Week 11: October 31st - November 4th

Parents,

Thank you for supporting our classes during Field Day. It was a fun filled day and we appreciate your added spirit.

Reminders for this week:

Mrs. Ramos spoke with students on Friday and told them about how children in her court celebrate adoption day.  She encouraged them to bring a stuffed animal from home to donate to children serviced in the courts.  Mrs. Ramos explained to us how this day becomes just as special as a birthday for many children.   This is often also the first toy the child will have ever received.  We appreciate any and all stuffed animal donations.. Donations due 11/4.  We love when the real world and our learning tie together.  This is a BEAUTIFUL real world example of what good citizens do- something we will study in Social Studies over the next few weeks.

- Friday, November 4th is a Noon Dismissal. Please remember to send a note with any change of transportation on that day. We will have an alternate schedule that day.

Reading: Good readers use context clues to help them make meaning of the words in the text.  This week we will work together in a variety of text to notice the many ways an author uses context clues to help readers make sense of the story. The example on the left shows you some of the things reader can use to help make meaning of new terms and vocabulary.  Be sure to talk to your reader about new, multilple meaning and difficult vocabulary words as they read at home each night.

Writing: We continue to analyze stories from our lives to make sure they are a story worth telling.  Stories worth telling follow the narrative structure.  We will read, summarize, analyze and determine theme for a few more stories this week.  Practicing storytelling at home can be a fun and meaningful way to connect learning at school to home.  This also helps when students move to write in workshop-- this way they have stories to pull from!

Spelling:  Continue to practice spelling words from last week at home.  At the beginning of this week, in class, teachers will be observing and assessing how students are able to apply spelling patterns in their work.  New spelling words will come home on November 2 and be assessed on November 9.

Social Studies: We've wrapped up our learning on early explorers and will spend the next few weeks thinking about what GOOD CITIZENS do! Good citizens work to make their communities a great place to be.  We will discuss many ideas over the next few weeks like-- voting, obeying laws, keeping promises, serving on a jury and volunteering.  

Students will have a chance to learn about why it is important for citizens to vote this week.  We hope to give them a small taste of what Election Day is like with our very own HCE favorite book election.  We will hear from people supporting both the candidates (book choices!).  Stay tuned, as November 9 we will learn which book of the month students have enjoyed most!

  

Math: In math this week, we will be finishing up our unit on subtraction. On Monday and Tuesday, we will walk through the steps for a two-step problems. Here is an example of a two-step problem that you can expect your child to see: There were a total of 689 fans who came to the first three basketball games. One hundred forty-two came to the first game and 136 came to the second game. How many fans came to the third game?

On Wednesday and Thursday, we will review all of our subtraction skills. On Friday, we will take our subtraction test. *SUBTRACTION TEST IS MOVED TO 11/7*

We will NOT have homework on Monday! Happy Halloween! On Tuesday, a worksheet will go home that reviews analog clocks. On Wednesday, a worksheet with subtraction practice will go home. Please study for fast facts on Friday. We will NOT have a Problem of the Week this week.

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. 

*mechanical energy- the energy of moving objects

*kinetic energy- the energy of motion

*potential energy- the stored energy or possible energy depending on its position

Week 10: October 24 - October 28

Parents, 
Thank you all for making our conferences a huge success! We believe that communication between parents and teachers is a key component for student achievement, so we truly appreciate your support and involvement. 

Red Ribbon Week!

Each fall during Red Ribbon Week, communities around the country unite to educate children about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. This year's national Red Ribbon Week theme is YOLO - You Only Live Once...Be Drug Free!!!!!  HCE wants to emphasize the importance of making healthy choices, staying positive, and focusing on the future!

Please encourage your HCE Cougar to participate in the following dress up themes and remind them YOLO!!!!!!

• Monday - "My Future is Bright"   Wear neon.
• Tuesday - "Team Work Makes the Dream Work"   Wear your favorite sports team jersey.
• Wednesday - "Fight For Your Future"   Wear camo.
• Thursday - "Peace, Love, Happiness"   Wear tie dye.
• Friday - "Hair's to a Healthy Lifestyle"   Crazy hair day

Classroom Spelling Bees will be held during the school day this Friday, October 28. The top 2 winners from each class will advance to the School Spelling Bee held on Thursday, December 8. One final Bee practice for all grades will be this Wednesday morning from 7:25 to 7:55 in room 7.

FIELD DAY: Friday, October 28th  Third graders will take the field in a battle of the countries this Friday from 10:15-11:45. Come cheer on your child's team as they race to each event with unleashed spirit!  Lunch this day will be from 12:20 to 12:50.

Please consider supporting Ms. Jackson’s flexible seating Donors Choose fund. 

Jackson

Reading: Readers will continue exploring theme in both familiar and non-familiar texts. Each day, we will focus on a new theme and brainstorm books that model each lesson. Themes/lessons we will focus on this week:

• Teamwork
• Honesty

We will also spend time discussing and writing about the differences between plot and theme. We want our learners to be able to not only identify them, but to support it with text evidence. Students' written responses have been more detailed as we are focusing on citing our thinking with text evidence. 

Writing: Writers will be introduced to new Stories From My Life (or SFML for short) this week to focus on our core questions with unfamiliar texts. We will work on concise retelling through Q1 (What is happening in this story?) and identifying theme/lesson through Q2 (What does this story mean?). Finally, we will map the story on the narrative arc to identify all of the important elements. Writers will continue exploring SFML narratives in their own writing.

Example Story Arc   

Spelling: Students received new sorts/words on Wednesday, October 19th. The assessment on those words will be this Wednesday, October 26th. Remember to utilize the at-home spelling practice if your child could benefit from additional practice at home

Social Studies: We are wrapping up our unit on famous explorers! We will complete our pop-up book (to be showcased during Publisher's Picnic!) with important facts about Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Lewis & Clark, and Christopher Columbus. Our students have loved learning the details of how these explorers have contributed to our nation and our world. 

Math:  This week students will continue their study of subtraction and how it relates to the real world. We will review the different kinds of subtraction (take away, compare, missing part) and the scenarios in word problems that require either addition or subtraction. Distinguishing between the two is critical. Students will try their hand at writing their own story problems based on a short list of criteria and then solve them, keeping in mind the expectations we have followed all year. Students on their addition and subtraction facts need to study for FFW and FFF. Multiplication will only be tested on Friday's FFF. There is no Problem of the Week (POW), but there will be the usual written homework Monday through Wednesday nights. 

Science:  Having completed our Matter unit last week, we move on to investigating mixtures. A mixture is a combination of 2 or more ingredients where the ingredients keep their own properties and can easily be separated. We will discuss the tools used to separate those ingredients because of their properties.

                                         

Week of October 17-21

Parent/Teacher Conferences are this week: October 19-21.  Use the links below to secure your spot.  We can't wait to celebrate the successes of your child and discuss their goals moving forward. Please remember that Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st are early dismissal days. Students will be let out at 12:00 pm so please plan accordingly! 

• Rozzell/Scott               
• Badrak/Jackson
• Duncan/Ford

Please consider supporting Ms. Jackson’s flexible seating Donors Choose fund: Jackson

Reading: Readers will continue exploring theme in both familiar and non-familiar texts. Each day, we will focus on a new theme and brainstorm books that model each lesson. Themes/lessons we will focus on next week:

• Believing in yourself
• Being happy with what you have
• Accepting others' differences 
• Always acting kind to others

We will also spend time discussing and writing about the differences between plot and theme. We want our learners to be able to not only identify them, but to support it with text evidence. 

Writing: Writers will be introduced to new Stories From My Life (or SFML for short) this week to focus on our core questions with unfamiliar texts. We will work on concise retelling through Q1 (What is happening in this story?) and identifying theme/lesson through Q2 (What does this story mean?). Finally, we will map the story on the narrative arc to identify all of the important elements. Writers will continue exploring SFML narratives in their own writing.

Example Story Arc   

Spelling: Students will get new sorts/words on Wednesday, October 19th. The assessment on those words will be the following Wednesday, October 26th. Remember to utilize the at-home spelling practice if your child could benefit from additional practice at home.

Social Studies: We will continue our unit on famous explorers! We will finish our pop-up book with important facts about Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Lewis & Clark, and Christopher Columbus. Our students have loved learning the details of how these explorers have contributed to our nation and our world. 

Math: Last week we began our study of subtraction with simple subtraction without any regrouping and regrouping in the hundreds and thousands places. This week we will review and then begin to subtract over zeros where multiple regrouping is necessary. As they progress right to left from the ones place, to the tens, to the hundreds and then to the thousands, students have to continually ask themselves "Can I do that?" in order to assure that the top number take away the bottom number actually works. If not, then regrouping or borrowing has to be done. Many are familiar with the rhyme "More on the floor, go next door" as a way to help determine if regrouping is needed. In applying subtraction to everyday life, students will examine word problems and differentiate among the three types of subtraction. "Take away" subtraction is the one with which kids are most familiar. Given a total number of items, a part is taken away leaving a remaining part. "Compare" subtraction presents students with two numbers where they are to find the difference between them. Words such as "how many more", "how much longer", and "how many fewer" are our key to this kind of subtraction. Often times, the comparative or "er" form of an adjective is used, such as taller, heavier, shorter, and farther. The third kind, "Missing Part" subtraction, gives the student the total number of items and describes a part and then asks what the other part might be. Here are some examples:

Take away:  643 students attend Hunters Creek Elementary. If 97 students transfer to another school, how many students will remain at the school?   643 - 97 = _____

Compare:  HCE has 643 student and MDE only has 477. How many  more students does Hunters Creek have than Memorial Drive?   643 - 477 = _____

Missing Part:  Ms. Rozzell has 41 students in both Math classes. 17 of them are girls. How many boys are in her classes?     41 - 17 = _____ 

Whether your child is on addition, subtraction, or multiplication facts, always study daily for FFW and/or FFF. Addition and subtraction have an extra opportunity for success on Wednesday and will not have to study for a Friday quiz if they make a 90% or above mid week. There is a POW that is due on Friday. Please take this opportunity to work with your child and discuss strategies for finding a solution.

Science:  We wrap up our study of Matter this week with a review of vocabulary and concepts and a unit test on Wednesday. Students have had vocabulary cards and a study guide for almost two weeks and we hope they have reviewed them nightly. After parent conferences, we will take a look at mixtures and then it is on to an extensive study of the different kinds of energy around us.

Week of October 11-14

Monday, October 10^th, is a school holiday celebrating Columbus Day.  

Picture Day is Wednesday, October 12th during the school day. If you would like to order prints, please turn in the order form to your child's homeroom teacher. 

Do not forget to sign up for Parent/Teacher Conferences October 19-21.  Use the links below to secure your spot.  We can't wait to celebrate the successes of your child and discuss their goals moving forward.

         Rozzell/Scott               Badrak/Jackson                  Duncan/Ford

Please consider supporting Ms. Badrak’s and Ms. Jackson’s flexible seating Donors Choose funds:
                                    Badrack                  Jackson

  

Reading: Readers will review elements of realistic fiction (characters, setting, plot, conflict, & resolution) and identify in both familiar and non-familiar texts. We will also compare those elements to the features of the narrative arc. We will continue mapping stories on the narrative arc. By the end of the week, students will be mapping stories independently. We will also begin pulling guided reading groups this week, focusing on routines, procedures, and expectations in a small group setting. 

Writing: Writers will shift focus from retelling familiar stories to thinking about the overall theme of the text. We have moved from Narrative Core Question #1 (What is happening in this text?) to Question #2 (What does this text mean to me?). We will look at familiar realistic fiction texts to talk about and write about the author’s lesson. Please note that we will use these terms interchangeably throughout the unit: theme, lesson, and message.

Spelling: Students received new sorts/words on Wednesday, October 5^th. The assessment on those words will be Wednesday, October 12^th. Remember to utilize the at-home spelling practice if your child can benefit from additional practice at home.

Social Studies: We will start our unit on famous explorers! This week, we will look at different explorer’s timelines and notice specifically how timelines display important events in an effective manner. To apply our new learning, we will create our own personal timelines in class. 

Math: This short week, we begin our next unit - Subtraction! After a brief pretest, we will start with problems that do not require regrouping, mainly as a review and to emphasize the right to left progression. As the week goes on, we will begin regrouping in the hundreds and thousands places and eventually the ones and tens places. We are slightly changing our math fact testing. Students who have progressed on to multiplication will only test on Friday. Those who are still perfecting their addition and subtraction skills will test on Wednesday and then on Friday if they do not pass. There is no POW this week. We hope you enjoyed working with your child on last week's problem about the football party tables. There are more challenges to come! Be on the lookout for written homework Tuesday and Wednesday nights. They will review place value skills we have already covered.

Science: Matter takes up space and that is called volume. Our classes will participate in a Volume Lab as they learn how to use different graduated cylinders. Students will be graded on accuracy, collaboration, and cooperation. States of matter can also be changed! All it takes is the adding or taking away of heat and therefore, energy. We will examine what it takes to change matter from one state to another. Our vocabulary will include melting, evaporation, sublimation, condensation, and solidifying. As we fast approach the end of our matter unit, it is important for everyone to review the content page and vocabulary cards that went home last week. Our matter test is scheduled for Wednesday, October 19.

Week 7: October 3 - October 7

Reminders / Announcements
Next week is GenTex Week! Students and faculty will celebrate the opportunity for every chilld to go to college by wearing college t-shirts all week long. We will have daily discussions in our classrooms and we encourage families to talk about a college future for their child. Your third grader came home with an interview sheet on Friday. Please help them interview a friend or family member who attended college and return the completed interview by Wednesday. We look forward to seeing all of your college spirit! Suggested activities for each day:

• Monday: Students should discuss where they want to go to college with their parents and print out a logo to represent that university. Complete the interview sheet. 
• Tuesday: Bring the interview sheet to school.
• Wednesday: Think about how college life might be and discuss it at home.
• Thursday: Bring your parents to HCE Open House!

Open House is Thursday, October 6^th, from 5:30-6:30pm. Please come and visit your student’s classrooms so they can share with you some exciting learning they have done so far this year!

Do not forget to sign up for Parent/Teacher Conferences October 19-21.  Use the links below to secure your spot.  We can't wait to celebrate the successes of your child and discuss their goals moving forward.

         Rozzell/Scott               Badrak/Jackson                  Duncan/Ford

Please consider supporting Ms. Badrak’s and Ms. Jackson’s flexible seating Donors Choose funds:
                                    Badrack                  Jackson

Reminder: Monday, October 10^th, is a school holiday celebrating Columbus Day.      

Reading: Readers will review elements of realistic fiction (characters, setting, plot, conflict, & resolution) and will identify in both familiar and non-familiar texts. We will also compare those elements to the features of the narrative arc and will continue mapping stories on the arc as well. By the end of the week, students will be mapping stories independently. We will also begin pulling guided reading groups this week, focusing on routines, procedures, and expectations in a small group setting.  

Writing: Writers will work on storytelling this week. We know that writers tell stories aloud before they write, so we are going to focus on the art of storytelling. What’s important in this story? How do I build tension? Did I set the stage well for my listener/reader? Storytelling also helps us practice our communication and collaboration skills with our peers. By the end of the week, students’ storytelling confidence will have grown dramatically!
      
Word Work:  Students will get new sorts/words on Wednesday, October 5^th. The assessment on those words will be the following Wednesday, October 12^th. Remember to utilize the at-home spelling practice if your child could benefit from additional practice at home.
 
Social Studies:  This week, we will be talking about money! We will look at saving, spending, and discuss wants compared to needs. We will also discuss the importance of communities and the specific services they offer their citizens. 

Math: We have spent the past week or so focusing on addition of four digit numbers, first without and then with regrouping. Students are understanding that the largest digit in any place is a 9. Once you get to 10, you have to regroup to the next place. 10 ones make a ten, 10 tens make a hundred, and 10 hundreds make a thousand. We have practiced breaking our problems into small individual facts, one in each of the places. As sums greater than 9 are made, regrouping into the next place occurs. The same thing happens with numbers with more than four digits. Just for fun, we have added phone numbers, following the same process. This week we will attack real world situations that require addition and problem solving. Students will complete an addition assessment on Friday.

We will send home our first of many Problems of the Week (POW) which is an opportunity for students and their parents to work problems together, collaborating and communicating to find a solution. It is handed out on Monday and is due on Friday for checking together. 

Keep practicing those Math Facts every night! Daily review will help students with accuracy and speed! 

Science: In Science, we continue our study of the three most common states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. Matter is defined as anything that has mass and takes up space. We have examined the molecular structure of each state and how that structure determines how the matter moves.  Solids, because molecules are tightly packed together, keep their shape. Liquids, because their molecules are a little spread out allowing them to flow over each other, can be poured and take the shape of their containers. Gases, because their molecules are very far apart and move freely, go everywhere unless confined to a container. We will observe and analyse a gas demonstration that will help students understand something very important about gases. On Thursday, students will complete vocabulary cards and receive a matter review sheet in preparation for a test on Wednesday, October 19. Please encourage your child to review the information nightly and ask any questions they may have before the scheduled test. We will participate in a volume lab where they will have an opportunity to measure liquids with graduated cylinders, beakers, and measuring cups. Students will be graded on accuracy, collaboration, and cooperation.