Week 3: September 5-9

Reminders:

• Lunch with Heroes is on Friday, September 9th.  Wear red, white, and blue to celebrate eating lunch with our heroic community members!  We invite all heroes to Friday's lunch - military, police, fire department and more! Have a connection with one of these heroes?  Be sure to bring them to HCE to eat lunch with our third graders from 12:00-12:30. 
• Curriculum Night is September 15th. Third grade time slot is from 6:35-7:15. This is following the PTA meeting from 5:50-6:30.
• BEFORE Curriculum Night, please take 10 minutes and watch our third grade video (Will be linked and sent out shortly!).  Information in this video will help you know about the content we will cover this year with your child.  Our meeting on the 15th of September will include: a short and fun quiz on the content in the video, classroom expectations, classroom management, communication, and homework.  We know you are busy and have worked hard to create this video and streamline our presentation in person to get you the best information in the most concise fashion.

Reading - We will learn how to preview a text this week in Reader's Workshop. It is important for young readers, when learning how to pick a good book to read, to know the process of previewing a book.  This will help them determine if the book fits their purpose, interest, and ability.  Students have been sticky note crazy!  We've introduced your child to tracking their thinking while reading using sticky notes and symbols. They have enjoyed this new found way to leave their thinking in their books. This week we will help them learn how to use their notes to create reader's response journal entries in their Reader's Notebooks.  Your child's language arts teacher will continue to administer DRA assessments.

Writing- We will begin our week continuing to brainstorm ideas for writing stories from our interests, memories, and experiences.  We look forward to hearing more stories from our students while utilizing focused storytelling with one another.  We will transfer brainstorming and storytelling into our notebook as we reflect on the question "What do writer's do?"  We will wrap up the week with students creating writing goals for this 9 week period.  

Word Work- This week we will introduce students to a variety of ways that we will attack word work in our classrooms.  They will have a GENERIC list of spelling words.  We WILL NOT be taking a REAL test with these words.  Our words will stay in the classroom and be used to help us understand and practice some components of word study.  

Social Studies- Wow!  What wonderful classroom communities we have built the last two weeks!  We are excited to use our social studies resource this week, Studies Weekly Newspaper.  We will read week 1 of our newspaper and discover how thoughtful citizens of our world have made lasting contributions to our society. 

Math: This week in math, we will be working place value. We will be looking at placing number on number lines as a strategy of comparing numbers. We are then veturing into studying five digit and six digit numbers. When looking at five digit and six digit numbers we will look at the different forms to represent the number through word form, expanded, standard form, and with number lines. 

Also we use place value to compare numbers. We discussed last week about starting with the largest place value when comparing two or more numbers. 

Some vocabulary we are working on is place, value, greater than, less than, compare, ten- thousands place, hundred thousands place. 

   

Science:   In science this week, we will be exploring our observation skills as part are work in the scientific method that will get us prepared for conducting experiments. We will discuss and apply observation skills with our senses and how that will be used as data for experiments. At the end of the week, we will have our first science experiment and go through the scientific method. 

Week 2

Reminders: First day packet forms are due Friday, September 2.
We have a school holiday, Monday, September 5.  We hope you will have a safe and fun Labor Day weekend.

Reading: We will continue to build routines and establish expectations for Reader's Workshop. This week students will continue to talk about our thinking while we read.  Students will participate in discussions on: What was the story about?  How do you know if you have picked a good book? What do you do when you get hung up on something in your book?  How can you track your thinking while you read?

Teachers will begin pulling students for reading assessments.  This time with your student helps us get to know them a bit more as a reader.  Please know that reading teachers will pull all 40 students for assessments during the month of September.  You do not need to prep your child for this reading time.  The assessment will give us a good look at a starting point for our instruction and guide our creation of small groups.

Classes will get to the library for the first time this week.  Our schedule is below.  We hope that many of you will volunteer in the library and help us navigate our way to great books!

Badrack/Jackson- Tuesdays at 12:40

Duncan/Ford- Wednesdays at 9:00

Rozzell/Scott- Thursdays at 9:00

Writing:  It was a pleasure to watch your children build their Writer's Notebooks this week.  It was a wonderful opportunity for us to get to know each other better and for the storytelling and sharing to begin!  This week in writing we will continue to build anchors and lists of stories we might be able to share.  Students will generate ideas and practice focused storytelling in partners before moving to writing in their journals.  
We'd love you help at home!  Cultivate a culture of storytelling at home.  Everyone LOVES a good story.  Stories we love to hear have a point and share an event we have in common with those around us or an interesting event that has made an impact on who we are.

Word Work:  This week we will administer the Words Their Way Inventory.  This assessment will be given three times throughout the school year to track students progress and developmental understanding of how words and spelling patterns work.  This assessment is not graded.  It will be used for information to help develop lessons and small groups that will target your child's learning needs.

Social Studies: We will introduce our Social Studies resources to students this week.  They will work to build their Social Studies resource folder and journal.  We will also use our story sharing in Writing to continue to build our classroom community.

Math:Last week in math we learned about classroom procedures and routines. We began reviewing some second grade skills. This week we will continue working on standard form, word form, and expanded form on numbers up to 100,000. 

This week we will be discussing in greater depth the value of each place.  The students will be taught strategies on how to compare and order numbers using the greater than and less than sign.  We will be introducing some new Math Station games to the kids to practice these skills as well. Last week, I encouraged your child to begin practicing their math facts every night or five minutes. The class blog has some great websites to practice - you can find these under the Math Websites page on the right side of the blog.

Science: We skimmed the surface in Science last week.  The kids made a title page and table of contents for their Science Journal and decorated them with Science Icons.  On Thursday we talked about “What is a Scientist?” We discovered all the different types of Scientists that exist and began working on our first project.  In Science next week we will be going through Lab Safety procedures and learning the names of many Science tools.  On Tuesday,  we will take a gallery walk with a partner and work on categorizing tools by tools that are used for observation, safety, measurement, or recording.

Welcome to 3rd Grade!

We are excited to a new year and ready for the FIRST day of school!  

REMINDERS:

• ·         If your child did not purchase school supplies, he or she will need $5.00 to purchase a planner from the front office.  Third graders keep track of daily homework in planners.  This will be a great organizational tool for your child to learn to use this year. 

• Third graders need to go to the gym before school begins each day. They are welcome to walk to our classrooms at 7:45am. 

 

• Children will be counted tardy if they arrive after 7:55 A.M.

• Children will be counted absent if they arrive after 9:15 A.M.

• You are welcome to escort your child to class on the first day of school, but please allow him or her to enter the room independently.

·         Please send a healthy snack and a reusable water bottle daily. We have snack time each morning after specials.   Due to peanut allergies across the grade level, we ask that you send peanut free snacks and lunch items this year.

·         Your child’s lunch number will be the same as it was last year. We will have lunch numbers available for any child who might have forgotten. We eat lunch from 12:00-12:30 daily.

• Dismissal is at 3:00 P.M.  If your child will be picked up in a car in parent pick up, you must write his or her name on a piece of large yellow paper. Please write your child’s first and last name as large as you can on the paper. This will help the teacher on duty to see and call your child’s name in a timely manner.

• It can get chilly in the classrooms. Please send a light jacket, sweater or sweat shirt in your child’s backpack so that he or she will be comfortable. Remember to write your child’s name on the tag inside so that it can be returned if lost.

READING:  During reading this week we will be talking about books and the ways that reading impacts our lives.  
To help with this practice, you can talk to your child about your reading life.  Do you enjoy novels?  Do you read the newspaper?  Are you an e reader or a paper reader?  Are you a member of a professional or personal reading group?  What story was your favorite when you were a third grader?  
WRITING: This week we will introduce the writer's notebook and establish expectations and procedures for writer's workshop.  We ask that students bring pictures, stickers, and mementos to decorate their writer's notebook by Thursday, 8/25.  Please make sure to send things that are okay for us to glues and adhere to the journals.  Items will not be returned.

SOCIAL STUDIES: For the first few weeks of school we will be building our classroom community through games, conversations and activities that help us learn more about each other.  

MATH: In math this week, we will begin setting up our math journals that we will use daily for word problems. We will discuss thing about ourselves that involve numbers: shoe sizes, address, phone numbers, age, number of family members, etc. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we will review vocabulary for addition and subtraction and think of words that mean the same thing as adding or subtracting. We will not have homework in math this week. 

SCIENCE: During our science time this week, we will set up our interactive science journals. We will create a table of contents that will help us stay organized this year. We will brainstorm types of scientists in our world and your child will have the opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of a scientist. On Thursday and Friday, we will discuss lab safety and complete a gallery walk with science tools. 

Welcome to Third Grade!!

Welcome to 3rd Grade at Hunters Creek Elementary!

We are looking forward to getting to know you, learning together and having some fun in the process.  Feel free to look around the blog and find out a little more about what's to come this year!

Love,
Your Third Grade Teachers

We hope you are having a fun and wonderful summer!  We will be transforming our blog into a grade level blog for next year's third graders.  If you wish to no longer be subscribed to this blog, please click the unsubscribe link in the email sent to you.

Thanks!

Winds of Time and End of Year

Monday, May 23- PUBLISHER's PICNIC, Please make plans to join your child in the third grade courtyard from 12:00-12:30p.m.  They will share with you much of their work from this school year.  It's a great time to see the growth they have made this year and celebrate their success.  Because this is a school wide event, you will want to get here early.  

Tips on things to bring that will make the time more special:  smiles, a blanket or chairs to sit, umbrella for shade, a lunch with your child's favorite things, and plenty of water as it is to be hot and humid.

  

Tuesday, May 24- Students will participate in a school wide book swap. We hope they come home with a book that gets them excited about reading over the summer.  If you are lending us a wagon for Chariot races, please send it to school with your child or bring it to the third grade courtyard.  It helps us if your wagon is labeled with your first and last name so that we can return the correct wagons to the correct owners.

Wednesday, May 25- CHARIOT RACE DAY!   

Chariot races will take place on the field.  Parents and families are encouraged to attend.  Please make sure to get to school early to check in at the front office before heading to the field.  The race will begin at 8:30.  It’s a short but fun celebration, so don’t be late!

AND…We will also have a have a visit this day from author Liesl Shurtliff.  Please make sure you have those book orders into Mrs. Moore.

Thursday, May 26- Learning Adventures--Ancient Rome.  In Language Arts and Social Studies, students have been consuming information about Ancient Rome from books, presentations, videos and even apps. We will work to use our new found knowledge to write books to share with friends and family.  These books also make a great keepsake! During Math and Science, students will continue to learn about Roman Numerals, Volcanoes, and the Architecture of Ancient Rome.

Friday, May 27- Learning Adventures--Ancient Rome. In Language Arts and Social Studies, students have been consuming information about Ancient Rome from books, presentations, videos and even apps. We will work to use our new found knowledge to write books to share with friends and family.  These books also make a great keepsake! During Math and Science, students will continue to learn about Roman Numerals, Volcanoes, and the Architecture of Ancient Rome.

Monday, May 30- SCHOOL HOLIDAY

Tuesday, May 31- Winds of Time Assembly at 8:30a.m.  You will want to make sure you get to school on time that day to get a good seat.  We will provide students with Roman costumes for this occasion.  They will either be dressed as a Roman Senator, Roman Soldier, or Roman Goddess.  Students parade to the hard top from our classrooms for our assembly.  Each grade level speaker will teach the audience about the civilization for which they spent the last weeks studying.  The ceremony closes with a song sung by the entire school.  Finally, we walk around the hallways of the school and back to our classroom.  It’s a great KODAK moment!

Wednesday, June 1-Virtual Roadtrip

Students will visit all five third grade classrooms this day to take a virtual field trip with each teacher to 5 states across the United States.  They will come home with a memory scrapbook and tales of wild adventures during our travels!

Thursday, June 2- Last Day of School

You are invited to join us from 11:15-12:00 as we end our year with a celebration in our classrooms.

End of School Sprint

Check out all of these fun and important things

we will do and learn the last few weeks of school---

Friday, May 13- STAAR PAARTY DAY.  Letters went home 5/11 to let you know about our “STAAR PAARTY” celebration. We will enjoy a fun-filled day for a job well done. For Math class, students may bring a strategy board game to play with classmates. Please keep any electronic game devices (such as PSPs or iTouches) at home.  In Language Arts, we will have a “Read In”.  Students can bring a few favorite books from home as well as a pillow, blanket or sleeping bag in order to cozy up with some good books.

Monday, May 16- We will begin our study on Ancient Rome.  Fun times ahead during this WINDS OF TIME study at HCE.

Tuesday, May 17- AUCTION WINNERS will be TEACHER FOR THE DAY.  We have five lucky kids who will be helping us teach your child's classes for the day!

Wednesday, May 18- Last Cougar Club Meetings

This special time on Wednesday afternoons has allowed so many students to pursue interests and see how their passions match with their learning!  We are grateful to the parents and community volunteers who have made the time to help our students learn more about the world in which they live.

Thursday, May 19- We will have a special visit from a local meteorologist, Travis Herzog and also attend the 5^th grade ihistory.

Friday, May 20- Thanks to our generous PTA, we will have a speaker come and share with us his knowledge and artifacts from Ancient Rome.

Monday, May 23- PUBLISHER's PICNIC, Please make plans to join your child in the third grade courtyard from 12:00-12:30.  They will share with you much of their work from this school year.  It's a great time to see the growth they have made this year and celebrate their success.  Because this is a school wide event, you will want to get here early.  

Tips on things to bring that will make the time more special:  smiles, a blanket or chairs to sit, a lunch with your child's favorite things, and plenty of water as it is to be hot and humid.

  

Tuesday, May 24- Students will participate in a school wide book swap. We hope they come home with a book that gets them excited about reading over the summer.

Wednesday, May 25- CHARIOT RACE DAY!   

Chariot races will take place on the field.  Parents and families are encouraged to attend.  Please make sure to get to school early to check in at the front office before heading to the field.  The race will begin at 8:30.  It’s a short but fun celebration, so don’t be late!

AND…We will also have a have a visit this day from author Liesl Shurtliff.  Please make sure you have those book orders in soon!

Thursday, May 26- Learning Adventures with Ancient Rome

Friday, May 27- Learning Adventures with Ancient Rome

Monday, May 30- SCHOOL HOLIDAY

Tuesday, May 31- Winds of Time Assembly at 8:30a.m.  You will want to make sure you get to school on time that day to get a good seat.  We will provide students with Roman costumes for this occasion.  They will either be dressed as a Roman Senator, Roman Soldier, or Roman Goddess.  Students parade to the hard top from our classrooms for our assembly.  Each grade level speaker will teach the audience about the civilization for which they spent the last weeks studying.  The ceremony closes with a song sung by the entire school.  Finally, we walk around the hallways of the school and back to our classroom.  It’s a great KODAK moment!

Wednesday, June 1-Virtual Raodtrip

Students will visit all five third grade classrooms this day to take a virtual field trip across the United States.  They will come home with a memory scrapbook and tales of wild adventures during our travels!

Thursday, June 2- Last Day of School

You are invited to join us from 11:30-12:00 as we end our year with a celebration in our classrooms.