Week 25: February 20-24

Important Dates and Reminders:

February

20- Presidents' Day (No School)

23- 3rd Grade Practice Reading STAAR 

24- Go Texans Day

27- 3rd Grade Practice Math STAAR

27- PTA RALLY DAY in Austin 

27-  Family Fair Raffle begins in cafeteria 

March

February 27- March 2- Family Fair Raffle in cafeteria 

3- HCE Family Fair

This week in third grade:

Reading: Readers will take the practice reading STAAR test on Thursday, February 23rd. We will spend a couple of days thinking aloud through STAAR-like nonfiction selections to become more familiar with their length and structure. We will also review fiction selections from previous PSA tests. Please be sure your child gets a good night's sleep and eats a solid breakfast on Thursday! 

Writing: Writers will continue our persuasive/argumentation essays unit. This week, we will move forward with the topic we chose last week. We will focus on the claim and support points, making sure our claim is well supported. Students will begin writing in essay form using their graphic organizer to help navigate this new structure. 

Be sure to ask your child what they are writing about; we have some really creative topics! 

Example of Persuasive Essay Outline (we will also include an introduction and conclusion): 

Spelling: Students will receive new words on Thursday, February 16th and their test will be on FRIDAY, February 24th. (This change is due to the practice reading STAAR taking place on Thursday.) 

White group: Students will receive new words on Wednesday, February 15th and their test will be on Wednesday, February 22nd. (There is no change for this group.)

Social Studies: We will continue our economics unit with our Econ and Me Videos!  ECON AND ME revolves around four children and their invisible friend, Econ, who applies economic principles to individuals, families, and communities. This week, we will study consumption. Econ will show how children can use their $4.00 to spend on goods, save it, or pay for services. 

Math: This week we continue our work with equivalent fractions. Students will fold paper to be able to see fractions that represent the same amount of space. They will also examine number lines to see that equivalent fractions are at the same place on the line. On this image, it is clear that 2/3, 4/6, and 8/12 are at the same place on all three number lines. 

The second half of the week we will practice model drawing to solve fraction word problems. Visualizing and drawing what is happening in a problem will greatly improve understanding. 

Mom ordered a large pizza for dinner. It came cut into

12 equal pieces. Mom ate 3 pieces, Dad ate 4, my sister 

and brother each ate one piece and I ate 2.  What fraction

of the pizza was left?

By drawing and labeling the details of the story, it is visible that the remaining piece is 1/12 of the pizza.

Students will have written homework Tuesday and Wednesday nights and the usual FFF quiz on Friday. Please monitor that your child is studying facts every night. The district expectation for third grade is for students to master their multiplication facts through 12. Many students still have a long way to go. 

We are enjoying our new online adaptive learning system, Dreambox. Students will have access to it both at school and at home. They have already received their login information and we hope you will encourage your child to take advantage of this great resource. Use this link to access the program: Dreambox. It can also be accessed on the blog page entitled Math Websites.  Ms. Moore has added Dreambox to the Symbaloo homepage. Students just need to click on their homeroom teacher's name and they are ready to go. Thank you PTA!

Science:  Natural resources are Nature's gifts to us. We use them to survive and to make products that we use every day. We will review how resources can be categorized as renewable and nonrenewable and will create a flowchart that shows both classifications. The information on this chart will be tested the week of February 27. Students will examine everyday objects and determine the natural resources used to make them, stating whether they are renewable or nonrenewable. And as the week progresses, we will try to justify why certain resources are used to make certain products. What properties make them best suited for the job?

Week 24: February 13-17

Reminders and Upcoming dates to put on your calendar:

Valentine's Day Parties will be held on Tuesday, February 14th from 2:25-2:55 in your child's homeroom. Please send cards/treats with your child to pass out during the party. Please remember: NO TREATS WITH NUT PRODUCTS! Thank you for keeping our students safe. 

WITS Field Trip to The Menil Collection: Thursday, February 16th from 8:45am-12:00pm. Permission slips were sent home on Tuesday, February 7th. Please fill out and return as soon as possible. 

February

14- Valentine's Day Parties- 2:25-2:55 in homeroom class

16- WITS Field Trip to The Menil Collection 8:45am-12:00pm

17- Noon Dismissal

20- Presidents' Day (No School)

23- 3rd Grade Practice Reading STAAR

24- Go Texans Day

27- 3rd Grade Practice Math STAAR

This week in third grade...

Reading: Readers will read articles that lend themselves to identifying cause and effect relationships within the text. We will use graphic organizers to represent our thinking and support our ideas. We will also begin looking at STAAR-like nonfiction selections to become more familiar with their length and structure. 

Writing: Writers will continue our persuasive/argumentation essays unit. This week, we will choose our own topic (from a class list we brainstorm together) and will set up the structure of our essay. We will be focusing on creating a strong claim (thesis) to be supported by reasons (support points). Ask your writer what they are choosing to write about first! 

Examples of Persuasive Essay Structure:

Spelling: Students will receive new words on Thursday, February 16th and their test will be on Thursday, February 23rd. 

White group: Students will receive new words on Wednesday, February 15th and their test will be on Thursday, February 22nd. 

Social Studies: We will continue our economics unit, but this week, we start our Econ and Me videos!  ECON AND ME revolves around four children and their invisible friend, Econ, who apply economic principles to individuals, families, and communities. This week, we will study opportunity cost and how the kids learn to be resourceful with money while building their clubhouse.

Math: More fun with fractions this week. Comparing fractions can be a little difficult. The easiest ones are those with the same denominator. Just look at the numerator and see which one is larger. 

It is a little more tricky when the denominators are different and the numerators are the same. Students must think about the denominators and determine how many pieces the whole has been divided into. The larger the denominator, the more parts and the parts are smaller. Just the opposite of what most children think. A whole divided into 4 equal parts has larger pieces than a whole divided into 8 equal parts. Three of those big parts (3/4) is greater than three of the little parts (3/8). Students will be expected to be able to reason these two kinds of comparisons.

When the numerator and denominators are all different, students will h to use a model to visualize the fractions. We use sets, shapes, bars and number lines to show fractions that we are comparing. Here the number line shows that 2/3 is greater than 3/8.

This week we will also learn how to spot and create equivalent fractions. Equivalent fractions show the same amount but use different numerators and denominators. Models help students visualize fractions that are the same.

Eventually students will learn how to create equivalent fractions by multiplying or dividing the numerator and denominator by the same number. 

Everyone will have written math homework Monday through Wednesday nights. There will also be the usual Fast Fact Friday (FFF) quiz on Friday. Please help your child work toward mastering all multiplication facts. It is a third grade expectation.

We are excited to begin using a new online adaptive learning system, Dreambox. Students will have access to it both at school and at home. They will receive their login information in the next few days. We hope you will encourage your child to take advantage of this great resource. Use this link to access the program: Dreambox. It can also be accessed on the blog page entitled Math Websites.  Thank you PTA!

Science: This week we begin a unit on natural resources. Students will learn that all things are made from the gifts that nature shares with us. We will categorize resources as renewable, non-renewable and synthetic. The following vocabulary will be a focus for our learning.

natural resource - materials in nature that living things use

renewable resources - resources that can be replaced or will never be used up; these are found above ground

non-renewable resources - resources that cannot be replaced; once used, they are gone; these are found underground

synthetic resources - resources that are man-made