Friday, October 25

It was a great week packed with learning here in third grade! We wrapped up this week with two special guest speakers, guiding us into our service learning project. The students learned about the homeless, services provided in our city, and will be making sandwiches with the help of Mrs. C, Haldan’s grandma. The most important thing they learned today was to assume the best in everyone and how Jesus taught us to help others, feeding the hungry. They may have questions for you, but it was beautifully done at their level.

Spelling Tests – Your child’s spelling test results will come home every Friday in their Friday Folders and are small strips of paper. I wanted to let you know in case you don’t see a full sheet of paper or if they get tucked in with another paper. There are three different lists and we are adjusting to how to do this the best way. The class is practicing where to find the “quests” (assignments) and it should be easier next week to find their homework.

MULTIPLICATION – Each student is expected to be practicing their multiplication facts EVERY night. They will be using a laminated sheet and a special vis-a-vis marker. Please set a timer for them for 2 minutes and they will doing as many as they can in those 2 minutes. As always, the goal is for improvement. They are expected to wash these every evening and bring them clean and ready the next day. It is very important they come ready to go every morning with a clean sheet, showing they have practiced and ready for our class routine. This week we looked at 2’s and 4’s so please have them start there.

Book Reports -Character Pumpkins AND the written summary sheet are due on Monday and we will share them all week.

Halloween and All Saints Day -Halloween is orange and black free dress. On Friday the students are invited to dress as a saint and wear the costume all day. This is an option and not requirement, but it’s so great to see the Saints marching in! If they want to dress up it can be any saint, not only the saint they are researching. I have extra costumes at home as well if you would like.

Immigration Unit -We are well into our immigration studies in the classroom and we would love to invite any parents or family members who have immigration stories come and share with us. There is nothing like learning first hand! Please reach out to us so we can schedule a good time.

Academics

Literacy -This week we learned adjectives and the new skill of inferencing. Students read the nonfiction book, Ellis Island, looking at features of a nonfiction text and preparing for Immigration Day. In writing each student wrote a paragraph for the VFW essay contest, reflecting on the question, “How do you treat our veterans?”

Math -We are breaking out our multiplication facts, reviewing strategies, and starting the memorization. This week we learned 2’s and 4’s. Please practice at home now (see above).

Science -Paleontologists participated in a fun lesson through Generation Genius this week. We made cast fossils together with clay and plaster and then made observations and claims based on evidence from the fossil.

Social Studies -Historians dove deep into Ellis Island and Immigration this week. It was fun to hear personal stories from the students who wanted to share about their own family history. The invitation is still open for any parent/family member who might want to share as well!

Music -This week in music class we are composing a 16 beat rhythm and playing it in rondo form with the song Shake the Papaya. 

Library -We read The Runaway Pumpkin together in class.  We worked on our typing and talked about passwords.  In our discussion we talked about who you might share a password with and who you should not share this with. 

Friday, October 18

Another week has flown by! It was a big week with a super fun ‘Williams Bakery’ activity, the students finished their ‘Barefoot Island’ map (luckily, it wasn’t too stinky with all of those bare feet being traced!), watched the ‘Holy Hoops’ games and started our immigration unit. Here is a more detailed description of the last week below:

Academics

Spelling: We tried a new way of doing spelling words, to ensure we are meeting the needs of all the students. Based on how the students do on the spelling pre-test, a spelling test tailored to their level is given to them. This allows us to challenge students where needed, give extra support and have our regular spelling test for those who are at level. Please continue to make sure your kids are doing their spelling homework at home. 

Social Studies: The students finished their ‘Barefoot Island’ maps. They loved being able to remove their shoes and socks, drawing a fictional island to show their understanding of making a legend/key, symbols within the key, a compass rose and directions. 

We introduced our Immigration unit, discussing how the United States is a conglomerate of rich culture, diversity and history. We read ‘Molly’s Pilgrim’ and a well articulated/beautifully pictured book titled, ‘We are a Garden’, discussing the different kinds of immigrants who have traveled to the United States, along with the reasons for doing so (push & pull factors). The students have been excited to share about their own family ancestry and where their roots have come from. 

I would love for the students to bring in any pictures/and or stories of family members who have immigrated to the United States and then share those stories/pictures with the rest of the class. It deepens the connections we are making on this subject, ties students to their family lines/ancestry, and allows the children to embrace one another’s heritage, connecting in an engaging way with their classmates, celebrating one another’s diversity. 

Literacy: We finished our Animal Adaptations booklets and took our unit 1 test. Though the chapters are long, we learned so much about penguins, camels, poison dart frogs, salamanders, and several other animals in this unit. We have learned how to compare and contrast, introduced the concept of inference, main idea and understanding the setting in books.

Reading/Book Reports -Please see the written outline and directions in your child’s Friday Folder this evening. Examples are posted on Seesaw of the pumpkin, so please check there. This is BOTH the pumpkin (character) and the summary sheet. I’ll have extra pumpkins available for families who may find this a hardship, so please reach out or let your child know to ask me. This is a fun one and the students love to share and view each other’s creativity! Use pipe cleaners, googly eyes, yarn, cardstock, anything you can find to create the character. These will be DUE MONDAY, OCTOBER 28th.

Religion: Some of the students were able to participate in Mass today, by reading prayers for all the congregation to hear. We had several who wanted to participate. Each of them did such a great job reading in front of everyone. I’m always impressed at how willing the students are to participate and the confidence they have. This week we also discussed a variety of Saints, with the students each choosing one to research for an upcoming writing activity. We also discussed 3 virtues: Faith, hope and charity. 

Math: Mrs. Williams had her traditional ‘Williams Bakery’, a fun and interactive way to learn about arrays. We are setting the foundation for learning multiplication and arrays are a big part of those building blocks. Eating cupcakes and arranging candy on the frosting into an array was a great way to learn while having fun! The kids really loved this activity. We also introduced the commutative property of multiplication this week, with Friday finishing off a review of all of the many ways to consider multiplication, such as repeated addition, equal groups, the number line and arrays.

Spanish -Each student created their own “mochila” (backpack) and filled it with classroom supplies labeled in Spanish. 

Thursday, October 10th

We had a short, yet packed week here in third grade. We are getting in our grove and Mrs. Young is taking over and teaching more, which is wonderful! I hope you all have a wonderful three day weekend and enjoy this beautiful fall sunshine!

Veteran’s Day Permission Slip -Please SIGN the permission slip for the VFW essay in your child’s Friday Folders. We will be doing this in class, I simply need your signature to submit the writings. One of my students has one the past three years, which is amazing and I’d love to continue this tradition.

Book Report -Students should be in the midst of reading their books for October. Their report this month involves a pumpkin, so I wanted to give you plenty of heads up. A fake pumpkin is a perfect alternative and will work as well. Directions will come home on Friday, October 18th.

Academics:

Literacy -This week students learned about a variety of animal coverings, used the skill of asking questions and comparing and contrasting. In addition, they wrote the answers to text dependent questions and are getting better at writing PQPA (Part Question, Part Answer).

Math -Our lessons this week covered repeated addition, relation to multiplication, and using a number line to skip count. We’ve realized these visuals are very helpful to many of the students. We will keep working on these background skills to build the foundations of multiplication next week with arrays.

Religion -We completed our unit on our relationship with God, reviewed Bible hunting, and will start talking about virtues, as well as SAINTS next week! All students will be selecting a saint to gather information and complete a PowerPoint report on!

Social Studies -This week we solidified our. knowledge on oceans and continents and will be taking the test on Monday. Labeling the continents and oceans on a “globe” (aka balloon) was a fun way to put it together. It’s harder than you think!

Science -We are working our way through a lesson on how we know what dinosaurs looked like through Mystery Science. We looked at traits and classified different bones.

Art -Inspired by It’s Fall! by Renée Kurilla, students will create a self-portrait using line drawing and wax-resist techniques with crayon and watercolor. They will add 3D leaves to explore depth and texture, celebrating the changing seasons. 

Music -This week in music class we are discussing improvisation and musical form, and learning about rondo with the song Shake the Papaya. 

Friday, October 4th

Happy Friday, the first one of October! This is Mrs. Young, the student teacher for Mrs. William’s 3rd grade class. Bev and I will be taking turns sending out the newsletter for the next couple of months.

I’m excited to tell you all of the great things we have been learning about! Below is a brief overview:

Grammar: We have been going over verb tenses, past, present and future.

Writing: The students have been writing their final version of their ‘Alpha-hawk’ paragraph. We have enjoyed reading and learning about their heroes. I love how focusing on those people who have been kind, self-less, and persevered through hard things have motivated the students to be like them and want to do the same.

Reading: Students have been sharing their book reports. It’s been neat to see the confidence in many of the students of getting up in front of their peers and presenting.

Math: We have reviewed rounding, learned about estimates, compatible numbers, bar models and number lines for addition and subtraction. We are setting the foundation for multiplication, which will be coming right around the corner.

Social Studies: Reviewing the oceans and learning about the continents has been a highlight. The kids love singing along to the oceans and continents song. They have been learning how to label the 5 oceans and 7 continents on a map.

Science: The students had an activity centered around our fossil unit. There will be a few more activities on fossils next week, before we finish out the unit.

Religion: We have been talking about Saint Francis Assisi this last week. A lot of the students participated in bringing their animals in to be blessed this last Wednesday, it was great to see the enthusiasm and meet so many of their furry friends. We have also been talking about ‘The Circle of Grace’ program, which helps kids to understand the value of positive relationships with God and others within their safe circle. Boundaries and a course of action was discussed, if those boundaries are or have been violated.

Spelling: Spelling has once again resumed this last week, it’s been a bit tough getting back into the habit of completing spelling homework. Please help your kids in making this happen. There will be spelling homework involving sentences and ABC order every week.

Specialties:

Spanish: We searched the classroom for vocabulary words. Then, we played games to practice classroom vocabulary.

Library: This week we discussed our “rings of responsibility”. What we do online can affect not only ourselves, but our community and even the world at large.  We also practiced our typing skills.  https://acschool.edclub.com

Other items of note:

*We connected with our buddies in fifth grade today and finished our leaf colored project with oil pastels.

*Gavin was celebrated this last week for his birthday. A cute shot was captured of several students giving him a big birthday hug. Have a blessed weekend!

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