Week 32: April 17th- April 21st

Reminders/Important Dates:  

• Monday, May 8th:  Math STAAR for 3rd (and 4th graders)
• Tuesday, May 9th:  Reading STAAR for 3rd (and 4th graders)
• Monday, May 22nd:  Publishers Picnic
• Thursday, May 25th:  3rd grade Chariot Races
• Friday, May 26th:  Winds of Time school-wide parade 

• Mrs. Scott will begin her maternity leave starting on Wednesday, 4/19/17.  Please help us welcome her long-term substitute, Sylvia Tramuto.  Mrs. Tramuto is a familiar face at HCE.  We feel lucky to have her join our team while Mrs. Scott welcomes baby Landry!  

Reading:  This week will be our second week of reviewing inferring strategies.  Inferring requires higher order thinking skills, which is naturally a more challenging task for a reader. Last week we reviewed that inferences are made when a reader combines text clues and their own background knowledge.  We practiced using text evidence to support our inferences. Utilizing text evidence to support an inference is crucial during a test-taking scenario.  This week, we will continue to infer and support our inferences with text evidence. We will spend a lof of our time this week thinking through texts in pairs in order to draw conclusions about the story or article we read in order to correctly answer a STAAR-like question.  A lot of the time, there may be more than one reasonable answer.  It is important to revisit the text in order to choose the best answer that relates to the text evidence.    

Writing:  We can't wait for you to hear your writer's persuasive essay at our HCE Publisher's Picnic later in May (see date above).  We will shift genres this week in Writer's Workshop as we begin our letter writing unit.  We will begin the week identifying the parts of a letter (e.g. date, greeting, body, closing).  As the week progresses, we will study and write three types of letters:  friendly, informative, and thank you.      

Spelling:  Students will receive new spelling words on Thursday, April 20th.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, April 27th.   April 28th-May 5th, teachers will be looking for students to apply those spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies:  It is all about Texas festivals this week in social studies!  When immigrants came to our state, they brought certain customs and cultures from their homelands with them.  A way we respect and celebrate the various cultures in Texas is through cultural celebrations.  We can learn about all of the different cultural traditions (e.g. food, music) at festivals.  This week, we will read, reflect, and respond about various Texas festivals.  Be sure to ask your child what festival they found most interesting.       

Math: In math this week, we will be working on finding a relationship between numbers presented in a table. This can often be called input-output tables. We will discuss the importance to find the rule or pattern between the numbers and that the pattern must be continuous. 

We will end the week discussing financial literacy. Topics we will cover will be the difference between planned and unplanned spending decisions, opportunity cost,  and credit. This unit will connect with your child's economic unit they had during social studies. Some good vocabulary to review for this unit would be credit, borrower, and interest. 

Science:  This week, we will finish discussing temperature and how to read thermometers. We will also have your child research a city and record temperatures over the week. Your child can see how temperature can change over time. They can also see differing spring season temperatures. 

Week 30: April 3- 7

Week of April 3rd-7th

Reminders: 

OPTIONAL SPRING CONFERENCES: Thursday and Friday we will have early dismissal for spring parent teacher conference. These conferences are optional. Please note that these conferences our optional and its only the second week of the last nine weeks. But if you would like to meet with your child's teacher to discuss your child's progress, we would be more than happy to meet with you. 

Ms. Badrak

Mrs. Duncan

Mrs. Ford

Ms. Jackson

Ms. Rozzell

Mrs. Scott

Here is our half day schedule for Thursday and Friday. 
    Thursday:                                                               Friday
7:50- 8:00 Focus Poetry                                 7: 50- 8:00 Focus Poetry
8:10- 9:25 Block One                                      8:10 - 9:00 Specials
9:25 Switch                                                     9:00- 9:50 Block one
9:30- 10:45 Block two                                     9:55- 10:45 Block two
10:45- 11:15 Lunch                                        10: 45-11: 15 Lunch
11:15- 11: 45 Recess                                     11:15- 11: 45 Recess
12:00 Dismissal                                              12:00 Dismissal                    

Language Arts teachers will send home a Scholastic book order this week in Tuesday Newsday.  This order will be due next Tuesday, April 11th. 

Reading 
Last week, we ended our week utilizing useful reading strategies.  We will use what we learned about nonfiction summaries last week to compare and analyze the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction summaries this week.  For instance, great nonfiction summaries include the main idea, or most important ideas, from the beginning, middle, and end of a text.  Great fiction summaries, on the other hand, include CPR (C=Characters, P=Problem, R=Resolution).  We will compare various summaries in order to continue practicing reading strategies across these two genres. Towards the end of the week, our readers will write a fiction summary of their own using what they know about CPR.  

Writing
We have worked very hard during Writer's Workshop to craft our essays.  We will use this week as an opportunity to prepare our essays for publishing week.  We will enter into the process of publishing week next week in order to celebrate and share our final products. We are also going to take some time this week to prepare for National Library Week (April 9th-15th)  where we thank our wonderful librarian, Mrs. Moore, for everything she does for our school!  Students will either write a poem, letter, comic, or persuasive essay that pays tribute to Mrs. Moore.  We are going to deliver these to her on Monday!   

Spelling
Students will receive new spelling words on Thursday, April 6th.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, April 13th.   April 14th- April 21st, teachers will be looking for students to apply those spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies
We will continue our study of arts and culture this week.  We will learn information about arts within a community.  We will reflect and respond to this material using graphic organizers.  

Math 

We finished off last week discussing area of figures. This next week, we will introduce perimeter of a figure. Area and perimeter can often get mixed up, so please take time to discuss both of these vocabulary words. Please take some time this week and get on Dreambox. Please use this link to get the login page. https://play.dreambox.com/login/yf4j/c78d

In this perimeter unit, we will also look at problem solving for missing side length of figures. We will be working on using good strategies when trying to solve these type problems. One of these strategies will be to add up all the side lengths and then subtract from the perimeter.  We studied in our geometry unit about how rectangles have opposite sides that are equal to the other. This knowledge of rectangles will help students find the missing side length when perimeter is unknown.




Science
We will start this week with the solar system assessment. Tuesday - Friday we will explore the fourth planet from the Sun... Mars. We will look at what attributes this planet has and how it differs from other planets in our solar system. After we discuss Mars and review solar system  characteristics, we will have a short quiz on Thursday.  Please keep practicing with your child the order of the planets and have your child share their learning about Mars this week. 

Week 29: March 27-31

Week of March 27

Reminders:

4th and 5th grade students will take the STAAR tests 3/28 and 3/29.

We will have a change of schedule to support a quiet test environment.  

The third grade schedule for those two days is:

8:00-10:20 Block One

10:20-12:35 Block Two

12:40-1:10 Lunch

1:15-2:05 Specials

2:05-2:40 Recess

2:40-3:00 Read Aloud

OPTIONAL SPRING CONFERENCES: We have noon dismissal on April 6 & 7 so that teachers have an opportunity to have an optional spring parent conference with parents who are concerned about their child's progress this year. There will not be any new testing information to share at this conference. It is only the 2nd week of the last nine weeks so there will not be many grades to review either. Teachers are happy to meet with parents who have questions or concerns about their child's progress.  

If you would like to schedule a conference during this early dismissal time, please sign up...

Ms. Badrak

Mrs. Duncan

Mrs. Ford

Ms. Jackson

Ms. Rozzell

Mrs. Scott

Reading: We will start the week with some strategy work in Reading.  When reading for tests, readers have to read with a difference purpose and lens.  We will discuss strategies test takers use when determining the best summary for a non-fiction selection. We will then review ways that test takers analyze poetry.  Finally, we will finish the week with a reading checkpoint to see how students apply reading strategies reviewed this week and the weeks since we took the practice STAAR. 

Writing:Writing is a process that can't be rushed.  As one of our WITS writers said, "You're never really finished; you just have a deadline."  We've worked hard in class to transform our essays from outlines to full paragraphs.  Students have learned about various ways to start or lead a read into their essays.  We will continue to work on revising and editing techniques this week as we prepare to finalize our essays to be audience ready.

Spelling:Students received new spelling words on Thursday, March 23.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, March 30.  Teachers will then look for them to apply them correctly to their responses in reading and writing and an application grade will be taken between Friday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 5.

Social Studies:Over the next few weeks in Social Studies, we will focus on the importance of writers and artists to the cultural heritage of our communities.  Students will learn about the life and work of Maya Angelou, Larry McMurtry, Tommy dePaola and Mark Twain.

Math: During our math time this week, we will wrap up our learning on 2D and 3D shapes. We will construct a 3D shape in class and identify the shape based on its characteristics. On Wednesday, your child will take a 2D Quiz. This quiz will review the 2D shapes found on the yellow paper in your child's binder as well as the pink flash cards that went home last week. They will be asked to name each shape. In preparation for our quiz, we will also review these shapes in class. On Thursday and Friday, we will discuss area. We worked on area during our multiplication unit so this will be a quick review of the concept. We will have more graphing homework this week on Monday and Tuesday as well as fraction homework on Wednesday. We will continue with our fast facts quiz on Friday. 

Science:On Friday (March 24th), your child came home with a Solar System review sheet and vocabulary cards. The solar system test will be on Monday, April 3rd. During our science time this week, we will discuss the relationship between the sun, Earth, and moon. We will notice the limitations of the models of the solar system that we see. On Wednesday, we will learn the order of the planets. In groups, your child will make a mnemonic device to help them remember the order of the planets. On Thursday, we will create planet bracelets. These bracelets will have beads that represent each of the planets. To end our week, we will review for the solar system test playing our Jeopardy game.