Math/Science Week of January 6th

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year!!!  I hope all of your holiday break was filled with family, fun, and laughter.  It is good to be back :)  This crazy short week will be a great transition to get back into the school groove.

This week in Math we will be diving into graphing.  On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will mainly be practicing the proper way to read and label Picto, Bar, and Tally Graphs accurately.  Then we will be taking the information given in the graph and use it to answer questions.  On Thursday and Friday, the students will be conducting a survey of their own, and be required to create their own picto and bar graph that corresponds correctly to their data collected in the survey.

 We will start with multiplication this week! Please practice the x 0, x1, and x10.  All students will have to make a 90 or above before they can move on to the next level on their multiplication test.  So practice, practice, practice.  Good ol' flashcards are NOT overrated!

We will be moving on to Natural Resources in Science.  All students will discuss and learn examples of renewable and non renewable resources and where they originate from.  Students should come to discover that most non-renewable resources come from under the earth.  We will merge into conservation and recycling next week.

It should be a fun first week back!

Love,
Ms. S

Holiday Animoto Projects

Our third graders studied and then created ANIMOTO projects on Winter Holidays.  You can click the links below to take a look at their AWESOME work!

Diwali- Skrivanek

Diwali- Ford

St. Basil's Day

Ramadan

Advent

Yalda

Christmas- Skrivanek (coming soon...)

Christmas- Ford 1

Christmas- Ford 2

Kwanzaa- Ford 

Kwanzaa- Skrivanek 1

Kwanzaa- Skrivanek 2

New Year's Eve- Skrivanek

New Year's Eve- Ford

Hanukkah

Epiphany- Skrivanek

Epiphany- Ford

Chinese New Year - Skrivanek

Chinese New Year- Ford

Mrs. Ford's Classroom Update 12/9-12/13

LANGUAGE ARTS
Spelling
We WILL have spelling homework this week.  Please look for new words to come home on Monday.  Students should return their spelling menu homework on Thursday.  Our test will be on Friday. 

Reading
Students will start to learn to infer in reading.  Inferring is something we do ALL the time.  You notice that your friend isn’t as talkative and you ask what’s wrong, you see a picture of people bundled up and you know that the weather is cold, these sorts of thoughts are what we call an inference.

In third grade, we use a helpful equation to infer.  BK+TC=I.  This means that our background knowledge, plus text clues help us make an inference about characters, settings and events in the stories we read.  This week we will focus on making an inference with photographs and poetry.   

Writing
Students will start working in small groups to research a cultural holiday.  They will work with their groups to take notes, and organize a presentation to teach the class about their learning the week before Winter Break.  Please let me and your student know if you will be leaving early that week (12/16-12/20).  We want to make sure that he or she gets the chance to contribute to the group project.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Map Skills
Students are hard at work designing their own city using a grid map.  This week we will practice using a map scale.  Your child will bring home a review sheet on Tuesday to help him or her prepare for the next Social Studies test on Map Skills.  They are welcome to use this review, vocabulary cards and the Social Studies Journal to prepare.  Please make sure that the Social Studies Journal comes back to school every day.  We will continue to add notes about our learning.

Math and Science Week of December 9th

Dear Parents,

Last week in third grade we introduced division.  The kids learned the "Octopus Method" in order to solve simple division problems.  You should have seen your child use this strategy to solve their HW last week.   These problems consist of a larger number to divide and the students are given the number of groups to divide by.  They are looking for  the number IN each group.

This week we are still focusing on division, but learning a new strategy called the "Cookies Method."  These types of problems are worded differently.  Instead of giving the number of groups to divide by, these types of word problems give the number IN each group.  The students then have to figure out the number of groups. 

Later in the week we will tackle Multiplication and Division Fact Families to see the relationship between the two.  For instance, if 4 X 6 = 24, then 6 x 4 = 24, then 24 / 4 = 6, and 24 / 6 = 4.  The key to writing these correctly is to remind the kids that when they are writing the multiplication equations, the smaller numbers go first.  When they are writing the division equation, the larger number is always written first.  Fact families is usually a concept that students catch on to rather quickly.

This will be our last fast facts of the nine weeks this week.  It will not be recorded into the grade book.  Start getting ready for multiplication fast facts next semester!!  We start with 0's, 1's, and 2's in January.

In Science we have been diving into our unit on Weathering and Erosion.  The kids learned the week before last that there are slow land changes to our Earth due to weathering and agents of weathering such as wind, running water, people, animals, sand, etc... Last week we studied a few Natural Disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and land slides that cause fast changes to the Earth's surface.   This week we will continue studying other Natural Disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes!  The kids are getting to see some excellent footage of these changes happening to the earth and are really quite interested in this unit.   A study guide will be coming home late in the week, meaning that an assessment is scheduled the week of December 16th before we get out for the holidays.

Love, 
Ms. Skrivanek

Update from Mrs. Ford

It's December!

This is a busy week, so I hope everyone had a very restful holiday.  Our family counted you and your family in our blessings over the Thanksgiving break!  We are so fortunate to be part of such an amazing school.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Spelling
The HCE Spelling Week is on Thursday, December 5.  Information went home in the Tuesday Newsday folders about 3 weeks ago to allow student the opportunity to practice and sign up for early morning workshops.  Students are required to participate in the classroom bee.  I will, as always, stress that this is a learning opportunity.  Not all of us are SUPPER spellers (do you see what I did there)-- but everyone will be allowed the opportunity to see what a spelling bee looks and feels like.
Since we will be focusing on the spelling bee, there will NOT be any individualized spelling lists this week.

Reading
We have been working on reading and producing plays.  Students have learned new vocabulary like: narrator, actor, characters, setting, stage directions and dialogue.  
We will continue to discuss drama or plays but will be focusing on poetry as well.  Please NOTE that your child will be bringing home a poetry worksheet to complete every night this week.  I encourage you to talk to your child about each of the poems.  We will add more vocabulary to our ever expanding repertoire.  
Be ready to discuss the following terms:

• rhythm -  the beat or cadence of poetry Example:  But soft! What light through your window breaks?
• stanza-part of a poem that is made up of lines that are put together in a particular pattern
• imagery- words used to create a picture in the reader's mind
• narrative poem- a poem that tells a story.  some narrative poems are myths.  narrative poems may rhyme, but do not have to.
• line- a row of words in a poem
• rhyme -   two or more words which match in the same last sound  Example: cat/bat  or  flew/grew
• repetition – using a key word several times through a poem  
• free verse – a flowing poem that does NOT have a particular pattern
• alliteration- words in a poem that are placed near each other and start with the same sound

Your child will need to complete the poem practice and 

read for 20 minutes each night this week. 

We will NOT have spelling homework, 

so the time dedicated to homework should balance out.

Writing
We are working hard to finish up our narratives.  
Students have also explored using figurative language to write landform poetry.  
After we consume more poetry, students will be given opportunity to write a variety of poems.
Students will also start working in small groups to research a cultural holiday.  They will work with their groups to take notes, and organize a presentation to teach the class about their learning the week before Winter Break.  Please let me and your student know if you will be leaving early that week.  We want to make sure that he or she gets the chance to contribute to the group project.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Map Skills
Last week we used our knowledge about landforms to jump into our work in map skills.  We looked over a variety of landform maps.  This week we will review map skill vocabulary on Monday.  On Tuesday and Wednesday we will learn how to read and use a grid map.  On Friday, students will start on their grid map project.  They will get to design a city of their very own and put some of our new found map skills to use!