Week 21: January 29th-February 2nd

Week 21:  January 29th-February 2nd

Reminders: 
2/2: Spring Group Pictures are this Friday.  These pictures are taken as homerooms.   Time slots are as follows. 10:25 Rozzell/Morphey, 10:35  Badrak/Saint Val, and 10:45 Duncan/Ford.  
2/6 and 2/7:  HCE Book Fair located in library. 
2/8 and 2/9: Noon Dismissal

Reading:  Determining the main idea of a text can be tricky business!  We're going to continue searching for text clues (text evidence) to infer the main idea of an entire or portion of text.  Your readers will see this week that identifying the main idea from several sections of an article will lead to a strong nonfiction summary.  We will conclude the week by introducing cause and effect relationships.  Cause and effect is something we experience in our daily lives.  We will learn tools to identify this relationship within a nonfiction text. 

Writing:  We will celebrate your poet's hard work this week!  Our publishing celebrations are always a wonderful way to unite as a community of writers and "high five" one another on a job well done.  Your children are excited to share their finished anthologies with their peers.  Later in the week we will practice note taking strategies as we read through a nonfiction text and organize our thoughts/reactions and important ideas.  
Social Studies:  We're rounding out our study of maps this week.  Students will apply what they have learned throughout the month to create their own maps.  We're challenging them to include a title, compass rose, legend, map scale, and grid system.  

Math: We will continue to learn many strategies to multiply such as skip counting, number line, area model, and an array model. We will build from easier digits such as 5 and continue to increase the digit to 6 through 9. As it is important to know multiplication facts, we are helping our mathematicians understand and internalize what it truly means to multiply, where they can see it in the real world, and how to apply it in their daily lives. 

Homework: In addition to our Monday-Wednesday regular homework pages, we will begin "Problem of the Week." This assignment will be sent home every Monday and will need to be returned on Friday. This assignment is meant to be a team effort as we would like your student to solve the problem alongside you.  On Friday, we will discuss the many ways your student solved the problem with the support from you all! 
Science: The students will learn and understand how soil is formed and the role of decomposition. Later in the week, the students will explore plate tectonics and its relation to earthquakes and volcanoes. Soil is different in different places because of different rocks in the area and different plants and animals that live there and die and decay. Important concepts to remember:

• Constructive forces build up the Earth
• Destructive forces tear down the Earth
• Earthquake:  A sudden release of energy under the Earth’s surface that makes the ground shake or crack.
• Earthquakes build up the land (constructive) by pushing upward forming mountains and tear down the Earth (destructive) by opening crevices and causing land to fall or slide.
• Weathering: The process that breaks down rocks into tiny pieces over time.
• Erosion:  The carrying away of weathered rock 

 

• 

  Different types of Soil: Sand, Clay, Humus, Loam

Week 20: January 17-20

Upcoming dates to put on your calendar:

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 consume and analyze a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts in order to notice and name differences between the genres.  We will look specifically at narrative non-fiction texts and focus on why authors choose to write about topics in this manner. 

Narrative non-fiction: a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. (This will be a genre presented on the STAAR test in May.) 

Essential questions we will consider: 

• Instead of writing biographies, why would an author choose to write about a person or event in a narrative format? 
• What is the purpose of this genre? And how can we identify it? 

Writing: Writers will wrap up our poetry unit this week. We will choose our favorite poems, revise them, edit them, and publish our best work. On Friday, we will have our end-of-unit writer's celebration and share our pieces within our community of writers. We have loved watching our writers experiment with different types and styles of poetry the past few weeks! 

Spelling: Due to our WITS schedules and differentiated grouping across ELA teachers/classrooms, we will be moving our spelling day to Thursday this semester (with the exception of the white group that will stay on Wednesday). New spelling groups started Thursday, January 12, and the test will be Thursday, January 19th. 

Social Studies: We will continue our economics unit and will be focusing on goods and services this week. We will be able to differentiate between the goods and services we use as consumers in our own lives. 

Math: This week is dedicated to a review of multiplication and division. Students will practice recognizing when to use each operation and how to use the many strategies we have learned in the past few weeks. Multiplication problems give you two numbers (factors), the number of groups and the number in each group. The question asks for a total number (product). Strategies explained in earlier blog posts include equal groups, number lines, arrays, skip counting, and repeated addition. Division problems give you the total and how many groups you will make with that large number. The question asks for how many are in each group.(quotient) The octopus strategy is best for this. It could also give you the total and the number in each group and ask for the number of groups you can make.(quotient) The cookie strategy works best for this. Other division strategies include skip counting, repeated subtraction and knowing the related multiplication fact that will give you an immediate answer. These strategies are also explained in previous blog posts. After several days of practice, students will be tested on their multiplication and division skills this Friday.
FFF (Fast Fact Friday) quiz will still be on Friday this week. If your child is not well into knowing their multiplication facts, at least on sixes or sevens, it is time to step up the effort. Please help your child practice flash cards, previous quizzes, and apps to solidify their knowledge of basic facts. Multiplication is a priority, but don't forget to review addition and subtraction every once in a while. There is no POW (Problem of the Week) this short week. This Thursday, we will give the next PSA to see how our students have grasped concepts taught the first half of the year. 

Science: Having just finished a unit on Force and Motion, we move on to Natural Resources. One of Earth's greatest resources is soil. Beginning with the processes of weathering and erosion, soil is a combination of pieces of weathered rock, air, water, and decomposed plants and animals called humus. Worms and insects allow air and water to enter soil and help make it great for growing plants. Decomposition of all living materials is part of the life cycle and food chain. Knowing what will and will not decay will help students understand the importance of recycling and not littering. 

natural resource - anything made by nature and used by man
weathering - the process the breaks down rocks into tiny pieces over time
erosion - the carrying away of weathered rock
agents - causes
decompose - rot, decay
organic - living or once alive
humus - decomposed organic material (plants and animals)