Week 33: April 24th-28th

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 

Reading:  We are diving into cause and effect this week.  While cause/effect is something we experience in our daily lives, identifying cause/effect within a text is tricky.  We will spend the week practicing strategies to identify cause/effect relationships in both fiction and nonfiction texts.  Our readers will gain a better grasp of the importance of identifying causes and effects throughout an informational article and/or a plot.  Doing so will answer questions like "Why did the character react that way?" or "What caused a character to do ___?"    

We will also spend part of our language arts block working with online tools called Quizlet and Epic. These resources can be found under the "Language Arts Website" link on the right side of this blog and can be accessed both during and after school. Please feel free to ask your child about these resources and use them at home as well.  

We are thankful to have the opportunity to work with reliable technology thanks to our HCE PTA!  Our students have been able to log into our Chromebooks and work with these resources daily. We are beyond grateful for these additions to our classrooms! 

Writing:  We will be wrapping up our letter writing unit this week.  We will begin this week with writing a letter to a community worker.  Students will write a letter to a police officer, fireman, or nurse/doctor in our community.  We will practice addressing envelopes as well during this process.  The publishing process will start mid-week with revising and editing. We will celebrate our letters and share with our classroom community on Friday.  

Spelling:  Students will take a test this Thursday, April 27th.  Next week, April 28th- May 4th, teachers will be looking for students to apply these spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work. 

Social Studies:  We will continue to learn about Texas cultural celebrations this week.  We have and will continue to use the online component of our Studies Weekly social studies resource to read articles about various celebrations in Texas.  We will dive a little deeper this week in certain cultural celebrations to learn about what types of foods, activities, and dances are celebrated.  The students are very interested in these celebrations! 

Math: We have now entered our STAAR Camp Unit. STAAR Camp is where we will be reviewing all of the skills covered this year in preparation for the May 8th, Math STAAR test. The main focus of this week's review will be on place value, comparing numbers, word problems, and graphing.  Homework this week will include practice problems in a STAAR-like format.  This homework is a great way to review old concepts at home. 

Thanks to PTA, we have been provided with new Chromebooks in 3rd grade. These new computers have allowed us to provide class time to work on Dreambox. This program allows for individualized lessons that are leveled to your child needs. Think Through Math is another program your child can log on and is a great review of past math concepts.  These can be accessed at home.  Your child has been provided with login information.  In addition, their username and password information was sent home on our red spring information/conference form.  Please encourage your mathematician to try these out at home as well as show you what they've been working on at school.    

Science:  We have moved from measuring temperature with a thermometer to other units of measurement. We ended last week by discussing the difference between mass and weight and determining appropriate units to measure mass and weight. We want your child familiar with both customary and metric units since we use both.  We will begin our week by looking at customary and metric units of capacity and volume. We will then transition to measuring on a ruler looking at 1/4 and 1/2 inch. 

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 31: April 10-14

Reminders:

• There will be no school this Friday April 14th.
• Scholastic Book orders due Tuesday, April 11th. 

Reading:  This week will launch a two week study of conclusions and inferences.  Inferring is something we do ALL the time.  We have learned and practiced what it means to "infer." 

When we infer, we use our schema (background knowledge), plus text clues to help us make an inference about characters, settings and events in the texts we read.  We will practice reading strategies this week to prepare our students to answer inference/drawing conclusions questions in a test-taking scenario.  We will be reading fiction and nonfiction texts in groups, partners, and independent settings to practice this very important reading skill.    

Writing:  It is PUBLICATION WEEK!  Our writers have been hard at work developing their persuasive pieces.   We will fine tune them this week as we prepare to share them with classmates on Thursday.  Your writer has worked diligently to craft their essays.  We can't wait to see the final products of their persuasive efforts!   

Spelling:  Students will take a test this Thursday, April 13th.   Next week, April 14th- April 21st, teachers will be looking for students to apply these spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies:  This week we will focus on how one artist, Kadir Nelson, made a lasting impact on a community’s culture.  We will be reading at least one book by Kadir Nelson. Nelson was dedicated to sharing the African American’s influence on our country’s culture. We will study his books and images to understand more about the stories he writes and the culture he shares with his audience.

Math: This week we will be looking at both time and money. It would be a great opportunity to have your child read clocks at home at different times as well as practice counting different coin and dollar combinations.  In addition to having your child read a analog clock, we will also be looking at elapsed time by adding time intervals of 30 minutes and 15 minutes. 

Here is an example of a type of clock problem-solving question we will be working on strategies for:

A group of students will enter the gym at 11:15. The group will then play basketball for 15 minutes. At what time will the group stop playing basketball? 

We will work on two strategies to solve this type of word problem. Each strategy will use a visual. One visual we will use is a analog clock and have students count by 5 minutes or 10 minutes to calculate the end time. Another strategy is using a number line that is labeled with the start time and then count up by hours,10 or 5 minutes to find the end time.


Please encourage your child to spend some time this week on Dreambox. This is a great program and can allow your child a great opportunity to strengthen their math skills. Here is the link https://play.dreambox.com/login/yf4j/c78d

School code for Ipad use is yf4j/c78d

Science : This week we will transition from the study of our Sun to its effect on weather here on earth. We will begin by examining thermometers and the different scales they can have. Most have a scale of 2 per line, but they can also count by 1, 5, and 10. Students will practice reading thermometers and then research the temperature in 5 different cities and display them on thermometers of different scales. 

Week 30: April 3- 7

Week of April 3rd-7th

Reminders: 

OPTIONAL SPRING CONFERENCES: Thursday and Friday we will have early dismissal for spring parent teacher conference. These conferences are optional. Please note that these conferences our optional and its only the second week of the last nine weeks. But if you would like to meet with your child's teacher to discuss your child's progress, we would be more than happy to meet with you. 

Ms. Badrak

Mrs. Duncan

Mrs. Ford

Ms. Jackson

Ms. Rozzell

Mrs. Scott

Here is our half day schedule for Thursday and Friday. 
    Thursday:                                                               Friday
7:50- 8:00 Focus Poetry                                 7: 50- 8:00 Focus Poetry
8:10- 9:25 Block One                                      8:10 - 9:00 Specials
9:25 Switch                                                     9:00- 9:50 Block one
9:30- 10:45 Block two                                     9:55- 10:45 Block two
10:45- 11:15 Lunch                                        10: 45-11: 15 Lunch
11:15- 11: 45 Recess                                     11:15- 11: 45 Recess
12:00 Dismissal                                              12:00 Dismissal                    

Language Arts teachers will send home a Scholastic book order this week in Tuesday Newsday.  This order will be due next Tuesday, April 11th. 

Reading 
Last week, we ended our week utilizing useful reading strategies.  We will use what we learned about nonfiction summaries last week to compare and analyze the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction summaries this week.  For instance, great nonfiction summaries include the main idea, or most important ideas, from the beginning, middle, and end of a text.  Great fiction summaries, on the other hand, include CPR (C=Characters, P=Problem, R=Resolution).  We will compare various summaries in order to continue practicing reading strategies across these two genres. Towards the end of the week, our readers will write a fiction summary of their own using what they know about CPR.  

Writing
We have worked very hard during Writer's Workshop to craft our essays.  We will use this week as an opportunity to prepare our essays for publishing week.  We will enter into the process of publishing week next week in order to celebrate and share our final products. We are also going to take some time this week to prepare for National Library Week (April 9th-15th)  where we thank our wonderful librarian, Mrs. Moore, for everything she does for our school!  Students will either write a poem, letter, comic, or persuasive essay that pays tribute to Mrs. Moore.  We are going to deliver these to her on Monday!   

Spelling
Students will receive new spelling words on Thursday, April 6th.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, April 13th.   April 14th- April 21st, teachers will be looking for students to apply those spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies
We will continue our study of arts and culture this week.  We will learn information about arts within a community.  We will reflect and respond to this material using graphic organizers.  

Math 

We finished off last week discussing area of figures. This next week, we will introduce perimeter of a figure. Area and perimeter can often get mixed up, so please take time to discuss both of these vocabulary words. Please take some time this week and get on Dreambox. Please use this link to get the login page. https://play.dreambox.com/login/yf4j/c78d

In this perimeter unit, we will also look at problem solving for missing side length of figures. We will be working on using good strategies when trying to solve these type problems. One of these strategies will be to add up all the side lengths and then subtract from the perimeter.  We studied in our geometry unit about how rectangles have opposite sides that are equal to the other. This knowledge of rectangles will help students find the missing side length when perimeter is unknown.




Science
We will start this week with the solar system assessment. Tuesday - Friday we will explore the fourth planet from the Sun... Mars. We will look at what attributes this planet has and how it differs from other planets in our solar system. After we discuss Mars and review solar system  characteristics, we will have a short quiz on Thursday.  Please keep practicing with your child the order of the planets and have your child share their learning about Mars this week. 

Week 29: March 27-31

Week of March 27

Reminders:

4th and 5th grade students will take the STAAR tests 3/28 and 3/29.

We will have a change of schedule to support a quiet test environment.  

The third grade schedule for those two days is:

8:00-10:20 Block One

10:20-12:35 Block Two

12:40-1:10 Lunch

1:15-2:05 Specials

2:05-2:40 Recess

2:40-3:00 Read Aloud

OPTIONAL SPRING CONFERENCES: We have noon dismissal on April 6 & 7 so that teachers have an opportunity to have an optional spring parent conference with parents who are concerned about their child's progress this year. There will not be any new testing information to share at this conference. It is only the 2nd week of the last nine weeks so there will not be many grades to review either. Teachers are happy to meet with parents who have questions or concerns about their child's progress.  

If you would like to schedule a conference during this early dismissal time, please sign up...

Ms. Badrak

Mrs. Duncan

Mrs. Ford

Ms. Jackson

Ms. Rozzell

Mrs. Scott

Reading: We will start the week with some strategy work in Reading.  When reading for tests, readers have to read with a difference purpose and lens.  We will discuss strategies test takers use when determining the best summary for a non-fiction selection. We will then review ways that test takers analyze poetry.  Finally, we will finish the week with a reading checkpoint to see how students apply reading strategies reviewed this week and the weeks since we took the practice STAAR. 

Writing:Writing is a process that can't be rushed.  As one of our WITS writers said, "You're never really finished; you just have a deadline."  We've worked hard in class to transform our essays from outlines to full paragraphs.  Students have learned about various ways to start or lead a read into their essays.  We will continue to work on revising and editing techniques this week as we prepare to finalize our essays to be audience ready.

Spelling:Students received new spelling words on Thursday, March 23.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, March 30.  Teachers will then look for them to apply them correctly to their responses in reading and writing and an application grade will be taken between Friday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 5.

Social Studies:Over the next few weeks in Social Studies, we will focus on the importance of writers and artists to the cultural heritage of our communities.  Students will learn about the life and work of Maya Angelou, Larry McMurtry, Tommy dePaola and Mark Twain.

Math: During our math time this week, we will wrap up our learning on 2D and 3D shapes. We will construct a 3D shape in class and identify the shape based on its characteristics. On Wednesday, your child will take a 2D Quiz. This quiz will review the 2D shapes found on the yellow paper in your child's binder as well as the pink flash cards that went home last week. They will be asked to name each shape. In preparation for our quiz, we will also review these shapes in class. On Thursday and Friday, we will discuss area. We worked on area during our multiplication unit so this will be a quick review of the concept. We will have more graphing homework this week on Monday and Tuesday as well as fraction homework on Wednesday. We will continue with our fast facts quiz on Friday. 

Science:On Friday (March 24th), your child came home with a Solar System review sheet and vocabulary cards. The solar system test will be on Monday, April 3rd. During our science time this week, we will discuss the relationship between the sun, Earth, and moon. We will notice the limitations of the models of the solar system that we see. On Wednesday, we will learn the order of the planets. In groups, your child will make a mnemonic device to help them remember the order of the planets. On Thursday, we will create planet bracelets. These bracelets will have beads that represent each of the planets. To end our week, we will review for the solar system test playing our Jeopardy game. 

Week 28: March 20 - 24

Week of March 20-24
Reminders:  Third graders will have a visit from our school counselor, Mrs. Chvatal this week.  Her guidance lesson will focus on helping students think through problem solving conflicts with friends.

Reading: As we transition back to work and off of a break- we will take the week to review what good readers do and reestablish reading workshop expectations.  Some of the areas we will focus our attention this week are:

• A community of readers cares for thier books and shares titles with one another
• Good readers pick books that meet their needs and wants
• Good readers think about what they are reading and stop and jot to note and remember
• Good readers keep track of their reading and read from a variety of genres

Writing: Students have drafted essays.  This week we will focus on craft elements that help make an essay fantastic.  Specifically, we will focus on elements that grab a reader's attention and keep them engaged in a text.  First, we will focus on elements a writer can add to their introduction to hook a reader.  Some authors use quotes, others facts, or even a small moment from their lives.  Then, we will focus on using transition words.   Finally, we will focus on our conclusions and helping one another during writer's workshop think through effective ways to restate the claim.
This is BIG work.  Encourage your writer that writing is a process.  Slow and steady wins the race!

Spelling: New words will come home on Thursday, March 23.  They will be tested on Thursday, March 30.  March 31-April 6, teachers will be looking for students to apply those spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies: As we enter into the last grading cycle, we want to make sure that we end our year as strong as it started.  We will spend this week reviewing our class contract and practicing routines and procedures that help our classroom community be a place that is safe and conducive for learning and risk taking.

Math: On Monday, we will finish up our unit on graphing. Before spring break, our students created a survey and they surveyed another third grade class. They took the data from the survey and created one of the graphs we have been studying in class. Starting on Tuesday, we will be jumping into our geometry unit. We will be working to identify 2D shapes. We will identify sides and vertices on these polygons. On Thursday and Friday, we will begin classifying 3D shapes. We will categorize them by pyramids, prisms, and curved surfaces. This week, we will have our usual homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Our fast facts quiz will be on Friday.



Science: During our science time we will start learning about the moon. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be discussing the relationship between the sun, moon, and Earth. On Wednesday, we will also make our vocabulary cards and send home a review for the solar system unit. Towards the end of our week, we will learn about the planets. As we are studying the planets, we will learn the order and the important characteristics of each. We will teach the students a fun acronym to help them remember the correct order of the planets from the sun.  It is...."My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos!"

Week 27: March 6-10

Important Dates and Reminders

March
9- Third Grade Recognition Ceremony at 9:00 in the cafeteria

11 - 19  Spring Break Vacation

20 - Students return to school

April
6 - Noon Dismissal
7- Noon Dismissal
14 - Good Friday (No School)


This Week In Third Grade

Math:  As we continue graphing data, the students will be introduced to a new graph... the dot plot or line plot.  This data representation uses columns of dots or X's to show a quantity or number. Looking at the dot plot below, student scores are written across the bottom. A dot is placed at each score to represent a student with that grade.

 

This second example, called a line plot, uses X's to show the number of people who watched TV for the different number of hours, which are shown across the number line.

Mid-week, each class will develop its own survey and gather data from their class and a neighboring class. Then the class will divide up and represent their data in 5 different forms: tally chart, frequency chart, bar graph, pictograph, and dot plot. Students will be asked to examine the data and answer questions pertinent to the information.

Students will have written homework Monday through Wednesday evenings. There will be no Problem of the Week or FFF quiz for Friday.

Don't forget to 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:  As we wrap up our study of natural resources, we set our sights on studying our Sun and its planets. What are the characteristics of the Sun? For what are we dependent upon the Sun? As a medium size star, our Sun is responsible for life on Earth. It's light grows plants through photosynthesis. It's heat keeps us warm and causes seasons. It's gravity keeps all the planets in their orbits around it. Our moon is a natural satellite of Earth. It spins on its axis as it revolves or orbits Earth. Earth is the third planet in our solar system and it rotates on its axis as it revolves or orbits around the Sun. These three bodies depend upon each other.