January 12, 2018...

Hi Parents,

Thank you for visiting today.  A couple of important things came home this week. Your child should have brought home and shown you his/her latest math inventory score.  All but three students have retaken this test.  Our goal by the end of third grade is 650Q.  There were many children who were not too happy with their score and have made it a goal to improve this by March. Another important  item is the directions for your child's next project, a Georgia Habitats poster or PowerPoint.  Below, you will find what else we've been doing this week...

Grammar/Spelling:  We began our unit on adjectives, learning that these words modify nouns to make our writing more descriptive. We completed several activities to learn how to identify and use adjectives correctly.  In spelling, we memorized some frequently misspelled words.

Reading:  We began our new chapter book, Because of Winn-Dixie.  We are looking closely at the characters in this story and learning how to write a five paragraph essay to prepare for the Milestones Assessment. We are analyzing the characters and looking at their character traits, citing text evidence to support our trait, and then providing an explanation.  We are working in small groups on leveled passages, continuing to identify the main idea and supporting details within  the passage.

Writing:  We learned about the purpose of persuasive writing.  We got into small groups to debate whether or not homework is a good thing or a bad thing.  We learned what is needed to persuade someone to change their thinking (a bold statement of your opinion and then very convincing reasons).  We read two different articles; one on  the history of television and how families used to watch TV, and then an article on the latest technology and how families now spend their evenings.  We began writing a persuasive paper on our opinion about the articles.

Math:  We learned all about fractions; what each digit in the fraction stands for, how to identify unit fractions, how to compare fractions, and what equivalent fractions are. We will remain on this topic for the next three weeks.  We learned two new games to test our problem solving skills; closest to 1000 and Ballast Puzzles. Ask your child about one of these!

Science:  We are studying about Pollution and Conservation by reading an article a day and finding the main idea and supporting details.  We will begin Georgia Habitats on Tuesday.

Dinner Conversation Starters...
*play a round of "closest to 1000" with your child (he/she should know the rules!)
*ask your child what their score was on the Math Inventory
*ask your child to name the ten  things that Opal's dad told her about her mother

Class  News...

It's a great weekend to encourage your child to begin research on his/her Georgia Habitats project. Information is in  your child's agenda

Another reading packet will come home on Tuesday and there will be three night's worth of assignments.  Make sure your child is doing the homework as indicated, not all in one night. That defeats the purpose of reading the passage multiple times to gain a deeper understanding of the information and to learn new vocabulary.