We hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weekend. We have another awesome week planned at school this week. Everyone is excited about wearing costumes to the school festival on Friday. Remember there is a noon dismissal. ASAP is provided- with lunch and swimming- for those who are registered. We are busy in all of our subject areas, as always. We will continue with realistic fiction in Writing Workshop, book club studies in Reading Workshop, region projects and state/capital studies in Social Studies, and we are moving forward with our folk art piece on Charlotte's Web. It seems like we could use about two more hours in every day. We are working hard, learning lots, and having tons of fun while doing it! Here is the homework for the week: Reading: Read and Log as Usual. Please be sure to total those minutes! Writing: FREE WRITE! This assignment will not be in our writing notebooks. You should use notebook (or other writing) paper. Please write a minimum of 2 pages this time. Remember to skip lines and to RE-READ what you wrote. (This does not have to be realistic fiction. You may write about anything you wish in any genre you wish.) Social Studies: We will be taking the Northeast states and capitals quiz on Thursday. Review those states and capitals. Math: We will be taking our Unit 3 test on Tuesday and Wednesday. Please complete the practice pages that come home Monday and return them to school by NEXT Monday. Thursday nights math Home Link will be 4.1. (This may also be turned in on Monday of next week since Halloween is on Friday.) Remember to log all math activities. Have a great week! Mrs. Smith & Ms. Thomas Social studies has been a tremendous part of all of our studies these past couple of weeks. We are so proud of the wonderful (100% student written and created) video for Hispanic Heritage Month that our class made. Please be sure to enjoy watching it with your little one. You can find it at the bottom of this post. They learned so very much and did a fabulous job with their project to teach others about Sonia Sotomayor and her accomplishments. We will continue to learn more about other cultures in Chinese class and with an upcoming Diwali presentation. Each week, we will also continue to review our states and capitals, and students will resume work on region projects next week. Social Studies Homework: Please continue to practice those states and capitals. We will quiz the Northeast Region on Thursday, October 30. (Maine, Vermont, Maryland, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) The class has enjoyed exploring measurement - especially with area and perimeter in math. We will continue to work on Unit 3 next week, and we should take the unit assessment the week of October 22. Please continue to review those addition and subtraction math facts. We will soon begin math mad minutes. The students are eager to begin multiplication, but we want them to have addition and subtraction down pat first. Math Homework: Fill out math log each week. Monday: Homelink 3.5 Tuesday: Homelink 3.6 Wednesday: Homelink 3.7 Thursday: Homelink 3.8 Friday: Homelink 3.9 (Due Monday) This upcoming week will be the kick off of our first book clubs in third grade Reading Workshop! Students have been applying what they have learned about character development toward our latest read aloud. The will do the same in book clubs in addition to setting goals and following plot development. In addition to our workshop lessons, each week we will have one or two comprehension check or sequencing practices. Reading Homework: Continue to read at least four days a week for 30 minutes each day. Don't forget to log! We hope you enjoyed the personal narrative pieces that came home this week. Once your child shares his or her piece with you, please send the writing piece back to school so we can display the work. This week we began our study of realistic fiction in writing. Students are beginning to think of ways writers develop a clear plot by asking the following questions:
Our grammar focus will be on strong verbs, enhancing sentences, and appropriate use of the apostrophe with possessives. Writing Homework: Writing Practice Page (in folder on Monday) Please enjoy the photos. We added several today. We hope to see you at the game tonight or at World Fest on Sunday. Have a great weekend! Meadow & Anna Last week gave us a nice taste of fall weather - perfect for our very first outdoor picnic in the dell. You may have heard that we also were able to celebrate great classroom behavior with our very own minion party! Your little one will have to tell you exactly what that means. We had fun! We worked hard last week too! Here is what's been going on in our subject areas:
(This is a long entry, but with fall break next week, it will cover our studies for two weeks. I will add more photos soon!) Writing: Most students finished publishing their personal narrative piece. We will have a writing celebration with an young audience this weekend where the children will share their final pieces. In addition, we will kick off our realistic fiction study in writing workshop this week. Reading: We are wrapping up our formal study of character in Reading Workshop, though we will continue to learn from our characters all year long. Please look for the permission slip to share some of our class work in your child's folder. We were able to learn so much from our school visit from Jen Seravello last month. Lovett has been invited to share some of the ways we are using the strategies she taught us for possible inclusion in her newest book. If you are not comfortable letting us share your child's work, just let me know. (Names will not be shown.) If you are OK with it, please return the permission slip this week. It will be in the blue folders. This is a great opportunity to put our new learning about teaching reading to use while showing off the great things we are doing with our readers! Our next unit of study in reading is series book clubs. This is always a favorite in third grade, and it's a great way to get even more excited about reading! Math: We will finish our Unit 2 assessment early this week, and we will jump into Unit 3. Our first several lessons in Unit 3 will cover measurement of length, area and perimeter. We will also do some explorations with data and chance. Please continue to have your little one work on addition and subtraction math facts at home. While all of the students are able to figure out the correct answer, third graders should have basis addition and subtraction math facts down pat by this time. Most of us don't. Please keep practicing with fact triangles, flash cards, math games, practice pages, anything you can think of to increase speed. Social Studies: We began brainstorming in our small groups for region projects last week. The next few week students will work with their group to create a presentation for one of our country's regions. The will share the states, geography, climate, natural resources, manufactured goods and services, tourism, recreation, and other fun facts! In addition to our region study, we have started our Chinese lessons with Mrs. Walden! She will join us in our classroom one time a week for four weeks, and we will culminate Chinese with a cooking opportunity at the end of the month. The students will get to make and eat Chinese dumplings! Finally, the students are also busy creating a video (as a class) for Hispanic Heritage Month. Our assigned famous Latin American is Sonya Sotomayor. We are expanding what we know about her and the students are putting the information out to the school using media! Wow, have we been busy in social studies! Homework: Note: There will be no homework over fall break. Reading/Math Logs may be turned in this Friday if minutes/days have been met - or they may be turned in on 10/16. Reading: Read at least 30 minutes at least 4 nights a week. Log. Return Jen Seravello Permission Slip this week. Writing: Write a realistic fiction piece in your writing notebook. This may be turned in EITHER Friday, 10/10 OR Thursday, 10/16. Follow beginning of the year guidelines (glued in your writing notebook). Math: Math Word Problem Page: Due FRIDAY, 10/10 Tuesday: Homelink 3.1 (Turn in Wed.) Wednesday: Homelink 3.2 (Turn in Thurs.) Practice Math Facts for + and -. Social Studies: Continue to study states of the Northeast: Maine, Vermont, Maryland, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania & New Jersey. Other: Study, using the SOS method, any highlighted words on the learned words list. (Some students do not need to do this. They should be able to tell you, and the list should be in the white binder.) We will have a review quiz on Friday. There have been some requests for the link to "How to Draw a Minion". Here it is: |
Upcoming Events * April 27 - May 14 Swimming Unit in PE * Wednesday, May 13 Lower School Band and Orchestra Concert (for students) 8:30 am * Friday, May 15 FUN DAY! (2nd - 5th Grade) Wear athletic shorts and shoes with your new red Fun Day t-shirt (Shirts come home Wed.) Noon Dismissal * Thursday, May 21 Noon Dismissal * Friday, May 22 5th Grade Graduation Dismissal after ceremony @9:45 AuthorsMeadow Smith & Archives
May 2015
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