Month: October 2022

Happy Friday! It was a busy week in third grade and the students worked hard. We are beginning some bigger class projects in the next few weeks, in addition to some fall/Halloween themed fun next week.

October Book Report: Students are bringing the written portion of their pumpkin report home tonight. Please note that the character trait page is OPTIONAL and available for students who want to work towards the 4. The written story map is required to be completed in his/her best third grade writing, and will accompany the pumpkin. These can be turned in at any point next week, Monday-Friday. We will share them as they come in and put them on display. I will be able to get pumpkins this weekend for anyone who might need one, please let me know by TONIGHT!

Field Trip Next Week: I am so grateful for the abundance of drivers and volunteers! I reached out to the coordinator and confirmed there is not a capacity issue and we can bring as many chaperones that we want ;). I will however be consolidating cars so we can carpool. If you have a preference on another parent to ride with please let me know, otherwise I’ll just pair up and let you know ASAP. I also have directions, parking information, and times that I will get you early next week.

Reading- This week we completed our first Benchmark Assessment online. These are quite challenging so I will guide them through the first few. We are reading about animal coverings and how they help animals adapt to their environments.

Writing- We wrapped up another paragraph and they are getting the hang of the format -topic sentence, supporting sentences, wrap up sentences, in addition to indenting and how to save documents on 365. Students are starting their dinosaur stories and got a chance to hear some of my students stories from last year, which was fun!

Math– This week we wrapped up Unit 2 and took the assessment on Friday. This was all on data and guiding them into the introduction of multiplication.

Religion– For religion we dove deeper into the Bible and went on a Bible Quest! It was fun to see how quickly they learned the format of the Holy Book and how to use the table of contents. Ask them at home about this!

Social Studies- We will wrap up the unit on map skills soon! Students are able to now locate all five oceans and all seven continents. We rotated through some centers to review this week and will end with a fun balloon project. I can’t wait!

Science- So much to learn on fossils! We will be making our own dinosaur fossils next week with plaster of paris and clay. We’ve had opportunities to use a few computer programs to dive deeper into this concept. Freckle is a great one if you want to look at home.

Music –

• Reading the poem In A Dark Dark Room to practice musical dynamics  
• Singing a song using sol, mi and do pitches and playing a game with the song 
• Using classroom instruments to play along to Hobgoblin by Robert Schumann  

Art –

Directed drawing and proportions. Students drew cats inside pumpkins and learned about proportion in a composition.

First, thank you for taking the time to help prepare your children for our Mass today. They did such an amazing job, and I’m so proud of them.

There are a lot of important pieces of information in your Friday Folders today along with all the hard work your children have been doing in class. Please make sure you empty the folders, notice your child’s goals, and also sign the folder.

-New Seesaw Codes -I’m so sorry but they have changed this app and I’m realizing that the code I gave you does not offer all the capabilities that I like to use in Seesaw. For example, when your child is sick, it is nice for me to be able to post work in the Activities tab for them to complete at home. This new code will allow you all the other capabilities. Thank you for having patience with me.

-XtraMath -You will find all the information to log in at home. The progress the students are making in class is amazing, however some students are still having trouble with accuracy. It’s not all about speed. I do not award improvement stars unless they are getting yellow or green, meaning they are getting the math facts correct. This is an easy thing to practice at home and it only takes 4-5 minutes!

-Finally, you will find the opt-out form for the safe environment class I will be teaching. Please only sign this if you DO NOT want your child to participate.

**Next Wednesday -Please look for the field trip form for our October 27th trip to Lynden, and a signature page for the VFW essay that we will be dong IN CLASS.**

OCTOBER BOOK REPORT – We are all excited about this one :). Students will be studying the character in their book and creating a fun pumpkin. I’ll put some sample photos in Seesaw but please do not start the actual pumpkin yet (we want them all on display at the end of the month with no rotting)! Also, they will have a written portion on character traits and a story map, which will come home next week. Students were to tell me their book by today.

Math: This week we moved to applying all the mental math strategies we learned from addition to subtraction. We also reviewed addition and subtraction with regrouping, along with regrouping across zeros, which can be a challenge.

Social Studies: In social studies we wrapped up the general map skills with a fun Barefoot Island project. We began learning about the five oceans and will move into the continents next week.

Science: For our fossil unit we made mold fossils this week, which was fun. Students compared the bread and gummies to how fossils are formed in real life!

Religion: This week we practiced for our Mass in the church. We learned about Saint Francis and also celebrated the feast of our Guardian Angels. Students each created their own angel with the prayer. We also wrapped up our unit on the Mass by playing a class Jeopardy game. It’s funny how many don’t know the game jeopardy 😉

Art: The 3^rd graders finished their grumpy monkey by adding watercolors to the background and started working on their spooky artwork.

Music:

• Singing and reading do mi and sol pitches on a music staff  
• Improvising on classroom percussion instruments in a rondo 
• Beginning to work in groups with the song Shake the Papaya – groups will create motions to go with the song, and each student will compose a 16 beat rhythm pattern to play in the rondo with their group 

REMINDERS:

-No School, Friday, October 14th (Staff Retreat)

-Free Dress, Thursday, October 13th