Week 6: September 25-29

September 25th - 29th
Reminders: Due to growing bodies and changing hormones, please encourage your child to develop the daily habit of applying deodorant.  

Please remember we have students with allergies; pack nut-free snacks.  Snacks should be dry and healthy to promote student learning and not create a mess. 

 Examples: 

• Fresh or dried fruit/vegetable sticks or slices
• Cheese cubed or sliced·        
• Applesauce (in the squeezable containers)
• Goldfish, Cheeze-it or Cheese Nips·        
• Saltines/Graham crackers

Reading: Fix-Up Strategies take center stage this week.  We use fix-up strategies when meaning breaks down during reading.  As adults, these are techniques we do without a second thought.  For third graders, it require much thought, self-awareness and lots of practice!  Note the bookmark we will use in class to help us as we apply this learning.

Writing: Good writers keep a notebook to generate ideas.  This week we will continue to work on ways to get ideas from our brains to our journals.  Storytelling at home is a wonderful way to help students make the connection between school work and the real world.  Specifically this week, we will think about memories that come from our homes.  Is there a room where you remember a funny or poignant story from your life?  Is there a home you have been in that has important meaning to you?  Where have you made memories? Share stories with your child.

Spelling: After reviewing inventories, we have noticed some overall spelling needs.  We will begin our spelling practice with a few whole group lessons to fix-up some grade level misconceptions and then will move into a more targeted and personalized approach to spelling.

Social Studies: Last week, we discussed leadership council and the opportunity it brings to third graders.  Leadership Council representatives will be announced Friday, September 29. In the meantime, we will focus on learning more about our community.  Where do we live? How can we help in our communities?  We will wrap up the week completing a service project that we will share with our third grade friends at Meadow Wood Elementary.

Math: During math this week, we will practice comparing and ordering numbers. Your child will learn several strategies for comparing numbers and justifying how they got to their answer. On Wednesday, we will work to order numbers from least to greatest and greatest to least, our prior knowledge about comparing numbers will help us move through this topic. On Thursday and Friday, we will learn how to put numbers on a number line. We will work to locate a point on the number line when given a beginning and endpoint. Your child will have their first graded fast facts quiz on Friday. A blue paper filled with addition problems was sent home so that you have an idea of what to practice. We encourage you studying with flash cards or apps at home. Paper homework will go home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night.

Science: This week we will be studying the scientific method. We will go through the different parts and understanding what scientist do when conducting an experiment. We've worked on making observation and next we will work on making predictions and hypothesis when answering scientific questions.  On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will go through all the steps in the Scientific method as we conduct our first experiment. 

Week 5: September 18-22

September 18th - 22nd

Reminders: 
September 18-22- MAP TESTING (Please reference the blog post for more information.)

Columbus Day - October 9th - Student Holiday (No School)

Open House - October 10th from 6:00-6:45p.m.

Reading: We will focus our attention on Metacognition this week. We will think about what we

think while we read.  Good readers are able to monitor their thinking while read.  Making connections and predictions while reading improves reading comprehension and enjoyment!  Please share with your child what you are thinking while reading a book together this week.

Writing: Thank you for equipping your students to share and create with Writer's Notebooks last week.  We have created personal treasure chests that we will now begin to fill full of personal and creative stories.  This week, we will begin by trying on a variety of writing techniques that get writer's thinking and ideas flowing!

Spelling: Teachers have given the developmental Words Their Way Spelling Inventory and will work together during extended planning this week to make a plan for how to reach a variety of needs and challenges.  Look for more to come home in spelling in a few weeks!

Social Studies: Third graders have the opportunity to be part of the HCE leadership council.  In classes this week students will learn about how we elect representatives.  We will make connections back to our local and state governments.  We look for students who demonstrate good conduct, have all passing grades, show leadership characteristics, are well respected by his or her peers and are motivated to help our school think of new and fun ways to serve the community.  Election results from 3rd, 4th and 5th grades will be shared on the morning announcements on Friday, September 29.

Math: Due to the MAP testing this week, your the day to day schedule may look different in each class. This week, our objective is to learn how to compose and decompose numbers. This helps your child understand the many ways that numbers can be built and created. We will practice decomposing on Monday, composing on Tuesday and then we will combine the two on Wednesday. On Thursday, we will work to understand the relationships between numbers in each place that they hold. 

We will have paper homework come home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Please return the homework the next day as we check it together in class. We hope you will make time and encourage your child to do their homework, it is great practice. 

Science: During our science block this week, we will be reminded how to make observations. When we make observations, we use our five senses - touch, taste, smell, see, and hear. We will practice making observations in class with items. Your child will come up with examples of objects or items in which they use their five senses. 

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.