Week 18: January 4-6, 2017

Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful holiday break. We are looking forward to another incredible semester in third grade! 

Upcoming dates to put on your calendar:

1/3- Student holiday

1/4-Students return to school

1/6 - Third Grade Recognition Ceremony for the Second Nine Weeks, 9:00-9:30a.m. in the HCE Cafe

1/10 - STAARY STAARY NIGHT - Informational Parent Meeting about the third grade STAAR test. We will meet in the library from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.

1/16- School Holiday for Students and Staff 

Reading: Readers will continue to read poetry! Before the break, we focused on information in the poem that  pulls at the reader's sense of hearing, smelling, seeing, feeling, and tasting. This week, we will spend more time studying how these sensory details also help us infer more about the character (feelings and emotions), situations, and moods we read about in poems. For example, what words in a poem suggest that a speaker is happy? or frustrated? We will use text evidence to support our thinking. 

Writing: Writers will review what good writers do to help them plan and organize a small moment to share in writing or in conversation. 

Spelling: New spelling groups will start Wednesday, January 11th, and the test will be the following Wednesday, January 18th. 

Social Studies: Our focus on good citizens turns to Dr. Hector P. Garcia this week. We will learn about how he worked to make life better for Latino and Hispanic Americans. 

Math: We continue our study of division this week. As an operation, division begins with a total (whole) and divides it into equal groups (parts). The octopus strategy is used when we know the total and the number of groups it is divided into. We are solving for the number in each group. This is how a problem like this sounds. A one pound bag of Snickers contains 24 candy bars. If 4 children share them equally, how many Snickers will each child get? 
The octopus strategy looks like this:

Wednesday we will review what we have already learned about octopus division and practice the strategy in class. On Thursday and Friday, students will be introduced to the other division strategy, the cookie method. This one is used when we know the total (whole) and how many will be in each group. We are solving for the number of groups that will be formed. A problem like this is: A one pound bag of Snickers contains 24 candy bars. If each child gets 4 Snickers, how many children will get candy bars? Using dots, the 24 candy bars are circled in groups of 4. We end up with 6 groups representing the 6 children who will get Snickers. The cookie method looks like this:

Math homework for Wednesday and Thursday will be to study for our weekly Fast Fact Friday quiz. There is no written homework.

Science:  On Wednesday we will be reviewing friction as the force between an object and the surface it moves over. Surfaces with much friction will slow an object quickly, whereas surfaces with little friction will not. Students will participate in a "Toy Car Race" to explore surfaces and friction in our room. On Thursday and Friday we will explore gravity and its effect on Earth and falling objects. Gravity is the force that pulls objects toward each other. Larger objects have stronger gravity than smaller objects. The Sun's gravity holds the planets in their orbits and the moon's gravity causes Earth's tides to rise and fall. The rate an object falls here on Earth is controlled by its shape and the amount of air resistance it experiences, not its weight or mass. Astronauts on the Moon performed an experiment that helps to show us that. 

Week 17: December 12 - 16

December 12-16: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Reminders--
Friday, December 16th is a Noon Dismissal day. Please plan accordingly and send a handwritten note with any change of transportation.

Reading, Writing and Social Studies: Holidays around the World will be our focus this week through read aloud, shared reading, and writing.  We will share fiction, nonfiction and poetry from various traditions to teach students about the many ways people around the world celebrate during the winter.  By the week's end students will have heard how some people in and from Israel, Mexico, America, Greenland, Sweden, Australia, Italy, and India celebrate various winter holidays.  At home, please share with your child the origins of your family's traditions and celebrations.  .
Mrs. Cion, our WITS partner, will be with students on Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon for creative writing workshop.  Last week she shared some poetry and discussed personification with our third grade writers.  It was fun to collaborate with them and use our imaginations as we pretended to be various objects and write poems from that object's perspective.

Spelling:  This week we will take an application grade.  We will look to see how your child applies his or her spelling patterns in daily work.
Students will also take the Elementary Spelling Inventory this week.  Teachers will use the data from this inventory to see how your child is progressing in his or her knowledge and application of spelling concepts.  We will readjust spelling groups based on this data for the spring semester.

Math: On Monday, the third grade math teachers will flexibly group our students and review skills for comparing and ordering numbers from our last PSA. On Tuesday, the students will rotate through each third grade teacher to learn about various Holidays Around the World. On Wednesday and Thursday, we will introduce your child to division. We will spend these two days learning about the octopus method for division. This method is used when we know the number of groups. We are looking for the number in each group. On Friday, we will complete our last rotation for Christmas Around the World.

We will have multiplication homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We will not have fast facts or problem of the week. 

Science: On Monday in science we will discuss force and the how work is being done on when an object is moved. We will spend time on these vocabulary words:

Motion-is a change in position  

Position-where an object is located

Work-happens when a force moves an object over a distance

Force-is a push or pull that causes an object to move, stop, or change direction

On Wednesday and Thursday, we will discuss friction. This is a term that we have discussed when we studied thermal energy. We will be reminded that friction is the force between an object and the surface it moves over. Friction creates heat and slows an object. We will look at different surfaces to understand the amount of friction that ice, tile, wood, carpet, concrete, sand, pebbles, dirt, grass, metal, playground rubber surface give off.

Update for Week of 12/14 - 12/18

Week of 12/14 - 12/18

It is hard to believe that our Holiday Break is almost here! Here are a couple of reminders about our upcoming week:

1) Wednesday is our field trip to the Menil Collection. Please have your child wear their white HCE spirit shirt. We will be back in time for lunch at school so no sack lunch is needed.

2) Friday is a Half Day! On this day, our schedule will be:
8:10 Announcements
9:30 Sing-A-Long
10:10 Recess
10:45 Lunch
11:15 Holiday Party 
12:00 Dismissal 

Math: In math this week, we will continue learning about Division. We started working on division last week. On Friday we worked on the Octopus Method. We will continue practicing with this method during the week as well as learning the Cookie Method. Below are examples of these two methods. For homework this week, your child will have three Mangahigh assignments. Please note: the Fast Facts Quiz will be on Thursday - 12/17. We will not have a problem of the week assigned this week. 

OCTOPUS Division METHOD EXAMPLE:
There were 56 lbs of food for the rhinos. The zoo wanted to share that food among 8 rhinos.  How many pounds would each rhino get, if they all got an equal amount?

COOKIES METHOD EXAMPLE:
There were 56 lbs of food for the rhinos at the zoo. The zoo keeper gave each rhino seven pounds of food.  How many rhinos were there at the zoo?

We learned a new station game for multiplication on Friday called Circles and Stars! 

Science: During our science time last week, we discussed force, motion, position, and work. We discussed friction with a toy car lab and on Friday, we did a gravity demonstration. We will continue discussing gravity this week and begin learning about magnetism.