Week 14: November 27th - December 1st

Week 14: November 27th - December 1st

Reminders:12/5 - Toys for Tots Please send a new and unwrapped gift to donate.  Children will get a chance to drop their toy with local firefighters and Santa Claus.  


December 8- HCE Spelling Bee.  We wish out third grade classroom winners luck as they compete against winners from the 4th and 5th grade classes.

12/15 - Noon Dismissal for Winter Break

READING: We will spend the week reviewing the concepts we have been working on for the past few weeks: fictional story elements, character development, character changes and theme.  We will look at how this type of reading and thinking shows up in selections students will see on STAAR. Knowing how to apply these skills in our guided reading and independent reading is key to developing a love and understanding of literature.  Taking a step back and analyzing how they can be worded and displayed in testing is also important for our smart readers to understand.

WRITING: We will finish up our study on Author's Craft.  Students have looked at a variety of mentor texts and tried their hand at a number of concepts: repetition, onomatopoeia, metaphor, dialogue, font style, punctuation, and using our sense to add descriptive details.  Writer's will use this week to choose a piece to take through publication.  We will then work through our first official revision process.   We are excited for the many stories from our lives that will soon be published and archived for the world to read.

WORD WORK:  Students have been working with their guided reading teacher to tackle words that are developmentally appropriate for where they are writing and reading.  Keep your eye out for emails from you child's guided reading teacher to know when test and application grades are coming.

SOCIAL STUDIES:  Having just finished time off for celebration, we will focus our work this week learning about the many different Cultural Celebrations that Texans observe.  Students will complete their 2nd 9 weeks Social Studies Project by choosing the celebration that they find most interesting and planning an imaginary event to honor the occasion.  Remember that Social Studies Weekly is always available to students at home.  Log in information can be found in your students green binder.  Information can also be found in the Social Studies Website Resources on the right hand side of the blog.

Math: During our math time this week, we will be wrapping up our unit on graphing. We will pair up and spend Monday and Tuesday creating each type of graph that we learned about last week using data that came from a survey given to other third grade students. Each class will get to pair up with another class to get a larger set of data. On Wednesday, we will review each type of graph for the last time during our unit. The rest of the week, we will begin our next unit on geometry. We will be working to identify 2D shapes. We will identify sides and vertices on these polygons. This week, we will have our usual homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Our fast facts quiz will be on Friday.

Science: On Monday, your child will create vocabulary cards for the energy unit. The review sheet and vocabulary cards are given in preparation of the energy test. The date of test is undetermined at this time as we have not completed the unit yet. On Tuesday through Thursday, we will learn about light energy. We will learn about the sources and uses of light energy. On Friday, we will move onto sound energy.  We will ask ourselves questions about how sound is made and how it travels. With sound energy, we will also discuss pitch and volume.

Week 31: April 10-14

Reminders:

• There will be no school this Friday April 14th.
• Scholastic Book orders due Tuesday, April 11th. 

Reading:  This week will launch a two week study of conclusions and inferences.  Inferring is something we do ALL the time.  We have learned and practiced what it means to "infer." 

When we infer, we use our schema (background knowledge), plus text clues to help us make an inference about characters, settings and events in the texts we read.  We will practice reading strategies this week to prepare our students to answer inference/drawing conclusions questions in a test-taking scenario.  We will be reading fiction and nonfiction texts in groups, partners, and independent settings to practice this very important reading skill.    

Writing:  It is PUBLICATION WEEK!  Our writers have been hard at work developing their persuasive pieces.   We will fine tune them this week as we prepare to share them with classmates on Thursday.  Your writer has worked diligently to craft their essays.  We can't wait to see the final products of their persuasive efforts!   

Spelling:  Students will take a test this Thursday, April 13th.   Next week, April 14th- April 21st, teachers will be looking for students to apply these spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies:  This week we will focus on how one artist, Kadir Nelson, made a lasting impact on a community’s culture.  We will be reading at least one book by Kadir Nelson. Nelson was dedicated to sharing the African American’s influence on our country’s culture. We will study his books and images to understand more about the stories he writes and the culture he shares with his audience.

Math: This week we will be looking at both time and money. It would be a great opportunity to have your child read clocks at home at different times as well as practice counting different coin and dollar combinations.  In addition to having your child read a analog clock, we will also be looking at elapsed time by adding time intervals of 30 minutes and 15 minutes. 

Here is an example of a type of clock problem-solving question we will be working on strategies for:

A group of students will enter the gym at 11:15. The group will then play basketball for 15 minutes. At what time will the group stop playing basketball? 

We will work on two strategies to solve this type of word problem. Each strategy will use a visual. One visual we will use is a analog clock and have students count by 5 minutes or 10 minutes to calculate the end time. Another strategy is using a number line that is labeled with the start time and then count up by hours,10 or 5 minutes to find the end time.


Please encourage your child to spend some time this week on Dreambox. This is a great program and can allow your child a great opportunity to strengthen their math skills. Here is the link https://play.dreambox.com/login/yf4j/c78d

School code for Ipad use is yf4j/c78d

Science : This week we will transition from the study of our Sun to its effect on weather here on earth. We will begin by examining thermometers and the different scales they can have. Most have a scale of 2 per line, but they can also count by 1, 5, and 10. Students will practice reading thermometers and then research the temperature in 5 different cities and display them on thermometers of different scales. 

Week 16: December 5-9

Upcoming dates to put on your calendars:

12/7 - Toys for Tots- Please send a new and unwrapped gift to donate.  Children will get a chance to drop their toy with local firefighters and Santa Claus.  

12/9 - Fun Run at Woodview.  Permissions slips are required for students to ride the bus for this event.  All donations will help support the SPARK PARK at our sister school, Woodview Elementary.

12/16 - Noon Dismissal- Please make arrangements for this different dismissal time.  Teachers will need hand written notes if you are making  a change in your child's transportation schedule.

1/6 - Third Grade Recognition Ceremony for the Second Nine Weeks, 9:00-9:30a.m. in the HCE Cafe

1/10 - STAARY STAARY NIGHT - Informational Parent Meeting covering information on the STAAR test. We will meet in the library from 6:00 - 7:00p.m.

Reading: Readers will continue to read poetry this week.  We will focus our attention on what information in the poem pulls at the reader's sense of hearing, smelling, seeing, feeling, and tasting.  Descriptive details that pull at our senses help the reader visualize while reading.  Later in the week, we will use these sensory details to also help us infer more about the character and situations we read about in poems.

Writing: This is PUBLICATION WEEK.  Writer's will focus on fine tuning their stories to help the reader.  Developmentally, this is a hard skill for third graders.  It's hard to admit that our first attempts are perfect.  Encourage your child at home, by sharing times that you changed your thinking after your first impression or effort.

Spelling: Spelling tests are this Wednesday, December 7.  An application grade of words in daily work will take place between 12/8-12/14.  We will also give the spelling inventory again between 12/8-12/16.  The information gathered will help us readjust spelling groups based on learner's needs.  

Social Studies: Jane Addams will be added to our bank of Good Citizens.  Her work in Chicago made a difference for so many men, women and children as she founded and worked at the Hull House.  We will discuss the many reasons she was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Students will also learn about various ways that people are honored and remembered.  Pointing our monuments, plaques, road markers, and awards that are created in memory and honor of those who make a difference will help our students understand ways we remember and recognize good citizens.

Math:In math this week, we will continue practicing our strategies for multiplication. We will decode word problems to pick out the important parts. We will identify what number in a multiplication sentence tells us the groups and which number shows how many in each group. We will use word problems to reiterate these skills.

For example: There are 4 groups with 3 strawberries in each group

 On Thursday, we will practice creating our own multiplication word problems to help us understand multiplication even more. On Friday, we will get to solve the multiplication word problems we created the day before. We will have our normal math homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Our fast facts quiz will be on Friday. We will not have a problem of the week this week. 

Science: On Monday and Tuesday during science time, we will participate in an energy lab. We will apply the information we know about mechanical, thermal, light, and sound energy. On Wednesday, the third graders will take the Science PSA (Priority Standard Assessment). This assessment is created by the district and gives us information on how your child is progressing through the concepts that we have taught so far in science. On Thursday, we will take the Energy Test. We will review in class before the test is given.