Week 12: November 7 - 11

Reminders for November 7-11:

11/7 - Third Grade Recognition Ceremony at 11:00 in the Discovery Center - we will be recognizing students who receive attendance or honor roll awards based on their 1st 9 weeks report card.  Parents and family members are welcome to attend.

11/8 - Election Day at HCE - 

Please pack a nut free lunch this day.  

We will be eating in our classrooms 

while voting is taking place in the cafeteria.

11/11 - Veterans Day Program at 9:00 in the cafeteria - please have your child wear red, white, and blue. Progress Reports for the 2nd 9 weeks will be sent home this day.

Reading:  Students will start to learn to notice when they infer while 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 comment that the weather must have been cold.  These sorts of thoughts are what we call an inference.

In third grade, we use our schema (background knowledge), plus text clues to help us make an inference about characters, settings and events in the stories we read.  Some sentence stems we use to help us organize our thinking are:

I see (or I read) ________________________.  I know ____________________.  So, I can infer_______________________.

Writing: We’ve worked hard to understand the structure needed to share a story worth telling and writing.  The next few weeks we will begin to dig into mentor texts to examine author’s craft (the author’s style of writing). Each day we will either focus on a particular author or craft and to read, notice, analyze and then try to apply in our own writing.

Spelling: Spelling words went home on 11/2.  Spelling test on 11/9.  An application of spelling grade will be given sometime between 11/10-11/22, so please keep practicing words at home.  We don’t want students to just memorize words, but we hope they will internalize spelling patterns and begin to apply them in their daily work.

Social Studies: HCE students will participate in our first book election.  Our two candidates are the Book of the Month stories – Fine, Fine School and “Let’s Get A Pup!” said Kate.  Students will individually vote electronically on November 8 and the winner will be on the morning announcements on Wednesday, the 9^th. The winning book will be displayed in library! 

Students will also be practicing for and performing in a Veteran’s Day performance this week.  This a wonderful way to learn about and honor the men and women who defend and protect our country.  This will help us move into our work on Good Citizen’s for the rest of the 9 weeks grading period.

Math: On Monday, your child will take their subtraction test to finish our subtraction unit. We will continue to practice subtraction in class with our daily problem solving as well as through homework. The rest of the week we will begin learning about rounding numbers. We will round two and three digit numbers to the nearest 10 or 100. Along with rounding, we will also learn strategies for adding and subtracting rounded numbers.

Examples:

Numbers rounded to the nearest 10: 24 is rounded to 20. 78 is rounded to 80. 312 is rounded to 310.

Numbers rounded to the nearest 100: 345 is rounded to 300. 876 is rounded to 900.

We will have a problem of the week come home on Monday and it will be due on Friday. Please study fast facts daily. A review worksheet will come home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Science: In science this week, we will learn about mechanical energy and thermal energy. We will review kinetic and potential and discuss examples of what each type of energy looks like. As a class we will go to the playground and discuss when potential and kinetic energy is used while we are on the playground each day. We will have groups discussing when potential and kinetic energy is used on the swings, slide, monkey bars, soccer, and football. For thermal energy we will discuss the sources of heat that we use and things that are insulators and conductors.

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!