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.

Update for 3/9-3/13 from Mrs. Ford

READING
This week we will finish up our review of inferring with fiction texts and move into thinking about how to create a summary of a fiction text.  We will introduce a strategy called CPR.  Students will learn that there are some necessary elements to include in a summary- characters, problem, resolution.
 
WRITING
Your children have written some FABULOUS expository essays.  This week we will finish up revising and editing these pieces so we can publish them to share with you at Publisher's Picnic.
Mrs. Bolton, our WITS instructor, will be back with us this week.  We all love the fresh new ideas she brings to our instruction and learning.  

SPELLING
The spelling homework menu is due on the following Tuesday (3/10) and the test will be on that Wednesday (3/11).  If you need support with spelling, please email me.  If you child looses his or her spelling words, please look at the spelling spiral as we write them down as part of our lesson on Wednesdays.

SOCIAL STUDIES
All third graders will take a quiz on 3/10 on the inventors, scientists and founding fathers we have covered over the last few weeks.  Please encourage your child to bring home his or her social studies journal.  They have been working hard to complete guided notes on each historical figure.  You can also reference the Social Studies Links page on this blog for more information.

HOMEWORK
Thank you for supporting good study and reading habits at home. 

LA and SS 3/2-3/6

READING
Your kids have done a great job reviewing nonfiction features over the last few weeks.  Last week we reviewed the concept of theme in reading.  What lesson or message does a book teach us?
This week we will work on reviewing inferring.  Our biggest challenge this week will be to have students work to find text evidence to support their inference.
WRITING
Your children have written some FABULOUS expository essays.  This week we will learn some new and revisit some old revision techniques as we prepare to finalize our essays.  We will have them published and ready to share with you at Publisher's Picnic.
Last week we had a great time on our WITS field trip to the Menil.  We responded to the art and poetry we were able to take in at this unique venue.  I was so proud of how well the kids were ready to try anything that they author's put in front of them.  Their writing from our WITS experiences will get turned into a published collection that we will also make sure is take home ready by Publisher's Picnic.
SPELLING
Spelling lessons start back this week.  Please look for NEW words to come home on Wednesday.  The spelling homework menu is due on the following Tuesday (3/10) and the test will be on that Wednesday (3/11).  If you need support with spelling, please email me.  If you child looses his or her spelling words, please look at the spelling spiral as we write them down as part of our lesson on Wednesdays.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We are finishing up our study on the Story of America.  Students will create a project on the inventors and scientists we have covered over the last few weeks.  Then, we will finish the week with a look at our founding fathers.  All third graders will take a quiz on 3/11 on the inventors, scientists and founding fathers we have covered over the last few weeks.  Please encourage your child to bring home his or her social studies journal.  They have been working hard to complete guided notes on each historical figure.  You can also reference the Social Studies Links page on this blog for more information.
HOMEWORK
Thank you for supporting reading at home.  Your child will bring home a letter and data report sheet from our Practice STAAR Benchmark this week in the Tuesday Newsday folder.  My big focus with this data is that I want your children to notice what they have learned this year.  Then, we will work together to help them keep learning and working on reading concepts that they struggled with on the benchmark.  Many of them have been focused on the score.  I'm less concerned with scores, and more concerned with learning.
One area that most kids struggled in was endurance.  If you look at the last 8-10 questions on the benchmark, they started missing more and more questions.  I've stressed in class the importance of reading at least 20 minutes each night and will appreciate your support at home.  The letter coming home will have question prompts for you to use with your child after they read each night.

LA and SS 1/26-1/30

Reading

We send home another STAAR-like homework on Monday night this week.  Students will have until Friday to read the passage, jot down notes and answer questions.  We will check the answers and share strategies in our class discussion on Friday.  

In class we will be inferring with non-fiction text features.  We will review what we know about captions, photographs, titles and subtitles and then work to infer the author's purpose for including them in the article.  

Writing

We wrote our first kernel expository essays last week.  Our topic last week was something we can just not do without.  Your children really got into the work and their kernels are priceless!  Topics ranged from video games to books, hair gel to chocolate and water to puppies.  Our LOVES were all over the map.  This week we will continue to flush out other ideas and write another kernel essay.  After we compile a bank of possibilities your children will pick which topic they wish to take through the writing process.  

One of the biggest moments of success and fun was while I was listening to kids share their kernel essays.  Our WITS author, Mrs. Bolton, has been teaching mini-lessons on figurative language.  She's covered similes, metaphors and personification so far.  One of our students last week used a simile in his conclusion to drive home the reason he just couldn't live without books!  The quick writes they do with Mrs. Bolton each week are fun and imaginative.  It was so fun to watch them apply it to our new genre of writing last week!!

Spelling

Spelling continues this week.  New words will come home on Wednesday, January 28. Spelling homework is due 2/3/15.  Spelling tests will be given on 2/4/15. Many children struggled last week to get back in the rhythm of spelling.  Please check in with your child to make sure he or she is on track to complete spelling homework on time.

Social Studies

During Story of America we will create trading cards to help us solidify our learning about the explorers below:

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)-An Italian explorer working for Spain who sailed to the Americas while trying to reach Asia from Europe.

William Clark and Meriwether Lewis – American explorers who, in 1803, led The Corps of Discovery in exploring the land west of the Mississippi River. They journeyed overland across North America to the Pacific Coast and back.

Daniel Boone (1734-1820)-An American pioneer leader who helped settle the state of Kentucky and created the Wilderness Road, a trail in the Appalachian Mountains that early settlers used to move west.

Juan de Oñate (ca. 1550-1626) A Spanish explorer who founded the first European settlements in the upper Rio Grande Valley, including the city of El Paso. 

A study guide will come home Monday, 1/26.  Our test will be on 2/3/15.

4th graders will take a practice STAAR test on Thursday.  We will have an alternate schedule.  Lunch will be at 12:45 and specials at 1:15 on Thursday of this week.

Update from Mrs. Ford

LANGUAGE ARTS

READING

Reading

We will continue working with non-fiction features.  Students will learn how to use a FQR (Facts, Questions and Responses) chart this week as a note taking tool and helpful tool to solidify comprehension.

WRITING
Students have been working hard in writing.  We have selected a kernel narrative to take through the writing process.  Last week and this week we have talked about snapshot lead.  Students have brainstormed what senses were engaged at the beginning of their memorable moment.  We have almost finished adding our first round of details to our leads and will continue to learn how to participate in peer and teacher conferences to fine tune our writing.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Landforms

We are starting a new unit in Social Studies, Geography.  Our geography unit is made up of two parts, landforms and map skills. We will start the unit with a look at landforms.  This week and last we review many landforms that are, hopefully, familiar to our students.  

The BIG idea in social studies that we will try to drive home is that our daily life is affected by the land surrounding us.  When we plan vacations, what we pack, what we do, and our travel are all determined by the land and water features surrounding our destination.  

Some of our upcoming vocabulary will be:

Geography-the study of Earth’s features

Landform- natural features, or shapes, of the land including mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus, etc.

Climate- the kind of weather a place has over a long period of time

Human Feature- something that people add to the landscape, such as a building

     Adapt- change to fit the environment

We've used this video and songs to help us remember the different types of landforms.

States Road trip, Synthesizing to Summarizing and Procedural Text

Spelling
We WILL NOT have spelling this week.

Reading
Synthesizing and Summarizing are still on our list of things to do well in Reading over the next few weeks.  

This week we will work with NON-FICTIONAL texts.  We will use a few different graphic organizers to help us notice text elements and record our thinking as we read. Their notes will cover the sequence of events that happen in the story.  Their thinking may also include connections, predictions, questions and inferences.

Writing
Mrs. Jenny Holter will help us finalize our work with procedural texts.  She will visit all classes again this week and help us create some shared writing!

SOCIAL STUDIES
STORY OF AMERICA

Our states QUIZ is this week.  Please make sure that your child has been studying the name and location of the 30 states sent home in the review 2 weeks ago.  This week students will participate in a grade level road trip.
Students will travel to other third grade teacher's classrooms and visit a few well known states.  While there they will virtually visit popular tourist destinations in these states.  To record the journey, they will create scrapbooks with photographs and journal entries.  Everyone will also collect souvenirs from each state trip.  

Update from Mrs. Ford

Language Arts

Reading

This week in reading, we will start to talk about using context clues when we read to help us determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.  Students will learn a variety of "clues" that good writers often include to help readers make meaning of what's in the story.  We will be using non-fiction this week as begin.

In small groups, students will be reading non-fiction and poetry with me.  In these groups we will be working on a variety of reading topics depending on what your child and their group needs.  I have looked over our benchmark data and will be targeting children's needs.  

Writing

We will focus on developing strong leads this week in our work with personal narratives.  

Last week, students completed postcards to friends and family describing an imaginary vacation.  This writing was integrated with our social studies curriculum.  Students included new learning about how landforms, location and climate can change the activities we choose and the way we dress when we are on vacation.

Spelling

Spelling groups will continue this week.  Please look for new words to come home on Monday nights.  Students have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to complete 8 points on their spelling menus.  The DESK fairy showed up after school on Friday and awarded spelling homework coupons to student's with a clean and organized desk.  If your student has earned a coupon, he or she may staple it into the spelling spiral in place of 4 points of homework.

Social Studies

Geography

Click on the link below to check out this cool new rap and song we've been singing to help us remember the different types of landforms.

http://youtu.be/7v7R2bALbgI

We will continue to learn about landforms.  This week we will start thinking of various ways to describe landforms and bodies of water.  We will read the book, I AM THE OCEAN. It will serve as our mentor test as we begin to create LANDFORM POETRY using personification!