4/18 - 4/22

We hope that you enjoy the LONG weekend! 
REMINDERS:Scholastic book orders may be made online or you may send back the paper order with a check.  Please have April book orders turned in by Friday, April 22. PLEASE NOTE A CHANGE IN ASSESSMENT DATES.


LANGUAGE ARTS
READING- April is poetry month.  We will review poetry vocabulary and types of poems this week.  I'll be pulling small groups based on the two selection practice your child did in class last week.  Look for those to come home in the Tuesday Newsday folder.  This can serve for a great spring board for conversation at home about books and news. We will not send home a reading selection for homework this week due to the short school week.

WRITING- We will finish our criteria chart this week for what makes an INCREDIBLE story from my life.  The last few weeks of school we will spend walking ourselves through the writing process and producing and sharing stories from our lives.  Helping your child reflect on experiences or even say, "Hey, you should write that as one of your stories in school." could serve as great help when writer's are trying to get started during the process.

SPELLING- Words went home last week.  Spelling Test, Thursday 4/21.  Application grade 4/22-4/27.


SOCIAL STUDIES- Economic review sheets went home last Thursday. Our test will be Friday, April 22.  Remember to have your child use his or her log in on studiesweekly.com to review and preview concepts.  Our economics unit covers weeks 19-23. 


Math: In math this week, we will be discussing coins, bills, personal financial literacy, and patterns that can be found on a number line. As we review time and we begin reviewing money, I encourage you to talk with your children at home about these topics. It is important for your children to practice saying the time and reading a clock. Even with our short week, we will have three nights of homework. The homework this week will be a review on graphing, time, and money. Please encourage your child to do their homework and not use a homework pass. As we get into STAAR mode, we are sending work to help review and it is important for your child to continue to practice. We will have a problem of the week this week and a fast facts quiz on Friday. Please study the multiplication facts nightly. Your child needs to complete all of their multiplication facts before they leave third grade. Please check their progress on their multiplication checklist located in their green binder.

Science: In science this week, we will begin discussing the planets in our solar system. We will learn the order off the planets. We will use the mnemonic device - My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos- to help us remember the planets in order. Your child will also have an opportunity to create their own mnemonic device.

***UPDATE - The Solar System test will be on Tuesday, April 26th***

4/4-4/8

REMINDERS:
NOON DISMISSAL on Thursday, April 7 and Friday, April 8.  If you will need to change your child's transportation those two days, please send a handwritten note each day.  Thanks!

LANGUAGE ARTS
READING- Author's Purpose will be our work this week.  We will discuss how Author's Purpose can be as easy as PIE (Persuade, Inform, Entertain).  Around the table at home, discuss things you have read or seen on TV and what the purpose might be for those texts.  You can also check out the sites listed on Language Arts Websites and scroll down until you see Author's Purpose.
WRITING- Studies engaged in great discussion last week as they read other people's narratives and decided if they were good or bad examples.  We learned that text structure can really make or break a story.  This week, we will create a class critera chart for a good narrative and begin making some of our own.
SPELLING- Words went home last week.  Spelling Test 4/6.  Application grade 4/7-4/12.

SOCIAL STUDIES- We are knee deep in economics.  A few of our new concepts and vocabulary words are free enterprise, consumers, supply, demand, budget, wants, needs, spending and saving.  Remember to have your child use his or her log in on studiesweekly.com to review and preview concepts.  Our economics unit covers weeks 19-23.

MATH-On Monday, we talking about congruent figures and we learned that congruent figures must be the same size and the same shape. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be learning about 3D Shapes. We will classify the shapes on Tuesday by curved surfaces, prisms, and pyramids. On Wednesday, we will learn about faces, vertices, and edges.

This is how we identify faces, vertices, and edges

Prisms and Pyramids 

Curved Surfaces 

On Thursday and Friday, we will be discussing lines of symmetry. On Thursday, we will learn about shapes with just one line of symmetry. On Friday, our students will work with shapes that have more than one line of symmetry. 

This week, your child will have review homework for area, perimeter, and a mixed review. The problem of the week will be due on Friday and the fast facts quiz will be taken on Friday. On Thursday, your child will be quizzed over 2D shapes. In class each day, we will review the 2D shapes with a game. Please spend time at home learning about these polygons. 

SCIENCE- In Science, we are starting our space unit!  The kids love this time of year!  In the beginning of the week we will study the sun and all its wonder.  The kids will discover these very important facts:

1. The sun is only a medium sized star.

2. The sun looks so big because its our closest star.

3. Other stars look so small because they are so far away.

4. The sun is made of hydrogen and helium.

5. The temperatures of the inner core and surface of the sun.

6. The sun is 4.6 billion years old and halfway through its life.

7. The sun gives us heat and light.

8. The sun drives the water cycle.

9. The sun gives us gravity and keeps us and all the other planets in orbit.  

Tuesday and Wednesday we will learn about the moon.  The last part of the week we will discover the intricate relationship of the sun, moon, and earth.  

Update 2/2/-2/12

Language Arts

Reading- We are moving into a new genre of study for a few weeks.  We will be focusing on nonfiction.  This week we will review and introduce new nonfiction text features.  Text features are things found in nonfiction texts that help the reader understand and synthesize new information.

Writing- We are continuing to finish up our work on narratives.  This week we are reproducing a narrative with dialogue and inner thinking.  We are also working on adding these elements to our own narrative stories.

Spelling/Word Work- Our spelling test is 2/3.  Application grades will be taken 2/4-2/9.  New words will go home 2/10.

Social Studies- We continue to learn about people who have impacted the Story of America. For the first half of our unit we have focused on explorers.  Men and women who were brave enough to go discover new lands! We also spent an entire week on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and how his story impacted our history.  Students brought home a study sheet for our first assessment on Monday.  Please use the green sheet, newspaper, journals and online resources to help your student prepare for this test on 2/9.  We will begin the second half of our study with a look into the scientist and inventors whose creations impact our daily lives and health!

Reading, Economics and Research Writing

Spelling
We WILL have spelling this week.  Menus are due on Thursday.  Test day is Friday.

Reading
We have been mixing things up in reading.  I have used our last set of benchmarks to target student needs.  Our groups have been changing weekly as we work on poetry, expository, biography, summary, context clues, cause and effect, procedural texts, etc.

When they are not in a small group with me, they are working at stations designed around what concept they need reinforced.  

Reading passages are still coming home each week.  They should be in the homework folder on Monday and are due Friday.  It is IMPERATIVE that everyone practices the format for the test.  We have SUPER readers this year and I don't want the format of the test to hinder their ability.

Also, we still have 20 minutes of nightly reading for homework.  Many students have been letting this slide.  Please help your child stay strong in his or her commitment to homework for these last few months of school.

Writing
Students selected three planets that they would be interested in researching and writing about this 9 weeks.  Everyone has been assigned a planet, the sun, or the moon.  We have now spent two weeks learning about researching and researching.  Last week we working on writing our introduction paragraph for our research paper.  This week, we will learn about topic sentences and begin writing and revising the various paragraphs that will make up the body of our paper.

SOCIAL STUDIES
ECONOMICS

Our test on personal economics will be Tuesday, April 15.  Review sheets and vocabulary will come home Tuesday, April 8.  Students are welcome to take home Social Studies Journals to help them study each night.  Please make sure that the journals come back to school.  We will add notes and ideas to them each day.

Mrs. Ford's Classroom Update 12/9-12/13

LANGUAGE ARTS
Spelling
We WILL have spelling homework this week.  Please look for new words to come home on Monday.  Students should return their spelling menu homework on Thursday.  Our test will be on Friday. 

Reading
Students will start to learn to infer in reading.  Inferring is something we do ALL the time.  You notice that your friend isn’t as talkative and you ask what’s wrong, you see a picture of people bundled up and you know that the weather is cold, these sorts of thoughts are what we call an inference.

In third grade, we use a helpful equation to infer.  BK+TC=I.  This means that our background knowledge, plus text clues help us make an inference about characters, settings and events in the stories we read.  This week we will focus on making an inference with photographs and poetry.   

Writing
Students will start working in small groups to research a cultural holiday.  They will work with their groups to take notes, and organize a presentation to teach the class about their learning the week before Winter Break.  Please let me and your student know if you will be leaving early that week (12/16-12/20).  We want to make sure that he or she gets the chance to contribute to the group project.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Map Skills
Students are hard at work designing their own city using a grid map.  This week we will practice using a map scale.  Your child will bring home a review sheet on Tuesday to help him or her prepare for the next Social Studies test on Map Skills.  They are welcome to use this review, vocabulary cards and the Social Studies Journal to prepare.  Please make sure that the Social Studies Journal comes back to school every day.  We will continue to add notes about our learning.