Week of 9/28-10/2

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.