Week 14: November 21-22

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Reminders for this week:
- Please turn in permission slips for our Galveston Field Trip on Friday, December 2nd
-Tuesday, November 22nd - Dress the School Day - Wear Camo!
- No School on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday for Thanksgiving Break

Reading: The genre of drama will be introduced this week.  Students will note and notice similarities and differences between the genre of realistic fiction (we've spent a few weeks with this) and our partner plays.  Reviewing terms like character, narrator, actor, setting, and stage will help us prepare as students work in groups to read through, analyze and perform plays based on the topic of Thanksgiving.

Writing: Forget the Houston Escape Room, the turkey needs our help!  Writers will apply author's craft to imaginative stories.  They will focus on creating scenarios that might help the turkey escape becoming our Thursday dinner!

Spelling: We will continue to look for spelling patterns to be applied within the context writing in all content areas.

Social Studies: With help from some primary sources, we will look for elements of historical truths about Thanksgiving in our plays.

Math: During class on Monday, we will review the strategies for multiplying that we've learned so far: repeated addition, equal groups picture, jumping number lines, and arrays. On Tuesday, we will learn about the associative property which states that changing the order that the factors are multiplied does not change the product. We will not have a Problem of the Week or Fast Facts on our short week. Your child will have a subtraction review worksheet that will come home on Monday as homework.

Science: In science this week, we will continue talking about light energy. Light energy is a form of energy that helps us see and comes from the sun. During class, we will discuss the difference between natural and artificial light.

The Week of 2/16-2/19

Parent Reminders and Information: We will be going to the Museum of Natural science on Friday, February 19.  Students WILL return in to campus in time for lunch.  Please make sure you have sent your child's permission slip back to his or her homeroom teacher.

Language Arts
Reading- Last week we poured our hearts into figuring out how to take notes on an FQR chart using non fiction texts.  Now that we are much better with that skill, we will look at the facts we recorded and learn if they are interesting or important to remember as a reader.

Writing- Students did a great job learning about types of leads and trying them out on the narrative they have chosen to take through the writing process.  We will work more this week on learning about the difference between editing and revising as we work with our narrative stories.

Spelling/Word Work- Test 2/17.  We will take an application grade of spelling patterns and concepts 2/18-2/23.

Social Studies- Test will come home, 2/16 to let you know how your child did on his or her Story of America, Part One assessment.    

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- In math this week, we will continue working on graphing. Your child will be working on created pictographs, dot plots, bar graphs, and tally charts. We will be transferring the data from tally charts and pictographs and putting the information into a bar graph or dot plot. Your child will have a homework worksheet on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Our fast facts quiz will be on Friday. We will NOT have a problem of the week. 

Science-During our science time, we will continue studying about natural resources. We will learn where our daily resources come from. On Tuesday, your child went home with a Natural Resources flow chart. We will be taking a quiz next week on this information. Your child will be receiving a blank chart and they will be expected to fill in the missing information. 

Language Arts and SS Update for 12/14-12/18

Monday 12/14

Students brought home a YELLOW interview.  We are hoping this sparks some conversation about the cultures and traditions close to the heart of your family.  We will take a few moments each day to have students share their information.  We will be noticing differences and similarities between cultures.  We hope this will serve as a special way for students to share part of their personal history with our class.

Tuesday 12/15

Social Studies quiz, please make sure you used the green sheet to review map skills. This will be a short and very straight forward quiz.  Helping your child think through the notes on the review and practice cardinal and intermediate directions at home will be the best way to make sure he or she is ready for the quiz on Tuesday, December 15.

Wednesday 12/16

We will head to the Menil Museum for our WITS field trip.  At the Menil, students will continue to write pieces inspired by art.

Thursday 12/17

Students will complete their project for the 2^nd 9 weeks.  They will work throughout the week to create and design their own island.  It’s important for students to be able to meaningfully apply the parts of a map.  We always get some really creative ideas… watch out Atlantis!!

Friday 12/18

We will spend our morning in our homeroom classes focusing on a district created lesson to discuss bullying and the importance of our actions and words.  

Then, we invite you to join your child for the HCE Sing-A-Long.  Third graders will participate from 9:30-10:00a.m. in the café.  

 Lunch will be at a different time, 10:45-11:15 and our holiday party will be from 11:15-11:45 in our classrooms.  

Please remember to send a note if your child will make a change in transportation for this day.

Connections, Character Traits, Narratives and Elections

We've had a great first month of school.  Your children are thinking while they are reading and sharing their thoughts with others!

READING

We will finish up our work on connections early this week.  Last week, we reviewed and practiced making text to self and text to text connections.  This week we will finish by discussing text to world connections.  This type of reading connection can be the most challenging for 3rd graders since it requires background knowledge in world events and history.  I will scaffold our learning by connecting our text to Ruby Bridges story we learned about a few weeks ago in Social Studies.

Students need to continue to read for 20 minutes each night and record the title in their planner.  This is part of their study habits and daily routine which are assessed and reported on the progress report each grading cycle.

WRITING

This week we will introduce our first writing genre study, personal narrative. We will spend the next few weeks sharing examples of personal narratives and noticing and naming the parts of a narrative.  This week we will focus on learning the vocabulary for those parts of a narrative (setting the stage, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution).

WORD WORK

Spelling words came home last Wednesday.  This Tuesday, 9/23, spelling spirals are due.  They should hold your child's spelling homework.  They have had a week to complete 8pts of spelling assignment choices on the spelling menu. On Wednesday, 9/24 students will have their first spelling test.  Since this is our first week to test, there will not be a spelling grade on the progress report.  New spelling words will be introduced and go home on Wednesday, October 1.

SOCIAL STUDIES

This week we will learn about HCE's Leadership Council.  Students will have a chance to notice and nominate classmates whom demonstrate the COUGAR CODE.  We will combine those nominations and then elect a representative for our homeroom class.  We will use this real world example to guide our study and learning about voting.  We will close up the week by learning about our local government and comparing our mayor and city council to the roles of our school principal and leadership council!