1/9 - Parent Education Meeting 9:30am - 10:15am Math Facts With Your Child: Learn how to help your child master the basic facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) with some easy games you can play at home.
1/10 - STAARY STAARY NIGHT - Informational Parent Meeting about the third grade STAAR test. We will meet in the library from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
1/16 - School Holiday for Students and Staff
1/17 - School Store Open 7:30am - 7:50am for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, near the library
1/10 - STAARY STAARY NIGHT - Informational Parent Meeting about the third grade STAAR test. We will meet in the library from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
1/16 - School Holiday for Students and Staff
1/17 - School Store Open 7:30am - 7:50am for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, near the library
1/19 - 9:30am PTA General Meeting
This week in third grade....
Reading: Readers will wrap up our unit in poetry on Monday and Tuesday. We will look at a familiar poem, answer questions about the piece, and discuss how the text evidence helped us draw conclusions.
Next, we will start thinking deeply about summarizing texts. We will read familiar passages and decide how to best summarize the events in the story. We will use a fun method called CPR, which stands for Characters, Problem, and Solution, to find the best answer choice. The best summaries include all three components.
Writing: Writers will begin writing poetry this week! After spending time consuming poetry in reading, our learners are anxious to start looking at poetry through the eyes of a writer. We will write about ordinary things and ideas that create extraordinary feelings within us. We'll be looking at 4 elements to help guide our poetry writing: central ideas (theme), purpose (who is your audience and why are you writing this piece?), mood, and form (which poetic form best conveys your theme and purpose?).
Spelling: Mid-year spelling inventories are complete. We have formed spelling groups based on the most current spelling data from our learners. New spelling groups will start this Wednesday, January 11th, and the test will be the following Wednesday, January 18th.
Social Studies: We will begin our unit on markets, business, and budgets. This week, we will discuss in detail what a free market is and why it’s important to the US economy.
Math: This week we continue the study of division, striving for students to develop an "ear" for how a division situation sounds and then choosing an appropriate strategy. As explained in last week's blog post, our two main strategies are the "octopus" and "cookie" methods. We are also viewing division as "repeated subtraction", just the opposite of multiplication. Similar to the "cookie" method, this subtraction tells us how many groups you will end up with in the end. For example... If Chef Jones bakes 12 cookies and packages them into bags of 3, how many bags will he be able to fill? The equation is 12÷3=___. How many threes are in 12?
Yet another strategy is to "skip count" to find the answer. For 12÷3=___, skip count by 3 up to 12 and see how many numbers that is. 3,6,9,12 will give you 4. The final strategy, and the one we hope all third graders will eventually be able to use, is to know their multiplication facts well enough to come up with the "related multiplication" in that same fact family that will give them an immediate answer. Again, for 12÷3=___, if the student knows that 3x4=12 or 4x3=12, they will know that 12÷3=4. As the week progresses, our students will try their hand at writing division word problems that reflect real life situations. They will have an opportunity to solve each others' problems posted around the room. By Friday, we will revisit multiplication along with division and give students practice knowing when to use which operation. A new Problem of the Week goes home on Monday. Please work with your child to discuss and solve it. It is due on Friday. We will also have our regular Fast Fact Friday quiz on whichever facts your child has reached. As usual, there is written math homework Monday through Wednesday nights.
Science: In Science, we wrap up gravity then spend a few days playing with magnets and feeling how they repel and attract. Then we'll explore the benefits of using a pulley to lift heavy loads. On Friday, we will review force and motion and take a quick 15 question quiz.
Enjoy this quick video on pulleys.
Math: This week we continue the study of division, striving for students to develop an "ear" for how a division situation sounds and then choosing an appropriate strategy. As explained in last week's blog post, our two main strategies are the "octopus" and "cookie" methods. We are also viewing division as "repeated subtraction", just the opposite of multiplication. Similar to the "cookie" method, this subtraction tells us how many groups you will end up with in the end. For example... If Chef Jones bakes 12 cookies and packages them into bags of 3, how many bags will he be able to fill? The equation is 12÷3=___. How many threes are in 12?
Science: In Science, we wrap up gravity then spend a few days playing with magnets and feeling how they repel and attract. Then we'll explore the benefits of using a pulley to lift heavy loads. On Friday, we will review force and motion and take a quick 15 question quiz.
Enjoy this quick video on pulleys.
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