Week 26: February 27-March 3

Important Dates and Reminders:

Family Fair Raffle: Raffle items are displayed in the cafeteria this Monday through Thursday. Students will have an opportunity to put their tickets in prize buckets at lunch only. To buy tickets, students may bring money to their homeroom teacher first thing each morning, in a labeled envelope or baggie. Tickets will be delivered to them at lunch. Tickets are .50 each. Please send exact amounts of money; no change will be made. Raffle winners will be announced Friday morning just after the announcements.

HCE Family Fair Dismissal: No student will be allowed to go directly to the fair on their own. Please be sure you have filled out the Family Fair Dismissal form and given it to your child's homeroom  teacher. Students without this form will be sent home their usual way on Friday afternoon. Parents...arrive early (2:30ish) to get a parking space. Front doors and the gate between the gym and 5th grade hall will be open. Wait outside your child's classroom until 2:40 when children will be dismissed to the person listed on the dismissal form. There will be a sign-out sheet. Please clear the hallway by 2:55 so teachers can take the remaining children to their regular way home.

February

27- 3rd Grade Practice Math STAAR

27- PTA RALLY DAY in Austin 

27-  Family Fair Raffle begins in cafeteria during lunch times

March

February 27- March 2- Family Fair Raffle in cafeteria during lunch times

3- HCE Family Fair

This week in third grade:

Reading: Readers will be working on their biography project this week! Students chose a person last week that they are interested in learning more about and started taking notes on that person's life and accomplishments. We will revisit the features of a biography while readers turn their research into a project to display their new learning.  

Writing: Writers will continue our persuasive/argumentation essays unit. This week, we will focus on writing in essay form using our graphic organizer for support. Since this unit is new, we will spend more time on structure and format of an essay. 

Essential writing questions this week:

What purpose does the introduction have?
How can we transform our organizer into sentences?

What makes a strong paragraph? 

What purpose does the conclusion have? 

Spelling: Students will receive new words on Thursday, March 2nd, and their test will be on Thursday, March 9th. 

White group: Students will receive new words on Wednesday, March 1st, and their test will be on Wednesday, March 8th. 

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 interdependence. This week, Tom and Sean arrive late for rehearsal and say their small jobs don't matter. Econ shows them a real-life example – the amusement park, where Sean and Tom depend on all the people who work there.

Math: On Monday, students will take the Math Practice STAAR test. The results will help us better plan for instruction the rest of the year. Tuesday and Wednesday we will review and assess all that we have studied about fractions. On Thursday, we begin a fun unit on graphing data. Tally charts, frequency tables, dot plots, pictographs and bar graphs are the kinds of representations we will explore for showing data from a survey. The following is a combination of a tally chart, complete with the typical tally marks, and a frequency table that shows in numbers how often a color was chosen.

A bar graph has many important parts. It can be horizontal or vertical and always has a scale that allows you to figure out the value of each bar. Students must discover that scale and then write the value of the bar at its end. On the following graph, the scale is 2 (counting by 2 from line to line).

Pictographs use symbols to represent a certain number of items. That number is defined in the key. Without a key, there would be no way to determine the value of each category. At times only half a symbol is shown. Students must use a value half of the number given in the key. 

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 hope you will encourage your child to take advantage of our Dreambox 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:  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? Students will be tested on the Natural Resources flowchart that we all filled out last week. Each teacher will make the date known to her classes. Conservation is the final focus for the week. We will discuss the importance of using our resources wisely and, if possible, finding alternative fuels for the world.

February 29-March 4

Parent Reminders and Information: We have a busy week ahead!

Monday-Thursday of this week students may bring money to purchase tickets for the FAMILY FAIR raffle.  Students will have a chance to place their tickets in containers for a chance to win a prize.  Prizes announced and sent home on Friday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week students will take the Math and Reading Practice STAAR tests.  Students can expect to see many concepts which have been covered this year and preview a few concepts upcoming in our lesson plans.  We will NOT look at students overall test scores on these practice tests, but will reflect on which concepts students know well and which areas still need classroom reinforcement and instruction. There are 40 days of instruction that remain before the real STAAR tests given on May 9 and May 10. The practice tests will give teachers diagnostic information to help guide our upcoming instruction both in large and small groups.

Wednesday HCE will also celebrate READ ACROSS AMERICA day as we celebrate the life and work of Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss.  Our fifth grade students will be presenting projects and reading stories from this beloved author.

Thursday notes are due if you are going to change your child’s transportation for FAMILY FAIR.  Complete  THIS FORM  and return it to your child's homeroom teacher by March 3rd.  We will not be able to make changes the day of the Family Fair.  

Friday We will work to have a normal day of instruction. Raffle winners will be announced.  Forms turned in on Thursday, March 3rd will guide our dismissal for this day.  Family fair will be on the HCE field from 3p.m.-6p.m. :)   

Language Arts

Reading- We will finish our work determining importance in non fiction.  Students will use their notes of interesting vs important facts to create focused summaries on their reading.

Writing- Students have been doing a SUPER job finalizing their narratives or stories from my life.  This week, we will practice giving and receiving feedback from others to make sure that our stories reach all readers.

Spelling/Word Work- Due to PSTAAR on Wednesday, our spelling tests this week will be on THURSDAY, March 3.  We will take spelling application grades March 4-11.

Social Studies-   Students will work to create their Social Studies project for this 9 weeks, a flip book on INVENTORS and SCIENTISTS.  This project will be completed in class and shared with you at Publisher's Picnic!   Students always work extra hard when they know their audience and stage is publisher's picnic.  I can't wait to read their reflections on these peoples work; Jonas Salk, Maria Mitchell, Cyrus McCormick, Bill Gates, and Louis Pasteur.

Math- In math this week, we will begin our unit on Fractions. We finished graphing on Friday. On Thursday, we will dive into unit fractions and on Friday we will begin learning about non unit fractions. Due to Practice STAAR, the only homework for math this week will be to study fast facts. My hope is to see every student pass the Fast Facts Quiz they are on. We have many who have made their way through multiplication and they are on to division. Keep up the great work! 

Science- During our science time this week, we will discuss fossil fuels and learn how they help us generate electricity. We will review a diagram of a power plant and discuss the stages of generating electricity. 

If you plan to visit your child at lunch, please note the change in lunch times:
Monday and Friday: 12:00 - 12:30
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: 12:40 - 1:10

We encourage parents and families to save the date and join the third grade team from 6-7p.m. on Wednesday, March 30^th for our STAAR Night in the HCE Library.  During this time, we will discuss:

·         The purpose of the test and its results

·         Level of Expectation on each test using sample questions

·         Strategies being taught in the classroom

·         How to support your child at home

·         General Information about the test itself including:

a.    Schedule: Dates/Times

b.    Format of the test

c.    Timeline for results

We will close the time together with a Q&A session for parents and families. We appreciate your support at home as, together, we continue to build strong mathematicians and readers.