We are beginning the final month of third grade. There are a lot of activities and special events happening in the next few weeks. I will send an email notice when I update/add/change this list.
Homework Changes: I understand this is a very busy time of year both in and out of school. For the next 3 weeks, I will be sending home a small math packet on Mondays which will be due on Friday of that week.
This week is our final week of spelling. We will take our cumulative review on Thursday afternoon.
Week of 6/1/15:
Thursday 6/4 Trip to Pine Hollow Arboretum 9:45-12:00
Anyone can join us on this field trip, but you will need to drive yourselves. Please email me if you plan on attending. Students should plan on dressing according to the weather. If it is raining I would advise packing an extra set of clothes in backpacks. I will give students an opportunity to change when we return to school at noon.
Week of 6/8/15:
Thursday 6/11/15 Country Fair 2:30-3:00
Everyone is invited to attend our Third Grade Country Fair. We are working hard to finish our Power Point presentations and we are excited to share our hard work. If you would like to save a copy of your child's presentation please bring a removable memory stick with you to save his/her work during the country fair.
Please plan on staying through to the end of our country fair. There will be a special presentation at the end of the country fair.
Friday 6/12/15 Field Day
Please send in a complete (including shoes) extra set of clothes. We usually do the water relay station last and the students are soaking wet!
Week of 6/15/15:
TBD
Week of 6/22/12:
Wednesday 6/24/15 Last day of School 12:10 dismissal.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Countdown to the End of the Year
Tomorrow begins the 26 day count down to the end of the year. Things
have not slowed down in the classroom, in fact we are busier than ever!
Reading
We are reading Pleasing the Ghost by Sharon Creech. This would make a great author to take into your child's summer reading.
Math
This week we will continue to practice multiplying two digit numbers. The students understand the concept behind this process. Some students are finding this frustrating because their facts are not automatic.
Social Studies
We are finishing our country research today and beginning our Power Point presentations on Tuesday. I hope you will be able to join us for our Country Fair on June 11th at 2:30 pm.
Science
The class is working on our Electrical Circuit's unit. We will be be testing conductors and insulators this week. Also, we will be learning about series and parallel circuits, by making them with our partners.
The ABC countdown for this week is:
Tuesday-Animal day= The students may bring in a stuffed animal.
Wednesday-Birthday day= We will celebrate summer birthdays by reading our birthday book aloud for those who have birthdays over the summer.
Thursday-Colorful day= The students should wear their favorite color to school.
Friday-Drink day= The students may bring in a special drink. Please no glass containers or soda.
Tomorrow is our Budget Vote. There is a Kids Vote Too where students can vote on indoor recess equipment. We have discussed this vote in class and the students have asked if I will be there. I will be helping the Kids Vote Too at the HS from 4 - 5pm. :-)
Reading
We are reading Pleasing the Ghost by Sharon Creech. This would make a great author to take into your child's summer reading.
Math
This week we will continue to practice multiplying two digit numbers. The students understand the concept behind this process. Some students are finding this frustrating because their facts are not automatic.
Social Studies
We are finishing our country research today and beginning our Power Point presentations on Tuesday. I hope you will be able to join us for our Country Fair on June 11th at 2:30 pm.
Science
The class is working on our Electrical Circuit's unit. We will be be testing conductors and insulators this week. Also, we will be learning about series and parallel circuits, by making them with our partners.
The ABC countdown for this week is:
Tuesday-Animal day= The students may bring in a stuffed animal.
Wednesday-Birthday day= We will celebrate summer birthdays by reading our birthday book aloud for those who have birthdays over the summer.
Thursday-Colorful day= The students should wear their favorite color to school.
Friday-Drink day= The students may bring in a special drink. Please no glass containers or soda.
Tomorrow is our Budget Vote. There is a Kids Vote Too where students can vote on indoor recess equipment. We have discussed this vote in class and the students have asked if I will be there. I will be helping the Kids Vote Too at the HS from 4 - 5pm. :-)
Monday, May 4, 2015
This week in third grade....
We will continue to practice
telling time as well as working on problem solving in math. Please be sure to
continue to practice multiplication math facts at home.
We have begun the exciting
hands on Electrical Circuits unit! Hopefully your children came home excited
about their first experience last week. This week, we’ll be building various
circuits and learning how to manipulate the materials.
This week we will begin
discussing our year end project. Each student will be researching a country.
Your child will be assigned to their country on Wednesday. We will need your
assistance gathering some research materials. More information to follow.
In addition, we are working
on a secret project. Can’t give any details! :-)
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Welcome Back!
Hello families!
I hope you all had a nice week either away or home. My family and I spent some time here and in Washington, D.C. We had a great time! Looks like the weather is getting good just in time for us to return to school!
Thank you for making our Wax Museum such a success! I was extremely proud of each student's hard work and dedication to the unit. They certainly learned a lot and did a fabulous job!
What a busy week we have ahead!
This Tuesday, we begin our NYS ELA exam. We will begin first thing in the morning. Please be sure your child has had a good night's sleep, a healthy breakfast, and is in school on time. This way we can begin as soon as everyone is present. The exam will be 70 minutes long for 3 consecutive mornings, with an additional 10 minutes or so to go over directions, procedures, etc. After the exam concludes, we will have some down time, either playing games or watching a movie and having our snack. If the weather is nice, we will spend some time outside, but it would most likely be in the afternoon after all exams and lunches have concluded.
Even though we have an exam this week, we still have a lot of learning to do!!! We will continue our geometry study. We will learn how to classify polygons by numbers of sides, types of sides, and types of angles. We will learn the different types of quadrilaterals and triangles.
We will continue learning about ancient Egypt. This week our focus will be on the Egyptian religion and we will understand the different gods and goddesses they believed in.
We will begin looking at the genre of realistic fiction in reading. In our guided reading groups we will focus on higher level thinking skills, understanding implied meanings and increasing our vocabulary.
In writing workshop, we will begin looking at opinion writing. We will learn how to state a claim and then argue our claim with facts to support our claims.
Your child will be bringing home a review spelling list for this week. They will have up to 20 words for their list this week. We will take our spelling test on Friday this week, since we have our ELA exam Thursday.
I do have an ambitious plan for this week considering we have an exam that will take up the most of each morning...Please don't be surprised if next week's blog post says "Please read last week's post." Thank you for your continued support.
I hope you all had a nice week either away or home. My family and I spent some time here and in Washington, D.C. We had a great time! Looks like the weather is getting good just in time for us to return to school!
Thank you for making our Wax Museum such a success! I was extremely proud of each student's hard work and dedication to the unit. They certainly learned a lot and did a fabulous job!
What a busy week we have ahead!
This Tuesday, we begin our NYS ELA exam. We will begin first thing in the morning. Please be sure your child has had a good night's sleep, a healthy breakfast, and is in school on time. This way we can begin as soon as everyone is present. The exam will be 70 minutes long for 3 consecutive mornings, with an additional 10 minutes or so to go over directions, procedures, etc. After the exam concludes, we will have some down time, either playing games or watching a movie and having our snack. If the weather is nice, we will spend some time outside, but it would most likely be in the afternoon after all exams and lunches have concluded.
Even though we have an exam this week, we still have a lot of learning to do!!! We will continue our geometry study. We will learn how to classify polygons by numbers of sides, types of sides, and types of angles. We will learn the different types of quadrilaterals and triangles.
We will continue learning about ancient Egypt. This week our focus will be on the Egyptian religion and we will understand the different gods and goddesses they believed in.
We will begin looking at the genre of realistic fiction in reading. In our guided reading groups we will focus on higher level thinking skills, understanding implied meanings and increasing our vocabulary.
In writing workshop, we will begin looking at opinion writing. We will learn how to state a claim and then argue our claim with facts to support our claims.
Your child will be bringing home a review spelling list for this week. They will have up to 20 words for their list this week. We will take our spelling test on Friday this week, since we have our ELA exam Thursday.
I do have an ambitious plan for this week considering we have an exam that will take up the most of each morning...Please don't be surprised if next week's blog post says "Please read last week's post." Thank you for your continued support.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Top of the Morning to You...
Hello families!! We have been working extremely hard in class on MANY various topics. We have been reading and taking notes in a biography to learn about an important person in history. We will be having a Wax Museum, April 2 from 2:30 - 3 in our classroom. Preparations for this are taking place in the classroom. We will begin to discuss any home responsibilities (dressing like the person they have read about). More specific information will come home this week.
In math, we have been investigating fractions and learning about data. We will continue our fraction work and begin to learn geometry vocabulary, Please continue to work on math facts. We have been taking multiplication math fact quizzes for 9 weeks and I have 2 students who have "mastered" these quizzes. I would like to see that number increase dramatically over the next couple of weeks. Thank you for all of your support.
We have been discussing the upcoming ELA and Math tests. I am introducing the format of these exams to the students as well as teaching test taking strategies. The past two weeks and continuing this week, we have been learning what it means to write an essay. I am not putting a lot of emphasis on these exams, just telling them it's a "show what you know" exam. We are working mainly on increasing our stamina by being able to sustain attention over a long period of time. If you have any questions regarding these exams, please don't hesitate to contact me.
We have completed solar system research and are now in the works of putting our research into paragraphs about each planet. by the end of this week, I hope to be ready to turn these paragraphs into a final project!
Important Dates:
March 20th: No School (unless we have a snow day before Friday)
March 25th: Palace field trip (AM)
March 26th: A visit from Pine Hollow Arboretum (AM)
April 2nd: WAX MUSEUM (2:30 - 3:00 in our classroom)
April 14, 15, 16th: ELA Exam (AM)
April 22, 23, 24th: Math Exam (AM)
In math, we have been investigating fractions and learning about data. We will continue our fraction work and begin to learn geometry vocabulary, Please continue to work on math facts. We have been taking multiplication math fact quizzes for 9 weeks and I have 2 students who have "mastered" these quizzes. I would like to see that number increase dramatically over the next couple of weeks. Thank you for all of your support.
We have been discussing the upcoming ELA and Math tests. I am introducing the format of these exams to the students as well as teaching test taking strategies. The past two weeks and continuing this week, we have been learning what it means to write an essay. I am not putting a lot of emphasis on these exams, just telling them it's a "show what you know" exam. We are working mainly on increasing our stamina by being able to sustain attention over a long period of time. If you have any questions regarding these exams, please don't hesitate to contact me.
We have completed solar system research and are now in the works of putting our research into paragraphs about each planet. by the end of this week, I hope to be ready to turn these paragraphs into a final project!
Important Dates:
March 20th: No School (unless we have a snow day before Friday)
March 25th: Palace field trip (AM)
March 26th: A visit from Pine Hollow Arboretum (AM)
April 2nd: WAX MUSEUM (2:30 - 3:00 in our classroom)
April 14, 15, 16th: ELA Exam (AM)
April 22, 23, 24th: Math Exam (AM)
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Back to reality...
I hope you all had a nice week off! Although it was freezing, my family and I were able to find a lot of "warm" things to do and took advantage of having the time off together! As nice as it is to be off, I think we're all looking forward to getting back on a "schedule" and are anxious for the weather to start warming up!
Here is a brief rundown of what we'll be doing in class this week:
Reading: We will be diving into biographies! By the end of the week, your child will be paired with a biography of a person from history that interests them.
Writing: This week we'll finish putting non-fiction text features in our non-fiction writing and learning how to edit with a partner.
Math: We are embarking on the "Wonderful World of Fractions!" We also will continue to work on multi-step word problems and learn some vocabulary associated with geometry.
Science: We will wrap up our solar system research this week!
There wasn't a Friday Letter before break. Friday Letter will resume this Friday. I did ask that students jot down what they read over break, so I'm expecting a Reading Log to be handed in tomorrow. Your child will be bringing home their spelling list for this week tomorrow. A March and April Current Events calendar will come home tomorrow as well.
NYS ELA and Math Exams: A brief note on the upcoming exams in April...our students have never taken an exam of this nature. Both exams are given over a three day period for 70 minutes each day. We will begin to learn test taking strategies as well as practice some sample exams so students become aware of their structure and become familiar with what will be expected of them. I feel that by being aware of the format, understanding how to take a test, and explaining that this is a "show what you know" test, helps to alleviate any anxieties. We do not spend a lot of time discussing this, but I do try to answer all questions students have openly and honestly. I let them know that this is to see if they have learned anything while being in school! :-) I encourage you to give them the same message.
Here is a brief rundown of what we'll be doing in class this week:
Reading: We will be diving into biographies! By the end of the week, your child will be paired with a biography of a person from history that interests them.
Writing: This week we'll finish putting non-fiction text features in our non-fiction writing and learning how to edit with a partner.
Math: We are embarking on the "Wonderful World of Fractions!" We also will continue to work on multi-step word problems and learn some vocabulary associated with geometry.
Science: We will wrap up our solar system research this week!
There wasn't a Friday Letter before break. Friday Letter will resume this Friday. I did ask that students jot down what they read over break, so I'm expecting a Reading Log to be handed in tomorrow. Your child will be bringing home their spelling list for this week tomorrow. A March and April Current Events calendar will come home tomorrow as well.
NYS ELA and Math Exams: A brief note on the upcoming exams in April...our students have never taken an exam of this nature. Both exams are given over a three day period for 70 minutes each day. We will begin to learn test taking strategies as well as practice some sample exams so students become aware of their structure and become familiar with what will be expected of them. I feel that by being aware of the format, understanding how to take a test, and explaining that this is a "show what you know" test, helps to alleviate any anxieties. We do not spend a lot of time discussing this, but I do try to answer all questions students have openly and honestly. I let them know that this is to see if they have learned anything while being in school! :-) I encourage you to give them the same message.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Happy Snow Day!
Wow! February already! With today's snow day, this week is shaping up to be a short one!
Tuesday is our first of two conference days this month. I have a full day of conferences planned for tomorrow, however, if you would like a conference and have not signed up yet, please look at available times for February 11.
This month current events are voluntary and we have about 8 students signed up to present. If your child has not signed up, but would like to, please have them check on an available date with me this week.
Reading
We continue to read our mystery book while taking notes like a
detective. We are also reading our independent chapter books and writing
a short response each day.
Writing
We will finish drafting our informational writing piece while
working on revising. We will also look at adding text features to make
our writing more interesting.
Math
We will continue division, looking specifically at rules to understand when you have a divisor of 1 and 0. We will spend a large portion of this week looking at word problems and figuring out when to multiply or divide to answer the story problem.
This week we will also continue to work on Area. This week we will find the area of large figures and
irregular figures.
Science
We have begun learning about the Solar System. This week we will
use the internet and books to research the planets. We will research
Earth together to learn how to use these resources. Then the students
will research each planet on his/her own.
Valentine's Day:
We will celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday, February 13th. If your child chooses, they can make a Valentine for each child in the class. They may decorate a "mailbox" for their Valentines. This "mailbox" could be a shoe box, a gift bag, a decorated coffee can, etc. Be creative! Please bring your "mailbox" and your Valentine's to school on Friday, February 13th. I will email you a class list so your child will be sure to make a card for each classmate.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Star Lab wraps up!
I hope you all have had a wonderful long weekend! We have a short, jam-packed week ahead! This week we'll dive into the mystery genre in reading workshop. We'll learn how authors of this genre set up their stories for their readers to try to solve the mystery, just like the detective or sleuth does! We will be learning the vocabulary associated with this genre as well.
We'll continue our non-fiction writing unit. We have developed strong tables of contents for our topics, have thought through each chapter and have practiced various non-fiction text structures. This week, we'll begin writing our chapters, thinking about the best ways to present our information, making it easiest for our readers to follow.
In math, we've begun looking at division concepts and have been learning about perimeter and now focusing on area. We continue to practice our math facts in class, and practice at home is highly encouraged!
Star Lab wraps up this week with a focus on the Big and Little Dippers. Last week, we understood the reasons for seasons, and this week we'll learn how to find Polaris using Ursa Major and be able to identify which season we are in based on the position of the dippers in the night sky.
If you haven't already done so, please sign up for a conference time with me. Report cards will be posted on ASPEN on January 30th. Please let me know if you'd like to make your conference a phone conference. If this is your preference, sign up for a time on signup genius, and then email me your preference, including the best number to reach you at the time you choose.
Enjoy the week!
We'll continue our non-fiction writing unit. We have developed strong tables of contents for our topics, have thought through each chapter and have practiced various non-fiction text structures. This week, we'll begin writing our chapters, thinking about the best ways to present our information, making it easiest for our readers to follow.
In math, we've begun looking at division concepts and have been learning about perimeter and now focusing on area. We continue to practice our math facts in class, and practice at home is highly encouraged!
Star Lab wraps up this week with a focus on the Big and Little Dippers. Last week, we understood the reasons for seasons, and this week we'll learn how to find Polaris using Ursa Major and be able to identify which season we are in based on the position of the dippers in the night sky.
If you haven't already done so, please sign up for a conference time with me. Report cards will be posted on ASPEN on January 30th. Please let me know if you'd like to make your conference a phone conference. If this is your preference, sign up for a time on signup genius, and then email me your preference, including the best number to reach you at the time you choose.
Enjoy the week!
Monday, January 5, 2015
Happy New Year!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!! With the new year comes many new adventures in third grade! Below is a run down of what to expect this week:
Reading Workshop: We will finish looking at non-fiction text structures. So far we have covered, description, sequence, and cause and effect. This week we'll delve into problem and solution and compare and contrast.
Writing Workshop: Our non-fiction writing unit is underway! We will look at the different structures of non-fiction to help us decided which structure we will decide to use for our own writing.
Math: We have finished being exposed to factors of 0 - 10 in multiplication. It is now time we work on memorizing these facts. A letter came home today explaining how we will begin math fact quizzes beginning this Friday. Please keep this letter as it will help guide which facts to work on for each given week.
This week, we begin "double math sessions." This means we will work on two different math concepts per week. This week we will complete multiplication strategies and begin the concept of perimeter.
Science: Our portable planetarium called StarLab is here!!! This is a program that all third graders participate in. For the next three weeks we will be learning about how to locate the winter constellations in the night sky, understand the reason for seasons, and learn all about the Big and Little Dippers. We will go into StarLab each Thursday for the next three Thursdays.
Reading Workshop: We will finish looking at non-fiction text structures. So far we have covered, description, sequence, and cause and effect. This week we'll delve into problem and solution and compare and contrast.
Writing Workshop: Our non-fiction writing unit is underway! We will look at the different structures of non-fiction to help us decided which structure we will decide to use for our own writing.
Math: We have finished being exposed to factors of 0 - 10 in multiplication. It is now time we work on memorizing these facts. A letter came home today explaining how we will begin math fact quizzes beginning this Friday. Please keep this letter as it will help guide which facts to work on for each given week.
This week, we begin "double math sessions." This means we will work on two different math concepts per week. This week we will complete multiplication strategies and begin the concept of perimeter.
Science: Our portable planetarium called StarLab is here!!! This is a program that all third graders participate in. For the next three weeks we will be learning about how to locate the winter constellations in the night sky, understand the reason for seasons, and learn all about the Big and Little Dippers. We will go into StarLab each Thursday for the next three Thursdays.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)