April 28, 2017 Update...

Hi Parents,

I can't believe we are almost finished with the year!  In our class, we will be working and learning until the very last day of school.  So even though our big test is over, we still have lots to do before the summer. I have started giving children letter grades on some of their work in order to prepare them for fourth grade. For some, this has been very rewarding and for others, a bit eye-opening.  We also had a class discussion about what to do when you receive a grade that you aren't happy with. If your child comes home and asks you about your expectations for grades, now you know why. I shared with the class what the consequences are for my girls if their grades fall below a "B".  Here's what else has  been going on this week in Room 315...

Reading: We continued reading in our novel, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  We looked at the symbols that continue to come up in the book; the stars, Edward's clothes, and Pellegrina.  We are making good guesses as to what these symbols really represent.  We are also making comparison charts to look at Edward's transformation as he travels from place to place, owner to owner.  We worked at annotating leveled passages and answering comprehension questions in our small groups.

Writing: As a class, we reviewed how to use the resources available in  the Cobb Digital Library to conduct our research needed for our biography poster and speech.  We took notes in our Content Notebook. We also jotted down information to help us create a timeline for our posters.

Math:  We took the Touchstone on Elapsed Time and then began our 4th grade preview unit on using the traditional algorithm to add and subtract (I know you are thrilled!) We learned this "quick way"  to help us compute faster now that we know the meaning behind  "borrowing" and "carrying".  We took the baseline score for our 100 question timed multiplication test.  We will be starting "multiplication boot camp" next week and will be playing lots of games to help us master our single digit math facts before leaving third grade.  This will be something to really focus on over the summer if your child is not fluent with the facts.

Social Studies/Science:  We concluded our study of Cesar Chavez and began our unit on Sources of Heat.  We also are spending lots of our content time researching for the wax museum.

Class News and Announcements...

Spring Fling is tonight! The fun begins at 6:00.

We had a blast at Diffendoofer Day today. Thank you to those who contributed to buying the pizzas for our class!