Week 19: January 15th-19th

Week 19:  January 15th- 19th 
Reminders: 
1/15:  School Holiday We hope you all had a fabulous three day weekend!
Force and Motion Science Quiz is on Wednesday, January 24th!

Reading:  Your readers will continue to dive deeper into nonfiction text features.  We will learn how to navigate detailed maps, diagrams, tables, photographs, and captions and discuss how these features support our understanding of the text topic.  As nonfiction readers, we access information from these various features and tools within the text in a different way than fiction stories and poems we read.  It takes practice!  We will continue to model and think through informational articles about Earth's resources, a tsunami warning system, and sea turtles.

Writing:  We will begin the final stages of our poetry writing unit this week.  Your writers have been hard at work drafting a variety of poems since returning to school in 2018.  We will end our week choosing some of our favorites to revise and edit.  We will prepare some of our best as well as favorite poems to publish using Google Docs.  We will celebrate our hard work within our writing community early next week. 

Social Studies:  We worked our way through academic language associated with maps and map skills last week and will apply what we learned this week.  We will practice interpreting maps of places and regions in order to identify and locate information related to the area.  For example, identifying mountain ranges and rivers in the region or explaining directions from one city to another using a compass rose or other piece of information from the map.  

Math: We will continue to solve addition and subtraction problems regarding time intervals in minutes using pictorial models and/or tools. It is important to remember the danger zone. This is when the minute hand reaches to the 50 and 55 minute mark and the hour hand looks like it has reached the next hour. The students will continue to manipulate clocks to deepen their understanding of time.  

The Danger Zone

Later in the week, students will be introduced to multiplication. Please make sure your mathematicians are on DreamBox and SumDog

Example problem: Melissa has a ballet class at 3:10. Her jazz class starts 45 minutes later. Does Melissa need to add or subtract to find the start time for her jazz class? How do you know?

Science: We will observe forces such as magnetism, friction, and gravity acting on objects. The students will be engaged in activities such as demonstrating how magnets attract and repel as well as using pulleys. We will then have our Force and Motion quiz is on Wednesday, January 24th. Students should be studying the yellow vocabulary cards and information sheet daily for homework until the test. Important concepts to remember:

• Compass needles point north because of magnetism.
• Like poles repel and opposite poles attract.
• Attract is a pull.
• Repel is a push.

Week 32: April 17th- April 21st

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 

• Mrs. Scott will begin her maternity leave starting on Wednesday, 4/19/17.  Please help us welcome her long-term substitute, Sylvia Tramuto.  Mrs. Tramuto is a familiar face at HCE.  We feel lucky to have her join our team while Mrs. Scott welcomes baby Landry!  

Reading:  This week will be our second week of reviewing inferring strategies.  Inferring requires higher order thinking skills, which is naturally a more challenging task for a reader. Last week we reviewed that inferences are made when a reader combines text clues and their own background knowledge.  We practiced using text evidence to support our inferences. Utilizing text evidence to support an inference is crucial during a test-taking scenario.  This week, we will continue to infer and support our inferences with text evidence. We will spend a lof of our time this week thinking through texts in pairs in order to draw conclusions about the story or article we read in order to correctly answer a STAAR-like question.  A lot of the time, there may be more than one reasonable answer.  It is important to revisit the text in order to choose the best answer that relates to the text evidence.    

Writing:  We can't wait for you to hear your writer's persuasive essay at our HCE Publisher's Picnic later in May (see date above).  We will shift genres this week in Writer's Workshop as we begin our letter writing unit.  We will begin the week identifying the parts of a letter (e.g. date, greeting, body, closing).  As the week progresses, we will study and write three types of letters:  friendly, informative, and thank you.      

Spelling:  Students will receive new spelling words on Thursday, April 20th.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, April 27th.   April 28th-May 5th, teachers will be looking for students to apply those spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies:  It is all about Texas festivals this week in social studies!  When immigrants came to our state, they brought certain customs and cultures from their homelands with them.  A way we respect and celebrate the various cultures in Texas is through cultural celebrations.  We can learn about all of the different cultural traditions (e.g. food, music) at festivals.  This week, we will read, reflect, and respond about various Texas festivals.  Be sure to ask your child what festival they found most interesting.       

Math: In math this week, we will be working on finding a relationship between numbers presented in a table. This can often be called input-output tables. We will discuss the importance to find the rule or pattern between the numbers and that the pattern must be continuous. 

We will end the week discussing financial literacy. Topics we will cover will be the difference between planned and unplanned spending decisions, opportunity cost,  and credit. This unit will connect with your child's economic unit they had during social studies. Some good vocabulary to review for this unit would be credit, borrower, and interest. 

Science:  This week, we will finish discussing temperature and how to read thermometers. We will also have your child research a city and record temperatures over the week. Your child can see how temperature can change over time. They can also see differing spring season temperatures. 

Week 23: February 6-10

Reminders and Upcoming dates to put on your calendar:

Book Fair This Week: HCE will celebrate reading with our annual Book Fair. Students may shop during our class times listed below. Feel free to send any money that your child can spend on books. Parents are also welcome to join us during our class visit. 

Badrak/Jackson  Tuesday 9:15 to 9:45

Rozzell/Scott  Tuesday 2:30 to 2:55

Ford/Duncan  Wednesday 9:15 to 9:45

Behavior Chart Change: In order to save paper and make communication between home and school more simple, we will not be using the printed behavior charts anymore. Instead, teachers will jot down any behavior comments in your child's planner (near the bottom of the day). Please initial the comment so that we know you received our note. Thank you for supporting and reinforcing the work we do at school!

WITS Field Trip to The Menil Museum: Thursday, February 16th from 8:45am-12:00pm. Permission slips will be coming home in Tuesday Newsday Folders this week. Please fill out and return as soon as possible. 

February

9 - Donuts with Dads 

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

16- WITS Field Trip to The Menil Museum 

17 - Noon Dismissal

20- President's Day (No School)

24- Go Texans Day

This week in third grade...

Reading: Readers will dive deeper into nonfiction text features. We will learn how to navigate detailed maps, diagrams, tables, and photographs and discuss how the feature supports our learning. Instead of modeling in nonfiction books, we will be focusing on articles this week. 

Essential Question: How does this feature help me (the reader) access information? 

Example of an article with detailed text features:

Writing: Writers will continue our persuasive/argumentation essays unit. We will focus heavily on identifying claims and supporting points in essays we consume, but we will also begin working on our own claims! We know that authors of persuasive essays need support points to "hold up" their claim, so we will find points that strongly support our point of view. 

Author's argument =claim + support

Key Terms:
Argue
Make a Case
Point of View
Claim
Support Points
Fact
Opinion

Spelling: Students received new words on Thursday, February 2nd and will take their test on Thursday, February 9th. 

White group: Students received new words on Wednesday, February 1st and will take their test on Wednesday, February 8th. 

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 scarcity. When the children decide they want to build a clubhouse, they discover there is a scarcity of wood. 

Math: In Math this week students will experience fractions on a number line. We will learn how to represent fractions on a number line with a whole located from 0 to 1. The whole can be divided into 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 equal parts. 

Students will learn how to draw and identify fractions by "swishing" the numerator and denominator of a fraction. To represent 2/3, the number line must be divided into 3 equal parts. Starting at 0, swish under the line to confirm that the denominator is 3. Then swish on the top of the line the numerator 2 to locate the 2/3 point. Two-thirds is the piece from 0 to the 2/3 mark.

We will use this "swish" method to compare two fractions that have different denominators but are part of the same size whole.

Everyone will have written math homework Monday through Wednesday nights. Students will receive a Problem of the Week (POW) on Monday. It is due on Friday. Please work with your child to complete this. Your math conversation can be very helpful. 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.

Science: We wrap up our unit on Rapid Changes to Earth's Surface this week. Early in the week we will explore the constructive and destructive forces of tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes. Midweek we will review for our final quiz on Thursday, February 9. This is a date change from last week. Students should be studying the vocabulary cards and review sheet that went home last week. On Friday, we hope to begin a new unit on Earth's Natural Resources.