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Monday, September 26, 2011

Curriculum September 26-29

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and that you were able to enjoy some of the beautiful weather.  :)
enVision Math
We will focus on subtraction this week.  Models for subtracting 3-digit numbers, subtracting 3-digit numbers, subtracting across zero, and drawing a picture with a number sentence to work on problem solving.  We will take the Topic 3 test on Friday.

Rigby Reading
We will continue Theme 3 in Rigby this week. We will review asking questions and work on inferring. The students will be expected to read between the lines of what the author is implying in his or her writing.

Grammar- The focus will be on subjects and predicates.

Spelling
The Rigby words this week are good, house, land, oh, whisper, whistle, thaw, children, shadow, establish.
The extension word focus is uni, which means one.
unicellular, unicorn, unicycle, unidirectional, unify, unilateral, unique, unison, unit, unitard

 
Science
We will continue to learn about different stars and the different phases of the moon.  Look for a project to come home on observing the stars.  Also, look for the solar house project to be sent home this week.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Social Studies
We culminated our Communities unit with our community walk, which was very successful. The students were spreading a little sunshine along the way by handing out little sunshine cutouts with positive messages on them.  Those who received them were all impressed and had smiles on their faces.  McDonalds went very well.  The kids quickly learned how important it was to apply tax when calculating the costs of their meals.  It was a great real-life learning experience!
 
We will be starting a geography unit next week.

Monday, September 19, 2011

September 19-23

Our Community Walk is on Wednesday!  Make sure to get your child's permission slip signed and turned in by Wednesday morning. (They went home on Friday- if you did not recieve it or do not have one, let me know and I can send another one home. 


Reading
We will be starting Theme 3 this week titled "What is Light?"  During this theme we will be practicing the reading strategy of making inferences.

We will also continue to practice the strategy of asking questions.  We will begin to develop two types of questions this week, on the surface questions (answers can be found directly in the test) and under the surface questions (answers require deeper thinking). 

Reading Logs will come home again tonight in Monday folders.  Send them back next Monday or Tuesday.  This is a school-wide reading program so please make sure your child is reading regularly.

Spelling
Spelling this week will be the long vowel pattern OR the prefix poly, which means many.

Rigby Words:  ball, day, up, what, alone, quote, polite, surprise, entire, plague

Extension List:  polychromatic, polyclinic, polydactyl, polyglot, polygon, polygraph, polyhedron, polymorphous, polysyllabic, polytheism

Math
We took our Topic 2 test on Friday and will retest on Thursday.  It was a tougher topic for many so we will take some extra time to review and retest.  We will add with an expanded algorithm, look at models for adding 3-digit numbers, add 3-digit numbers, add 3 or more numbers, and draw a picture for problem solving.


Science
Our Solar Cookout was postponed until tomorrow!  There was NO sunshine on Friday, therefore we will cook our bagel pizzas and s'mores all day tomorrow.  The students will still be eating their normal lunch at school.  The cookout will count as their afternoon snack.  We will set out the cookers in the morning, check them periodically through the day to make sure the sun is hitting them correctly, and then eat our snack in the afternoon.  Our next unit will be studying the moon and stars.

Social Studies
Learning about the community is an important part of the 3rd grade curriculum.  We will culminate our communities unit with a community walk. The students will walk throughout the community, while observing things that stand out to them. They will have to draw something from their community and discuss the importance of it. We will also go to McDonald's where the students can practice using real-world skills with money.  We will be eating lunch at school and then leaving for our walk shortly afterwards.  Please send a small amount of money to school with your child that day if you would like for them to be able to buy a treat.

Writing
The students are almost finished with the stories they have been working on.  We have computers reserved to type them this week. 

Our grammar focus this week is on subjects and predicates.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Solar Cook Out - Supplies Needed

Solar Cook Out
On Thursday, September 15th, we will be assembling our solar cookers in the afternoon around 2:00. We could use 4 parent volunteers to help the kids put them together that afternoon. Each student will need to bring in 50 cents to purchase a Pizza Shoppe box to create their solar cooker by Wednesday, September 14th. On Friday morning we will set up the cookers and then let the pizzas cook throughout the day. Volunteers will not be needed on Friday.  Below are items we need donated for the cookout. If you are willing to donate one of the following items, please email me and let me know! Thank you for all of your help!


3 Packages of Plain Sliced Bagels (regular sized)
5 Bags of Finely Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
2 Large Jars of Ragu Pizza Sauce
1 Box of Graham Crackers
2 Bags of Jumbo Marshmallows (not the super sized ones)

10 Rolls of Aluminum Foil
5 Rolls of Plastic Wrap
Package of Paper Plates
Package of Napkins
One Bag of Wooden Skewers


September 12 - 19

Welcome back to a full a week of school!  The kiddos completed MAP testing last week.  They did a great job with their first computerized test of the school year.  Thank you to everyone that volunteered to send in things for our solar cookout on Friday.  We are still in need of several items so I will send an updated list shortly.  We have our fingers crossed that it will be a warm and sunny day!

enVision Math
We will estimate differences, make sense of addition and subtraction equations, use problem solving to evaluate reasonableness and take the Topic 2 test.

Rigby Reading
We will continue theme two in Rigby this week.  The focus will be on asking questions to promote thinking before, during and after reading. 

Reading logs will continue this week.  Please make sure that you sign off on the log each week and have your child total the minutes.

Grammar- The focus will be on verbs

Spelling
The Rigby words this week are come, dog, down, me, credit, grand, quest, drizzle, problem and sprinkle.
The focus of the extension list is mono-one.
monochrome, monocle, monolingual, monolith, monologue, monophobia, monopoly, monorail, monosyllabic and monotone

Science
We will continue our solar energy unit this week with a couple more experiments and wrap it up with the creation of our own solar cookers.  We are hoping for a SUNNY day Friday without RAIN!  :)


Social Studies
We will continue our communities unit.  The students will finish creating their communities that they started last week.  You'll see some fantastic pictures of a rural community, a suburban community and an urban community very soon.  The kids have been very creative with their supplies!

Writing
We will continue to work on revising and editing our Narrative paper on their lost/loose tooth.
The students have a editing sheet that they have to complete before they take their paper to the publishing stage. 

Thursday, September 8, 2011

MATH . . . Hang in there!

Just wanted to send you a quick message of encouragement with our math program.  This is a work in progress and the kids really are doing well.  Some of these concepts are much, much harder than they have had in the past.  Please know that we are working diligently in the classroom and that some of these concepts take a few days for them to really sink in and comprehend. 

We reviewed yesterday’s math lesson before moving on to today’s lesson.  Yesterday we had tried a couple different approaches to subtracting mentally.  Today our class found an approach that they seemed to grasp a little better.  Suppose you have the problem 43-18 and you were to subtract using mental math.  We want to try to make 18 an even ten so that it is easier to subtract.  We added 2 to 18 to come up with 20.  Now, it’s not fair that the 18 got an extra 2 so we needed to be sure to give 43 an extra 2 as well.  (I actually compared this to a sibling getting 2 more cookies than them.  Then they understood that it’s not fair unless they get 2 cookies as well.)  Now instead of 43-18 we have 45-20=15.  Guess what?  43-18=15!  We did several problems comparing it to food and someone else getting more than them.  They seemed to get that idea a little better.  Keep it fair, keep it equal and it will work out.  J 

Please know that you are able to log in to the site and see the video we watch and even the problems we do from their math text each day.  Simply go to this site:  https://www.pearsonsuccessnet.com/snpapp/login/login.jsp and log in as your child.  Most kiddos have the first letter of their first name and then their last name as their username.  A few had to use their whole first name and they can tell you who they are.  Everyone has the same password of thirdpre and you should be in!   Check around on the site and become familiar with the resources it has to offer you at home as well. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns at all.  Breathe easy as today we only had to round to the nearest ten and hundred.  Whew!  J  I told the kids we gave our brains such a hard workout yesterday that they got to take a little break today.  Tomorrow we will be estimating; however, each day we will continue to work out some problems with our mental math until it is a skill that they have mastered.  Thanks so much for your help at home and patience as we get our kids thinking about math in a different way and one that they can explain.  We’ll get there together! 

By the way, the kids have been doing well with their MAP testing.  Only one more day to go! 

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Curriculum September 7th - 9th

MAP TESTING this WEEK!
Students will be taking MAPS each day from Noon to 1:30 pm.  Please make sure your child is well rested and ready for school in the morning.  THANK YOU! 

enVision Math
Please notify me if you haven't receive the parent letter for enVision with your child's user name and password.  I have sent it home twice now so I'm hoping it has made it to you at least once.  =)  Each lesson that your child views in class is also online so you are able to see what we complete in class.  Please do let me know if you have any questions at all.  (Math has changed A LOT since we've been in school.)  The login site is as follows:  https://www.pearsonsuccessnet.com/snpapp/login/login.jsp 

The students took an online test and a hard copy test (both were exactly the same) last week over Topic 1.  Most students performed better on the hard copy test; however, we are trying to help prepare the students for the computerized testing they will have to take in the Spring.  I will plan on going forward with both forms of testing at the moment and will average their scores for you.  The students completed a survey about their performance and have brought it home over the weekend for you to sign.  Please take some time to go through the test with your child.  I was very proud of how the students did given this was the first time they had something other than Saxon.  They are doing a great job!

The current topic is Number Sense: Addition and Subtraction.  This week we will cover Using Mental Math to Subtract, Rounding and Estimating Sums.  We will begin using an Estimation Jar soon to help us with our estimating skills.

Rigby Reading
We will continue focusing on Making Connections. After reading, you can ask your child how they are able to relate to the text, relate it to another text, or relate it to the world.  We will also focus on Asking Questions as we read to help us better understand the text.
*We will begin reading logs this week. They are due the Tuesday of the following week.  Due to the extended holiday weekend, students are to return their reading logs on Wednesday.
*Grammar-We will continue to focus on identifying nouns and verbs.

Spelling
No spelling this week due to the short week and MAP testing.

Science
We will continue our solar energy unit.  The students will test earth materials and create solar heat collectors.  Please note that we will have our Solar Energy Cook-Out on Friday, September 16.  We will need parent volunteers to help throughout the day.  Students will also have their own Solar Houses due at the beginning of October.  Look for more detailed information regarding both events very soon.

Social Studies
We will continue our communities unit.  This week we will be covering the history of Shawnee, recreation and city services in Shawnee.
 
Writing
Last week we began a draft on the topic, "My Lost Tooth" after reading Trevor's Wiggly, Wobbly Tooth by Lester Laminack.  This week we will focus on voice, strong beginnings and strong conclusions in our tooth narratives.
 
Have a great week!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Enjoy the LONG weekend!

We had another super week in 3rd Grade!  I hope you all enjoy the long weekend.  I'll look forward to seeing your kids again on WEDNESDAY!