Week 33: April 24th-28th

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 

Reading:  We are diving into cause and effect this week.  While cause/effect is something we experience in our daily lives, identifying cause/effect within a text is tricky.  We will spend the week practicing strategies to identify cause/effect relationships in both fiction and nonfiction texts.  Our readers will gain a better grasp of the importance of identifying causes and effects throughout an informational article and/or a plot.  Doing so will answer questions like "Why did the character react that way?" or "What caused a character to do ___?"    

We will also spend part of our language arts block working with online tools called Quizlet and Epic. These resources can be found under the "Language Arts Website" link on the right side of this blog and can be accessed both during and after school. Please feel free to ask your child about these resources and use them at home as well.  

We are thankful to have the opportunity to work with reliable technology thanks to our HCE PTA!  Our students have been able to log into our Chromebooks and work with these resources daily. We are beyond grateful for these additions to our classrooms! 

Writing:  We will be wrapping up our letter writing unit this week.  We will begin this week with writing a letter to a community worker.  Students will write a letter to a police officer, fireman, or nurse/doctor in our community.  We will practice addressing envelopes as well during this process.  The publishing process will start mid-week with revising and editing. We will celebrate our letters and share with our classroom community on Friday.  

Spelling:  Students will take a test this Thursday, April 27th.  Next week, April 28th- May 4th, teachers will be looking for students to apply these spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work. 

Social Studies:  We will continue to learn about Texas cultural celebrations this week.  We have and will continue to use the online component of our Studies Weekly social studies resource to read articles about various celebrations in Texas.  We will dive a little deeper this week in certain cultural celebrations to learn about what types of foods, activities, and dances are celebrated.  The students are very interested in these celebrations! 

Math: We have now entered our STAAR Camp Unit. STAAR Camp is where we will be reviewing all of the skills covered this year in preparation for the May 8th, Math STAAR test. The main focus of this week's review will be on place value, comparing numbers, word problems, and graphing.  Homework this week will include practice problems in a STAAR-like format.  This homework is a great way to review old concepts at home. 

Thanks to PTA, we have been provided with new Chromebooks in 3rd grade. These new computers have allowed us to provide class time to work on Dreambox. This program allows for individualized lessons that are leveled to your child needs. Think Through Math is another program your child can log on and is a great review of past math concepts.  These can be accessed at home.  Your child has been provided with login information.  In addition, their username and password information was sent home on our red spring information/conference form.  Please encourage your mathematician to try these out at home as well as show you what they've been working on at school.    

Science:  We have moved from measuring temperature with a thermometer to other units of measurement. We ended last week by discussing the difference between mass and weight and determining appropriate units to measure mass and weight. We want your child familiar with both customary and metric units since we use both.  We will begin our week by looking at customary and metric units of capacity and volume. We will then transition to measuring on a ruler looking at 1/4 and 1/2 inch. 

Math and Science for the Week of March 19th-23rd

Parents,

Welcome back from Spring Break!  It was a nice break and it was good to catch up on some rest.  Now we are ready to hit the ground running for the next 11 weeks!

This week in Math we will be focusing on the concept of rounding to the nearest ten and hundred.  Some students catch on really fast, and others are confused about the concept of rounding up or down and need a little extra guidance.  Today we used the "rounding roller coaster" to explain the rounding rules.  A student came up with this helpful rhyme:

"If it's 1 to 4, go to the back door.  If it's 5 or more, run out the front door!"

Here is also a helpful three minute video to explain rounding to the nearest 10.



Later on in the week we will work on Rounding to the nearest 100.  We will use the same "Roller Coaster" concept to help the kids understand rounding.  Here is another helpful video to show your kids on rounding to the nearest 100.



Also in Math this week our Objective review will be focusing on reviewing customary and metric measurement, as well as finding perimeter and area.  We will have another objective quiz this Friday, and we will be reviewing it together the following Monday.  Again these Objective reviews are intended to prepare our 3rd graders for the Math portion of the STAAR Exam coming next month.

In Science this week, we will be learning the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the earth.  The students will be constructing a small 2-D model in class to show this representation.  We will then move into the planets and the correct order of the planets.  I will teach them a fun acronym to help them remember the correct of of the planets from the sun.  It is...."My very excellent mother just served us nachos!"

The kids also had the privilege of meeting Ruby Bridges' mother this afternoon in the library and have a short Q & A with her.  Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to integrate into white schools in New Orleans.  The kids were very interested and asked really amazing questions.

Tomorrow (Tuesday)  we will be watching Motivational Productions.  Motivational Productions is a program that comes every year to discuss bullying and strategies to deal with the ongoing issue in schools.

If you are busy at home helping your child raise money for the K-9 Angels Rescue Foundation, please send money by Friday.

Have a wonderful week ;-)
Mrs. S