of places and regions in order to identify and locate information related to the area.  For example, identifying mountain ranges and rivers in the region or explaining directions from one city to another using a compass rose or other piece of information from the map.  

Math: We will continue to solve addition and subtraction problems regarding time intervals in minutes using pictorial models and/or tools. It is important to remember the danger zone. This is when the minute hand reaches to the 50 and 55 minute mark and the hour hand looks like it has reached the next hour. The students will continue to manipulate clocks to deepen their understanding of time.  

The Danger Zone

Later in the week, students will be introduced to multiplication. Please make sure your mathematicians are on DreamBox and SumDog

Example problem: Melissa has a ballet class at 3:10. Her jazz class starts 45 minutes later. Does Melissa need to add or subtract to find the start time for her jazz class? How do you know?

Science: We will observe forces such as magnetism, friction, and gravity acting on objects. The students will be engaged in activities such as demonstrating how magnets attract and repel as well as using pulleys. We will then have our Force and Motion quiz is on Wednesday, January 24th. Students should be studying the yellow vocabulary cards and information sheet daily for homework until the test. Important concepts to remember:

• Compass needles point north because of magnetism.
• Like poles repel and opposite poles attract.
• Attract is a pull.
• Repel is a push.

Week 18: January 8th-12th

Week 18:  January 8th-12th 
Reminders: 
1/9  STAARY STAARY NIGHT  Third grade will host a STAAR information session Tuesday evening, January 9, to familiarize parents with our May state testing and answer any questions. We will meet in the library form 6:00pm to 7:00pm.
1/10  2nd NINE WEEKS RECOGNITION CEREMONY will be held in the cafeteria from 9:00-9:40am. 
1/10  3rd GRADE AUTHOR VISIT   Mac Barnett, author of The Terrible Two series, will visit our school on Wednesday, 1/10.  We look forward to this author visit.  You can purchase a copy of any of his books using the following link through Blue Willow Bookshop.  

Reading:  We launched our nonfiction genre unit last week and will continue to immerse ourselves in the genre this week.  We will discuss how text features help us understand and synthesize information as readers.  Text features are additional sources of information beyond the body of the text.  Examples include:  photographs, captions, bold words, subheadings, sidebars, maps, and diagrams.  As nonfiction readers, it is important to know how to read as well as draw conclusions from these added pieces of information throughout the text.  Additionally, we will round out reading MAP testing this week.

Homework Reminder:  Let's start this new year off strong as readers!  This is a friendly reminder that your child must read at home every night as their language arts homework.  We watched this video in the fall and discussed what the words... EVERY SINGLE DAY, NO MATTER WHAT would mean for us as readers.  Volume matters!  Please support your child's reading life at home every single day...no matter what!   

Writing:  Writer's Workshop will be filled with poetry writing this week!  Your children will learn a variety of tools to write poems that convey sensory details using the conventions of poetry.  We will learn to look at the world through a poet's eyes and use language within our poems that show, instead of tell, what they mean.  We will study and work with several mentor poems this week that illustrate wonderful examples of poetic devices and conventions.     

Word Work:  We look forward to getting back in the swing of things this week with our word work routine within Writer's Workshop and guided groups.     

Social Studies:  We will continue studying map skills this week.  Technology has allowed us to have directions and maps at our fingertips.  But what happens if we were lost with an uncharged phone?  We will learn how to utilize a map to help us navigate a place and find our way to our destination.  Important terms we will learn throughout the week include:  grid, map, globe, longitude, latitude, compass rose, cardinal directions, hemisphere, key, symbols, legend, equator, city, continents, states ocean, geographer, and Columbus.  

Math: We will continue to calculate and determine the perimeter of polygons. Perimeter is the distance around the outer edge and the sum of all the sides. Along with this basic knowledge, students will be given the perimeter of an object and the lengths of all but one side. Students must subtract to find the value of the missing side. We will also continue using the MAP skills website to grow their understanding and skills in specific math areas. Later in the week, students will determine the solution to addition and subtraction problems of time intervals in minutes using pictorial models or tool. Students will receive homework Monday-Wednesday, but should study their math facts daily.  

Science:  We will observe forces such as magnetism, friction and gravity acting on objects. Students will be engaged in activities this week such as a friction lab, a demonstration on gravity, and comparing friction in a Venn Diagram. Gravity is the force that pulls all objects together. Gravity pulls on similarly shaped objects at the same rate regardless of mass or weight. Friction is the force between an object and the surface it moves over. Friction creates heat and slows an object. It is a pull. We are sending home yellow vocabulary cards and a yellow paper that has all the vocabulary words this week. Please have the students study them daily.

Week 17: December 12 - 16

December 12-16: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Reminders--
Friday, December 16th is a Noon Dismissal day. Please plan accordingly and send a handwritten note with any change of transportation.

Reading, Writing and Social Studies: Holidays around the World will be our focus this week through read aloud, shared reading, and writing.  We will share fiction, nonfiction and poetry from various traditions to teach students about the many ways people around the world celebrate during the winter.  By the week's end students will have heard how some people in and from Israel, Mexico, America, Greenland, Sweden, Australia, Italy, and India celebrate various winter holidays.  At home, please share with your child the origins of your family's traditions and celebrations.  .
Mrs. Cion, our WITS partner, will be with students on Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon for creative writing workshop.  Last week she shared some poetry and discussed personification with our third grade writers.  It was fun to collaborate with them and use our imaginations as we pretended to be various objects and write poems from that object's perspective.

Spelling:  This week we will take an application grade.  We will look to see how your child applies his or her spelling patterns in daily work.
Students will also take the Elementary Spelling Inventory this week.  Teachers will use the data from this inventory to see how your child is progressing in his or her knowledge and application of spelling concepts.  We will readjust spelling groups based on this data for the spring semester.

Math: On Monday, the third grade math teachers will flexibly group our students and review skills for comparing and ordering numbers from our last PSA. On Tuesday, the students will rotate through each third grade teacher to learn about various Holidays Around the World. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will introduce your child to division. We will spend these two days learning about the octopus method for division. This method is used when we know the number of groups. We are looking for the number in each group. On Friday, we will complete our last rotation for Christmas Around the World.

We will have multiplication homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We will not have fast facts or problem of the week. 

Science: On Monday in science we will discuss force and the how work is being done on when an object is moved. We will spend time on these vocabulary words:

Motion-is a change in position  

Position-where an object is located

Work-happens when a force moves an object over a distance

Force-is a push or pull that causes an object to move, stop, or change direction

On Wednesday and Thursday, we will discuss friction. This is a term that we have discussed when we studied thermal energy. We will be reminded that friction is the force between an object and the surface it moves over. Friction creates heat and slows an object. We will look at different surfaces to understand the amount of friction that ice, tile, wood, carpet, concrete, sand, pebbles, dirt, grass, metal, playground rubber surface give off.

Update for Week of 12/14 - 12/18

Week of 12/14 - 12/18

It is hard to believe that our Holiday Break is almost here! Here are a couple of reminders about our upcoming week:

1) Wednesday is our field trip to the Menil Collection. Please have your child wear their white HCE spirit shirt. We will be back in time for lunch at school so no sack lunch is needed.

2) Friday is a Half Day! On this day, our schedule will be:
8:10 Announcements
9:30 Sing-A-Long
10:10 Recess
10:45 Lunch
11:15 Holiday Party 
12:00 Dismissal 

Math: In math this week, we will continue learning about Division. We started working on division last week. On Friday we worked on the Octopus Method. We will continue practicing with this method during the week as well as learning the Cookie Method. Below are examples of these two methods. For homework this week, your child will have three Mangahigh assignments. Please note: the Fast Facts Quiz will be on Thursday - 12/17. We will not have a problem of the week assigned this week. 

OCTOPUS Division METHOD EXAMPLE:
There were 56 lbs of food for the rhinos. The zoo wanted to share that food among 8 rhinos.  How many pounds would each rhino get, if they all got an equal amount?

COOKIES METHOD EXAMPLE:
There were 56 lbs of food for the rhinos at the zoo. The zoo keeper gave each rhino seven pounds of food.  How many rhinos were there at the zoo?

We learned a new station game for multiplication on Friday called Circles and Stars! 

Science: During our science time last week, we discussed force, motion, position, and work. We discussed friction with a toy car lab and on Friday, we did a gravity demonstration. We will continue discussing gravity this week and begin learning about magnetism.

Update for the week of 12/7

Week of December 7th - 11th 

LANGUAGE ARTS

READING- Students will apply what they know about the structure of a narrative to reproduce unfamiliar stories this week.  This exercise helps students apply what they know about narrative structure to make sense out of pieces of a story.  It's kind of like putting together a puzzle with out looking at the picture.  You know where the edges, corners and center pieces go and this helps you create the entire picture. 

This week and next I will be pulling students to administer their middle of the year reading assessment.  Please make sure that students are getting a good nights rest and a good breakfast so they will have everything working in their favor to do well.  

WRITING-Your kids have done an EXCELLENT job with descriptive writing!  This week we will focus on a project for our work that we will save and share with you at publisher's picnic.  Students will take one emotion.  They will illustrate the emotion and then create a descriptive writing piece about that emotion without using the word and only using language that helps you understand the emotion.  After our work last week, I can't wait to see what descriptive and creative ideas they will use in their writing.

WORD WORK-New spelling words came home 12/2.  We will assess on 12/9.  Students will then have from 12/10-12/16 to apply their spelling words to their writing and work for an application grade.  We work for 10-15 minutes each day to practice our word sorts.  A white copy of your child's words should have also come home for you to spend time working on at your convenience.

SOCIAL STUDIES- Literacy dominated last week and we have some catch up to do in Social Studies.  This week we will finish our discussion on parts of a map and globe and focus on the compass rose.  The compass allows us time to review cardinal directions (north, south, east and west) and introduce intermediate directions (northwest, southwest, northeast and southeast).  This is a great time to play some Simon Says at home using cardinal and intermediate directions. Always remember that you have access to our online resource www.studiesweekly.com to help your child review what we have learned in class. 

MATH- In math this week, we will review all of the strategies of multiplication that we have learned so far. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be creating multiplication word problems. On Thursday and Friday, we will begin working on division. We will be learning two methods for division. Your child will have Mangahigh homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. The assignments can be found on the Weekly Planner page. The problem of the week will be due on Friday and the Fast Facts Quiz will be on Friday as well. 

Octopus Method - You know the total and you know the number of groups

Cookie Method - You know the total and you know how many in each group

SCIENCE - This week we will be discussing force, friction, and motion. As we are learning, we will be discussing these words and definitions:

Motion-is a change in position  

Position-where an object is located.

Work-happens when a force moves an object over a distance. 

Force-is a push or pull that causes an object to move, stop, or change direction