Week 15: November 28 - December 2

Our GALVESTON FIELD TRIP is Friday, December 2. 

Reading: It's time to immerse ourselves in a new genre.  For the rest of November and most of December, we will be reading poetry.  We hope your child has come home excited about some of the poems we have shared together during our daily dose of Focus Poetry.  Our study during the reading workshop over the next few weeks will have us reading more closely and analyzing various aspects of poetry.  Students will learn and apply the poetry vocabulary of stanzas, lines, repetition, rhyme, speaker.

Writing: We will continue to consume author's craft through various mentor texts.  We will look closely at how authors use dialogue, repetition, and descriptive detail to help readers understand and enjoy the story.  At home, you can be sure to notice and share out with your child about dialogue that you read in stories together that helps either move the story along or tell you more about the characters.  Point out details that help you visualize what the characters are seeing and experiencing in the story.

Spelling:  New words will come home on 11/30.  A test will be give 12/7.  An application grade of those words in the context of reading and writing will be given 12/8-12/14.

Social Studies:  As we continue to learn about citizens who played an important role in our communities, we will learn about Jonas Salk.  Salk's research and work with vaccines has made a huge impact on the health of our community.  

Math: Each day in math this week, we will use our multiplication strategies to learn about multiplying by 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's. Each day, we will listen to a song that helps skip counting by each of the multiples. We will not have a problem of the week this week. We will have a worksheet on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Please note that the Fast Facts Quiz will be taken on Thursday due to our Field Trip on Friday. 

Science: In science this week, we will wrap up our unit on energy. On Monday, we will create energy vocabulary cards for the energy test. The energy test is scheduled for Thursday, December 8th. On Tuesday,Wednesday, and Thursday, we will learn about sound energy. Sound energy is the energy of matter vibrating. A few of the important terms we will learn about are pitch and volume. Pitch is how high or low the sound is and volume is how loud or soft. 

2/8-2/12

Note to Parents: With the upcoming excitement of the Super Bowl, we have had an increase in students bringing football and baseball cards to school.  Students have been distracted in class and had some trouble on the playground "dealing and trading" cards.  We ask that you please have your child keep his or her cards at home. 

Language Arts
Reading- While continuing to read non-fiction this week, readers will learn a helpful strategy called determining importance.  As we read texts we will stop, think and discuss what important in important to the text rather than simply interesting.  While this sounds simple, it's a more challenging skill for third graders as they have to set aside their personal opinions and think about the information, just the facts! 

Writing- We are continuing to finish up our work on narratives.  We will focus on getting our own personal narratives on paper and practicing many different types of leads to help our readers get hooked into our stories.

Spelling/Word Work- Application grades will be taken 2/4-2/9.  New words will go home 2/10. Test 2/17.

Social Studies- Students should use the review study sheet for our first assessment on Tuesday, 2/9/16.  They can also use our newspaper, journals and online resource (www.studiesweekly.com) to prepare for our test.  

We've started the second half of our study and have learned about the life and work of Louis Pasteur.  We will also be learning about Jonas Salk, Bill Gates, Maria Mitchell, Henry Ford, and Cyrus McCormick.  You can reference the SOCIAL STUDIES WEBSITES page on this blog for more information and reading.

Math- This week in math we will be diving into graphing. We are still studying pictographs, bar graphs, tally charts, and dot plots.  The students will be taking information in tally charts and pictographs and creating bar graphs and dot plots to match the information.  A test question to access this skill might look like this:

The dot plot graph looks like this:

  

A math worksheet will come home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. The Problem of the Week will come home on Monday and will be due on Friday. Please continue to study every night for the Fast Facts quiz. 

Science - 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.