Thanks for visiting the blog today! Our week started out with and eclipse and ended with a bang! We finished our book clubs and had some amazing discussions in our groups! Check out below to see what else we've done this week...
Phonics/Grammar: We continued our study of nouns; plural nouns specifically. We studies the -es ending to make a singular word plural. We sorted our words, played several games with the words, and took the assessment.
Reading: We began our new novel, The White Giraffe. To help us understand the challenging vocabulary in the novel, we did a "close read" and looked at the clues the author has provided us to decode these words. We also discussed how good predictions are made; by combining our background knowledge with text evidence from the book. We learned that wild guesses are NOT how third graders make predictions in a book. In small groups, we completed our book club novels and chose our next round of books. We watched a model book club group during a discussion and then met in our groups to discuss the books.
Writing: In writing, we continued our work on leads and developing the heart of our story. We learned that stories should not simply be lists of things we did over a period of time. We also learned how to "show" not "tell" details in our writing. An example would be to write, "My stomach churned and growled after not eating for one whole day!" instead of "I was hungry." We worked with a partner to turn "telling" sentences into "showing" sentences.
Math: We worked on learning another strategy for solving addition and subtraction problems, then we chose which strategy works the best for us. We discussed solving tricky computation problems involving subtracting across zeros (600-352). We looked at addition and subtraction problems in context of multi-step word problems and used our ACE strategy to solve (analyze, compute, explain). We took two "touchstone" assessments this week; one on rounding and one on addition and subtraction. We continued working on our mental math strategies everyday, solving problems in our heads during number talks.
Social Studies: We began our unit on American Indians. We looked at a map of North America and identified the regions that tribes inhabited. We talked about the first region, the southwest, and we learned about the Hopi tribe. Culture, homes, food, and location were discussed and we made some resources for our American Indian folder.
Dinner Conversation Starters...
*Ask your child how he/she did on the two touchstones that we took this week
*Ask your child to tell you all about Martine and her first impressions of South Africa
*Ask your child who was in their book club from last week and what book they chose to read next
*Ask your child what ACE stands for in problem solving
Class News and Announcements...
Thank you Mrs. Newlin for making our Spanish folders for the class and for keeping us organized with our student files!
All parents are welcome to meet us at Tellus for our class field trip. You can follow the buses or meet us there! The more the merrier...
PLEASE remember to practice math facts with your child on a regular basis. I'm seeing lots of fingers come out when we are adding and subtracting single digit numbers and that should not be needed at this point. We are going to be working on memorizing multiplication facts soon, but simple addition and subtraction fact mastery is a must first! I've talked to the children about making this a goal if it is still a struggle during math time.
The PTA fundraiser has begun! Please donate what you see appropriate to support our school. Kemp's PTA is amazing and does so much to support what we do in the classroom. They are excellent stewards of the funds you donate! If that's not reason enough....right now your kids can earn some cool gadgets for the Kemp lanyards!
It has taken me MUCH longer to work my way through our class phone calls than I anticipated. If you haven't gotten a phone call from me as of yet, I promise I haven't forgotten you. I will be calling just simply to touch base with you soon.
Academic Alerts will be coming home on September 6th. If you do not receive an alert, that means your child is progressing or meeting all quarter one standards at this time. Keep in mind, there are many standards that we have not even touched on yet.
Keep those prize box donations coming! We've got some super well-behaved students who are making it to the prize box every Friday.
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