Students
brought home a YELLOW interview. We are hoping this sparks some
conversation about the cultures and traditions close to the heart of your
family. We will take a few moments each day to have students
share their information. We will be noticing differences and similarities
between cultures. We hope this will serve as a special way for students
to share part of their personal history with our class.
Tuesday
12/15
Social Studies quiz, please make sure you used the green sheet to review map skills. This will be a short and very straight forward quiz. Helping your child
think through the notes on the review and practice cardinal and intermediate
directions at home will be the best way to make sure he or she is ready for the
quiz on Tuesday, December 15.
Wednesday
12/16
We
will head to the Menil Museum for our WITS field trip. At the Menil, students will continue to write pieces inspired by art.
Thursday
12/17
Students
will complete their project for the 2nd 9 weeks. They will
work throughout the week to create and design their own island. It’s
important for students to be able to meaningfully apply the parts of a
map. We always get some really creative ideas… watch out Atlantis!!
Friday
12/18
We
will spend our morning in our homeroom classes focusing on a district created
lesson to discuss bullying and the importance of our actions and words.
Then, we invite you to join your child for the HCE Sing-A-Long. Third
graders will participate from 9:30-10:00a.m. in the café.
Lunch
will be at a different time, 10:45-11:15 and our holiday party will be from
11:15-11:45 in our classrooms.
Please remember to send a note if your
child will make a change in transportation for this day.
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.
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
Welcome back from Thanksgiving Break!
We hope that you enjoyed your time off and got some rest! We have a couple of reminders for this week: 1) On Wednesday, your child will be participating in the Fun Run with Woodview Elementary. Your child should wear tennis shoes and their white HCE Cougar Pride T-Shirt. The third graders from Woodview will be coming over to run with our third graders from 9:10 - 10:00. We are helping Woodview raise money to build a Spark Park. Please send $5 - $10 as a donation. 2) Thursday will be a 1:30 Dismissal Day. This day is set aside as a staff development day. Please send a handwritten note with any change of transportation for this day. Thursday is also the day for Toys for Tots Donations. A fire truck and Santa will be here to collect any toy donations. MATH:In math this week, we will continuing working on multiplication. This week, we will learn strategies from multiplying by 6,7,8, and 9. Your child has three Mangahigh assignments for homework. The specific assignments can be found on the Weekly Planner page as well as in your child's planner. The problem of the week is coming home today and it will be due on Friday. Your child has a Fast Facts Quiz on Friday that will be a grade. Please check their Multiplication Checklist in their green binder if you are unsure of which multiplication quiz they will be taking. SCIENCE: During our science time today, your child will be creating a flow chart as a review for their science test. The Energy Test will be tomorrow. Please continue to study the study guide and vocabulary cards. The flowchart will be coming home as an additional resource for studying.
LANGUAGE ARTS
READING- Good readers use clues in a text to help them make meaning of the words the author uses. This week we will work together with the text, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, to notice the many ways an author uses context clues to help readers make sense of the story. We will create an anchor chart similar to the one shown here to help us remember what to look for as we are working to learn new vocabulary as we read.
WRITING- Our craft element focus for this week is called SHOW, DON'T TELL. The writer's we love best use their words to paint a picture and show us what is happening in a story. Simply reading -- "Mary was sad." isn't as interesting as reading-- "Mary walked into the room with her head hung and tears still running down her face." We will start the week off playing emotion charades. We will jot down the movements and facial expressions our friends use to show and not tell us about emotion. Then, we will work on moving this element into our own writing. Finally, we will review some familiar texts to see how the authors we love and know most use this element in their stories.
WORD WORK-New spelling words will come home by 12/2. We will assess on 12/9. We work for 10-15 minutes each day to practice our word sorts. A white copy of your child's words should come home for you to spend time working on at your convenience.
SOCIAL STUDIES- We will work this week to finish our comparison of maps and globes. We will introduce the vocabulary word compass and talk about how you can use a compass and map together to help you locate and travel places. 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.
Reading- In Reading we are still working in the genre of Realistic Fiction working with narrative stories. This week, students will work to reproduce stories given the events of the story using their knowledge of narrative superstructure.
As we continue to consume and work in this genre, we are noticing craft elements. This week we will begin to learn about and watch for backstory. Backstory allows the reader to know a piece of the characters past that may help us understand the characters feelings, actions and motivations. Super heroes have RICH backstory. We will look into a few of our favorite super heroes pasts to help us understand this craft element.
Writing- We are spiraling back to review and practice conversations. You can help us at home! We are trying to talk without raising our hands about what happened in the story this week. We read The Old Woman Who Named Things last week and will work in that book this week to understand the plot and theme of the book.
Word Work-Thank you for talking about how words work at home! We will have our spelling test on Tuesday, November 17. Remember, that we work each day in class and November 18-November 24 I will be looking for students to apply their spelling words correctly in their reading and writing.
Social Studies- We will have our landforms and geography quiz on Friday. A review sheet went home on Friday, 11/13. Please use the discussion questions, notes from our social studies journal, graded papers and our online resource www.studiesweekly.com to help your child review what we have learned in class.
We are moving onto maps and globes! What if you were lost at sea with no technology?! We will learn the important impact of these tools on helping us navigate our way home.
Here is some academic language that you can discuss and study at home to support your learner through this unit: grid, map, globe, longitude, latitude, compass rose, cardinal directions, hemisphere, Columbus, key, symbols, legend, equator, city, continents, states, oceans, and geographer.
MATH: In math this week, your child will begin studying multiplication. At the beginning of our unit, we will be learning to create multiplication sentence and drawing pictures of these sentences to get a visual of multiplying. Throughout the week, we will be learning to create equal groups, repeated addition, skip counting on a number line, and arrays. All of these methods will help our gain a foundation of multiplying.
Equal Groups
Skip Counting on a Number Line
"4 jumps of 2"
Repeated Addition
Arrays
For math homework this week, we are trying something new. The third grade teachers are all moving towards using Mangahigh for your child's nightly homework. On Monday, your child will get a list of assignments for the week. I have assigned these on the Mangahigh website. These assignments will all be due by Thursday. This will keep us on our same routine as before. Please let me know if you are having any issues with Mangahigh and we can discuss making other arrangements for your child. The three assignments for this week are: Subtract up to 1,000, Addition and Subtraction, and Add and Subtract Problems. Your child will also have a Problem of the Week coming home on Monday.
SCIENCE: *The Energy Test will be on Tuesday, December 1st*
During our science time, we will be learning about Light and Sound Energy. We will be discussing the sources and uses of each. During our discussion of light energy, we will discuss reflection and refraction. As we discuss sound energy, we will discuss what pitch, volume, and echo are. Your child will be receiving a energy study guide and vocabulary cards later this week in preparation for their Energy Test.
Reading- In Reading we are still working in the genre of Realistic
Fiction. Students are really starting to
take ownership of noticing and naming the superstructure of a narrative story
(setting the stage, initiating event, rising action, climax, falling action and
resolution).
As we continue to consume this
genre, we are noticing craft elements.
This week we will wrap up our work on dialogue and inner thinking. Yesterday, we shared our own inner thinking
and reflected on how this helps us know more about one another. Students then dove into their independent
reading to see how the inner thinking of our book characters can help us know
more about who they are, what they think and how they feel! As we move through the week, we will start to look for and discuss the imporatance of backstory in narrative.
Writing- We are spiraling back to review and practice conversations. You can help us at home! We are trying to talk without raising our
hands about our favorite part of a book.
Students are great at coaching each other about how to make the
discussion go better. We are just
working on taking our own words of wisdom and applying in the situation! J Students will work this week to identify
voices an author uses to tell a story.
We will take a close look at how to use a narrator and dialogue in our
own writing.
Word Work-Students will receive new spelling words for their word work this
week. Your support at home helps them
internalize the spelling and patterns of words they encounter in their reading
and writing. Thank you for talking about
how words work at home! We will have our
spelling test on Tuesday, November 17.
Social Studies-Students did an AMAZING job last week writing their first expository
essay about geography and landforms. It
was BIG work! This week, we will focus
on the celebration of Veteran’s day with our performance on Wednesday at 8:30
in the café. We will then move onto
discussing the importance of maps and globes through a fun imaginative scenario. What if you were lost at sea with no
technology?! Here is some academic
language that you can discuss and study at home to support your learner through
this unit: grid, map, globe, longitude, latitude, compass rose, cardinal
directions, hemisphere, Columbus, key, symbols, legend, equator, city,
continents, states, oceans, and geographer.
Thank you to all of our parent volunteers who came to Field Day and cheered on Duncan's Donuts and Ford's Fugitives. We had a blast!!
Congratulations to Warren Dooley and Parker Lewis from Mrs. Duncan's Homeroom and Blake Dardis and Austin Alpe from Mrs. Ford's Homeroom who won the Class Spelling Bee. We are so excited for these guys as they move onto the School Spelling Bee in December!!!
Reminder for the Week: on Wednesday, your child will be participating in the Veterans Day Program. The program begins at 8:30 in the cafeteria. The doors to the cafeteria will open at 8:00. You don't want to miss this awesome performance! MATH: Last week in math, we finished our unit on subtraction. We will continue reviewing subtraction in our daily warm ups. This week we will be talking about Bar Models. Your child is familiar with Bar Models from second grade. We have also been discussing bar models in our daily warm ups. Below are some images of what bar models are and what they represent. We use bar models to decode word problems. Most of our third graders will be moving onto multiplication this week. Their first fast facts quiz for multiplication will be on Friday. Please study multiplying by 0's,1's, and 10's. If your child is not moving onto multiplication, please continue to study addition and subtraction facts. Once your child masters addition and subtraction, they will move onto multiplication. A problem of the week will go home on Monday and your child will have a worksheet sent home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Addition Bar Models
Subtraction Bar Models
SCIENCE: During our science time this week we will begin studying Thermal Energy and Light Energy. We will be discussing the uses of each and the sources.
Happy November Parents! October flew by! Thank you to all of the parents who have come to parent teacher conferences so far! We have enjoyed meeting and visiting with each of you.
As a reminder, this Friday is Field Day. the theme for Mrs. Duncan's homeroom is Duncan's Donuts and we will be dressed in white. Mrs. Ford's homeroom will be Ford's Fugitives and we will be wearing camo. This will be a fun filled day! Before we participate in the Field Day activities, all of third grade will complete their Classroom Spelling Bee with their homeroom teacher.
MATH-During math this week, we will wrap up our unit on subtraction with regrouping. Last week, we studied the three types of subtraction- take away, missing part, and comparison subtraction. This week we will complete a circuit in class with subtraction word problems. We are continuing to work on decoding word problems and pulling out information that is needed to solve the problems. Your child will not have a problem of the week due for this week. You can expect homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. Due to the activities on Field Day, your child will take their Addition and Subtraction Fast Facts quiz on Thursday. SCIENCE- In our science time this week, we will continue to study energy. On Friday, we began our study of energy. This week, we are discussing mechanical energy, we will learn about kinetic and potential energy. Kinetic Energy is the energy in motion while potential energy is the stored energy.
RED RIBBON WEEK THIS WEEK. We will participate in theme days and school wide discussion on the importance of making healthy choices. Monday- Wear red. We are "RED"y to lead a healthy life. Tuesday- Wear pink. "New Friends are all around you." Wednesday- Wear a college shirt. "My future is bright." Thursday- Wear a crazy hair style. "Wild about being healthy."Friday- Wear a HCE shirt. We will give each child a mustache. I "mustache" you not to bully or do drugs. READING-We will continue our genre study of realistic fiction. As we read this week we will learn the difference between a first person and third person narrative. WRITING-We will continue to map narrative stories. This week we will look into the author's craft of dialogue. We will learn to identify dialogue in a story and then begin to critique how and why an author uses dialogue to move the story. WORD WORK-Students received new words last Tuesday. On October, 27th we will take an assessment on these words and then work over the next week to accurately apply these new words to our writing. SOCIAL STUDIES-Our unit of study, geography, continues. This week we will work to learn about the four regions of Texas and what landforms can be found in each region of the state. On Wednesday, we will be shaping our own landforms and noting the differences and similarities between the various shapes in the land. MATH- This week during our math time, we will continue learning about subtraction. Last week we subtracted numbers with regrouping in the ones, tens, and hundreds. This week, we will be subtracting across zeros. Later in the week, we will be using our subtraction strategies in word problems. We will decode word problems and decide if we will be "taking away," "comparing," or find the "missing part." I was SO impressed by the math facts quiz last Friday. Keep up the GREAT work and study every night for 5 to 10 minutes. This week, we will have another addition and subtraction quiz. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night your child will bring home a subtraction worksheet. The problem of the week will be due on Friday. SCIENCE-During science this week, we will complete our discussion on Mixtures. Later in the week we will begin our unit on Energy. Energy is the ability to move and do work. We will review four forms of energy: sound, light, heat, and mechanical. We will begin with Mechanical Energy and discover that there are two types of Mechanical Energy: Potential and Kinetic. We have enjoyed conferencing with some parents on Thursday and Friday and we look forward to meeting with more of you this week!
Week of October 19th - 23rd
We have lots of news for this upcoming week!
1) Thursday and Friday are Noon Dismissal Days. Please send hand written notes if your child will be going home a different way from these two days. We look forward to meeting with each of you during our conferences. Please remember to arrive on time as we have back to back conference times.
2) Socktober Week is this week - remind your child to wear CrAzY socks all week! Our Leadership Council is collected items to donate to the Mission of Yahweh. We are needing items such as: socks, underwear, disposable diapers, and deodorant. MATH Last week in math, we wrapped up our study of rounding. We will continue working on rounding in our daily warm up problems. We discussed how rounding can be applied in many real world situations. I challenge you to ask your child to round the price of items or the amount of items you would need on your next visit to the grocery store. Rounding is a useful tool! This week, we will begin our next unit on subtraction. We will start our week with subtracting without regrouping. Throughout the week, we will subtract in the thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones place. You can expect a Problem of the Week to come home on Monday and it will be due on Friday. A review worksheet for place value will come home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Friday, your child will complete a fast facts quiz with addition and subtraction - this will be for a grade. SCIENCE On Friday, we completed our unit on Matter. This week we will begin learning about mixtures. A mixture is when two or more substances are combined. I always imagine trail mix as an example. You are able to mix peanuts, M&M's, almonds, cashews, raisins. These things are mixed together, but can easily be taken apart.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Reading
This week we will wrap up our work on character traits. Students have been compiling a great list of words to use when describing a character in a story based on what they are thinking or how they are behaving. We've been mapping, together, how a character changes throughout a story. This week, students will try this learning on their own during independent reading.
Writing
For many weeks we will discuss narrative structure. To the right, you will see an example anchor chart used in the classroom to help us move from thinking about the beginning, middle and end of a story and move into thinking about the superstructure of a narrative. Words and ideas like setting the stage, initiating event, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution will be words that 3rd graders will learn and then be expected to use during discussions on mentor texts.
Word Work
Last week students took their first spelling tests and did very well. This week, we take an application grade and introduce a new spelling pattern. You are welcome to continue practicing at home. We will continue to practice 10-15 minutes each day in class. Teachers cannot email or post spelling lists due to copyright issues. Please talk to your student about the importance of keeping up with and bringing home their spelling practice list.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Landforms
We are starting a new unit in Social Studies, Geography. Our geography unit is made up of two parts, landforms and map skills. We will start the unit with a look at landforms. This week and last we review many landforms that are, hopefully, familiar to our students.
The BIG idea in social studies that we will try to drive home is that our daily life is affected by the land surrounding us. When we plan vacations, what we pack, what we do, and our travel are all determined by the land and water features surrounding our destination.
Some of our upcoming vocabulary will be:
Geography-the study of Earth’s features
Landform- natural features, or shapes, of the land including mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus, etc.
Climate- the kind of weather a place has over a long period of time
Human Feature- something that people add to the landscape, such as a building
Adapt- change to fit the environment
We've used this video and songs to help us remember the different types of landforms.
NEWS-- This week is Generation Texas Week. We will spend the week focusing on discussions about why and where we might want to continue our education after high school. From Mrs. Glass--
This week, in class,
students will be researching different colleges and learning what each school
has to offer and what makes the school special.
They will hear their teachers explain why they chose their college and we
will have activities all week relating to post-secondary education and careers. It’s never too early to think about the future!
Please
spend some time this week with your child talking about the importance of
college and their career goals. Take
some time to tell them about your experiences!
Thanks and
Gig’ em!
Allyson
Glass
READING AND WRITING
We will continue to combine our work in Reading and Writing Workshop this week. While students read independently this week, I will pull small groups of students to work on a variety of reading strategies and skills.
Last week, we shared some folktales together and discussed how many cultures have used these stories as a way to teach or explain things to people (folk). This week, we will dive into the genre of myths. Myths are stories that seek to explain, like folktales, but they focus on explaining the beginning of the world or human behavior. As students work with folktales this week, they will continue to track their thinking using symbols and sticky notes. These tracks in our text allow us to notice how an author is engaging his or her audience. We will eventually apply these findings to our own craft of writing.
WORD WORK/SPELLING
This Wednesday will be our kick-off of our Spelling, vocabulary and word work program, Words Their Way. Your child will be introduced to a new spelling sort on Wednesday, in class. Home-study is optional this year. We will send each child home with a HOME-STUDY MENU and a copy of his or her words for the next 10 days. Students will spend 10-15 minutes each day practicing their new pattern (sort) in class to prepare for their first spelling test on Wednesday, October 14. Due to copyright law, I am unable to post spelling words/lists to the blog or email them to you. If you would like to help your child practice at home, please let him other know to bring home a copy of their words for at home practice. I will do my best to encourage such choices in as we prepare our homework each day.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We will begin to wrap up our study on Community, Citizenship and Government. We will continue to talk in class about how the United States government is set up. There is a RED review sheet coming home this week to help students prepare for our first Social Studies test. Our first Social Studies test on Community and Government will be on Tuesday, October 13.
MATH Last week in math we wrapped up our unit on addition. We finished our week off with a review of expanded form and notation and comparing three or more digit numbers. This week, we will begin our study of rounding. On Monday, we will discuss what rounding is and how it can be used in our daily lives. On Tuesday, we will round two digit numbers to the nearest 10. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will round three digit number to the nearest 10 and 100. To end our week, we will have a problem solving day of using addition with estimation. The homework for the week will include: review worksheets on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night, Problem of the Week due on Friday, and study math facts. This week, the math facts won't be taken as a grade.
SCIENCE Last week in science, we completed reflections over our properties of matter lab. We began studying how to classify matter. This week, we will continue learning about the states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. We will complete multiple demonstrations that will help our understanding. On Wednesday you can expect a Matter Study Guide to be come home. During our class time, we will work on vocabulary cards that can be used as another tool to study for the science test. The science test will be given on Friday, October 16th. Please study a few minutes every night. Below are links to a few States of Matter games that we have played in class: Solids, Liquids, and Gases
NEWS: Check out the new page on the side of the BLOG called COUGAR PAW PRIDE. We will use this space to keep you updated on the AMAZING ways the students in our classes are making a difference in our classrooms and around campus! Open House will be on
Tuesday, September 29. Classrooms are open for visiting from
5:30-6:30p.m. At 6:40 the first PTA meeting for the school year will be
held in the cafeteria. Coach Thompson and Teaching Aides will be
available in the gym to watch children as parents attend the meeting.
Thank you to our HCE PTA for funding WITS for third grade for the second year. (Now grades 3-5 will have the opportunity to participate in this program.) Writers In the Schools is a program that sends professional writer's to schools to work with both teachers and students in creative writing. Our writer this school year is Carolyn Bolton. I am very excited, as she was teamed with third grade last school year and not only did the kids learn much from her writing experience, but I did as well. She will be with us most weeks on Wednesdays. For this week, Mrs. Bolton will join us on Tuesday.
Please be on the look out for more information about WITS and Mrs. Bolton in the TUESDAY NEWSDAY folders. There will be a permission slip in the folder that we will need you to sign and return so that we may share your children's writing and images with the world around us!
READING & WRITING: We will combine our work in Reading and Writing Workshop this week. First students will reflect and review expectations for BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER reading. These will help students direct their focus as we move out of reading assessments and move into small group work. While students read independently this week, I will pull small groups of students to work on a variety of reading strategies and skills in small group.
GENRE STUDY: Last week, we started digging into our work on genre studies. We started by talking about and reading examples from the genre of fantasy. This week, we will hone in on what makes a story a folktale. Folk tales are a traditional form of literature that feature ordinary people (folk).These stories are narrative in structure and are often passed down over many years in both an oral and written tradition. Folktales often have a more obvious theme (lesson or message) for readers. We will discuss what it is that we believe the author is trying to teach or tell us with this story. While this is an easy thing for most experienced readers to do, most third graders are just becoming fluent enough readers to think about the BIG picture (theme) while reading.
As students work with folktales this week, they will continue to track their thinking using symbols and sticky notes. These tracks in our text allow us to notice how an author is engaging his or her audience. We will eventually apply these findings to our own craft of writing.
WORD WORK: Students will continue to learn a variety of word work strategies, practices and games with our practice words as we get ready to LAUNCH our word work. Wednesday, October 7 will be the first time your student is pulled in his or her differentiated spelling group. Please let me know if you would like me to send home a word study menu and an extra copy of words for you to practice with your child at home. Remember, spelling homework is not a requirement this year, as we will incorporate 15-20 minutes of word work into our language arts block each day this year.
SOCIAL STUDIES: We are continuing our 9
weeks focus on Communities, Citizenship and Government. Last week, we
went through the voting process and now we have elected 2 Leadership Council
Representatives! Congratulations to Ben in Mrs. Duncan’s class and Michael
in Mrs. Ford's class! This week, we will focus on government leaders.
Students need to understand who the leaders are at each level of
government: local/mayor, state/governor and nation or federal/president.
Our
PTA has purchased a subscription to a math program called Mangahigh. It is web based and allows students a chance
to practice and strengthen math concepts in a game format. All students in Grades K-5 are invited to
participate.
Teachers
will be incorporating Mangahigh into their classroom routines. Mangahigh allows teachers to assign
“challenges” to their students, based on individual student needs. Your child’s teacher will be able to monitor
progress and increase the rigor of the challenges when a student has
successfully mastered a level. This
program is a great enrichment program to use at home as well. Your children can work on the challenges that
are assigned at school, or they can play the math games.
Here
is how a student will log-on: (this information is stapled in your child’s
planner)
·The
username is your child’s computer username at HCE.
·The
password is his/her lunch #.
·The
school ID is 42383.
HCE
began using Mangahigh last spring. It
was a pilot program for several grade levels.
Because it was so popular, we are including all HCE students this
year. We are so thankful that the HCE
PTA purchased this site license for us! Our subscription is good until February
of this year. If you have any questions, please let me know and I will be happy
to answer them!
LAST WEEK- We had a guest reader from the Houston Bar Association to help us celebrate Constitution Day. She read So, You Want to Be President to our third grade classes. They were engaged and asked many questions about how she uses laws to do her job every day.
READING
We will finish up our work on connections early this week. Last week, we reviewed and practiced making text to self and text to text connections. This week we will finish by discussing text to world connections. This type of reading connection can be the most challenging for 3rd graders since it requires an extensive background knowledge of world events and history. I will scaffold our learning by connecting our text to Ruby Bridges, a story we learned about a few weeks ago in Social Studies.
We will then switch our reading focus to learn more about the genre of fantasy. Reviewing characteristics of a fantasy and sharing aloud a few quality examples will help us understand how this genre is different from the realistic fiction and historical fiction we have been reading.
Students need to continue to read for 20 minutes each night and record the title in their planner. This is part of their study habits and daily routine which are assessed and reported on the progress report each grading cycle.
WRITING
We are learning how to have an academic discussion in writing. Last week we talked about ways to get a conversation going, inviting others to the discussion and how to ask others for clarification. This week we will focus on bringing our background knowledge to the discussion, how to mark of piggy-back on someone's comment, and expand someones thought or contribution. As we work in reading this week, we will consume great examples of fiction stories so that your child will be ready next week to try writing his or her own imaginative stories.
Word Work- We will use Words Their Way this year in third grade. This week, students will learn a variety of word work activities that they will eventually complete on their own in during our daily work work class time. For now, students are using a generic list of words to practice. After two week of practicing routines, your child will be groups according to their Elementary Spelling Inventory results and will receive words that should match their developmental understanding of how words and spelling patterns work.
SOCIAL STUDIES
This week we will learn about HCE's Leadership Council. Students will have a chance to notice and nominate classmates whom demonstrate the COUGAR CODE. We will total those nominations and then elect a representative for our homeroom class. We will use this real world example to guide our study and learning about voting. This week we will also explore the online portion of our new Social Studies Materials. Students will learn in class how they can access it online and learn more to earn points with Revere the rat. They can cash in their points to decorate Revere's habitat! This is a great resource for extended learning and previewing upcoming at home. MATH This week in math, we will continue working with addition. Last week, we finished our unit with place value and started our addition unit. We spent last week practicing our addition without regrouping. This week, we will spend Monday and Tuesday regrouping in the hundreds place. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will move into regrouping in the ones, tens, and hundreds. On Friday, we will have a problem solving day where we are working on word problems. Your child will learn to decode word problem and pull out key words that help them know what operation (addition or subtraction) that they will use to solve it. For homework this week, your child will come home with an addition worksheet on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Monday, the third grade teachers will be introducing the Problem of the Week. This is a higher level thinking word problem that is sent home every Monday and will be due on Friday. We ask that parents and students team up on this question and spend time solving it together. This is not a grade. For Fast Facts this week, we will be moving into subtraction. I have been very impressed by the addition facts and I can tell that the students are spending time every night studying their facts. SCIENCE During our science time this week we will spend time discussing density and move into matter. In our study of density, we will be experimenting with objects and deciding how density affects whether an object will sink or float.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we will complete a lab on matter. We will have six stations that help us explore the properties of matter including mass, texture, temperature, magnetism, and buoyancy.
During our science time over the last three weeks, we have been learning about ways to be a good Digital Citizen. We will complete our last digital citizenship lesson on Thursday. As our final lesson, we will make a pledge to always be responsible while using computers and mobile devices.
As a reminder, the third graders will have their first field trip on Friday, September 25th. Please have your child wear a GREEN shirt on Friday. We will be back for lunch so your child does NOT need a sack lunch to take with them.
