Week 23: February 12th-16th

Week 23:  February 12th-16th
Reminders:
12th-16th:  Kindness Week
14th:  Valentine's Day parties will be held in your child's homeroom classroom from 2:25-2:55.  
The students can bring Valentines cards or candy, but we ask that you bring something for everyone in the class. The students will make treat bags during the party, so they do not need to bring a container for their treats and cards. Class headcounts are below.
Saint-Val: 20
Badrak: 18
Ford:  20
Duncan: 20
Morphey: 19
Rozzell: 21
19th:  Monday is a student holiday in honor of President's Day.  We'll see you Tuesday!

Reading:  We will shift gears this week to focus on the genre of narrative nonfiction.  Narrative Nonfiction is fact-based storytelling.  The facts about a person or situation are presented in a narrative, or story, format.  Biographies are probably the most common form of narrative nonfiction your readers are familiar with.  We'll start by comparing and contrasting this genre to both fiction and informational types of text.   We will then practice how to gather information from this narrative format to describe events and/or the subject of the text. 
Writing:  We're off to a great start within our expository writing unit!  This week we will continue to build main ideas off of a general prompt.  Some examples include:  Who is an important person in your life or what is something you cannot live without.  Your writers will support their main idea with details.  These details (facts, anecdotes, descriptions, etc) must relate to and explain their main idea.  
Social Studies:  We're spending some extra time on maps to reinforce the skills and concepts learned within the unit.  We will be finished with the unit project this week.    

Math: We will continue to dive deeper into multiplication word problems while using the strategy that works best for each student. Later in the week, we will begin our Division introduction and introduce what Division means. We will also introduce the students strategies on how to solve division word problems and how knowing their fact families will aid their success.
Homework: The Problem of the Week will be sent home on Monday. Please have your child bring it to school on Friday. Homework #1-3 will be sent home Monday-Wednesday. Please have your child be on DreamBox for at least 20 minutes a day at home. 

Science: We will continue to learn more about the different forces that cause the Earth's surface to change such as Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Landslides, Tsunamis, etc. The students will engage in activities that will help the students retain the information and use it in their daily lives and future conversations with others. The Rapid Changes of Earth Quiz is on Friday, February 16th. Please make sure your scientist is studying at least 20 minutes per day!

The Weekly Planner tab (on the right side) in this website is also a resource to communicate the specific homework(s) for the week. 

Week 21: January 29th-February 2nd

Week 21:  January 29th-February 2nd

Reminders: 
2/2: Spring Group Pictures are this Friday.  These pictures are taken as homerooms.   Time slots are as follows. 10:25 Rozzell/Morphey, 10:35  Badrak/Saint Val, and 10:45 Duncan/Ford.  
2/6 and 2/7:  HCE Book Fair located in library. 
2/8 and 2/9: Noon Dismissal

Reading:  Determining the main idea of a text can be tricky business!  We're going to continue searching for text clues (text evidence) to infer the main idea of an entire or portion of text.  Your readers will see this week that identifying the main idea from several sections of an article will lead to a strong nonfiction summary.  We will conclude the week by introducing cause and effect relationships.  Cause and effect is something we experience in our daily lives.  We will learn tools to identify this relationship within a nonfiction text. 

Writing:  We will celebrate your poet's hard work this week!  Our publishing celebrations are always a wonderful way to unite as a community of writers and "high five" one another on a job well done.  Your children are excited to share their finished anthologies with their peers.  Later in the week we will practice note taking strategies as we read through a nonfiction text and organize our thoughts/reactions and important ideas.  
Social Studies:  We're rounding out our study of maps this week.  Students will apply what they have learned throughout the month to create their own maps.  We're challenging them to include a title, compass rose, legend, map scale, and grid system.  

Math: We will continue to learn many strategies to multiply such as skip counting, number line, area model, and an array model. We will build from easier digits such as 5 and continue to increase the digit to 6 through 9. As it is important to know multiplication facts, we are helping our mathematicians understand and internalize what it truly means to multiply, where they can see it in the real world, and how to apply it in their daily lives. 

Homework: In addition to our Monday-Wednesday regular homework pages, we will begin "Problem of the Week." This assignment will be sent home every Monday and will need to be returned on Friday. This assignment is meant to be a team effort as we would like your student to solve the problem alongside you.  On Friday, we will discuss the many ways your student solved the problem with the support from you all! 
Science: The students will learn and understand how soil is formed and the role of decomposition. Later in the week, the students will explore plate tectonics and its relation to earthquakes and volcanoes. Soil is different in different places because of different rocks in the area and different plants and animals that live there and die and decay. Important concepts to remember:

• Constructive forces build up the Earth
• Destructive forces tear down the Earth
• Earthquake:  A sudden release of energy under the Earth’s surface that makes the ground shake or crack.
• Earthquakes build up the land (constructive) by pushing upward forming mountains and tear down the Earth (destructive) by opening crevices and causing land to fall or slide.
• Weathering: The process that breaks down rocks into tiny pieces over time.
• Erosion:  The carrying away of weathered rock 

 

• 

  Different types of Soil: Sand, Clay, Humus, Loam

Week 20: January 22nd-26th

Week 20:  January 22nd-26th

Reading:  Last week was cut extra short because of our school holiday and ice days.  We were not able to get to everything we needed to because of this, so we're continuing with last week's plan for a portion of this week.  Your reader will continue to navigate detailed maps, diagrams, tables, photographs, and captions within nonfiction articles.  We will discuss how these features support their understanding of the text topic.  As we move forward in the week, we will introduce main idea.  Main idea is the central idea of a text.  Comprehending the main idea is important in order to understand the purpose for writing.  We will be learning tricks and tools to help aid your reader in identifying what an article is mostly, or mainly, about.  

Writing:  We will officially wrap up our poetry unit this week!  Your writers have been hard at work drafting a variety of poems since returning to school in 2018.  We will choose some of our favorites to revise and edit and then publish an anthology using Google Docs.  Our week will end with a celebration of our published work!  

Social Studies:  We will continue using maps as every day tools.  Utilizing map scales will be our focus for this week.  Students will practice using a map scale to calculate distances between cities.    

Math: We will continue to solve addition and subtraction problems regarding time intervals in minutes using pictorial models and/or tools. It is important to remember the danger zone. This is when the minute hand reaches the 50 and 55 minute mark and the hour hand looks like it has reached the next hour. The students will continue to manipulate clocks to deepen their understanding of time. Later in the week, students will be introduced to multiplication. We will be learning specific multiplication strategies such as the array and number line strategies. An array is a group of objects that shows numbers in equal rows or columns.

                     

Homework: Students will be given homework Monday - Wednesday. Also, please make sure your mathematician is on DreamBox and SumDog at home.

               
Science: We will continue to observe forces such as magnetism, friction, and gravity acting on objects. Also, we will be learning about specific tools that make work easier such as pulleys. We will then have our Force and Motion quiz on Wednesday, January 24th. Later in the week, we will begin investigating how rocks can break down to form soil. Please make sure your scientist is studying the study guide and vocabulary cards every day.

Week 33: April 24th-28th

Reminders/Important Dates:  

• Monday, May 8th:  Math STAAR for 3rd (and 4th graders)
• Tuesday, May 9th:  Reading STAAR for 3rd (and 4th graders)
• Monday, May 22nd:  Publishers Picnic
• Thursday, May 25th:  3rd grade Chariot Races
• Friday, May 26th:  Winds of Time school-wide parade 

Reading:  We are diving into cause and effect this week.  While cause/effect is something we experience in our daily lives, identifying cause/effect within a text is tricky.  We will spend the week practicing strategies to identify cause/effect relationships in both fiction and nonfiction texts.  Our readers will gain a better grasp of the importance of identifying causes and effects throughout an informational article and/or a plot.  Doing so will answer questions like "Why did the character react that way?" or "What caused a character to do ___?"    

We will also spend part of our language arts block working with online tools called Quizlet and Epic. These resources can be found under the "Language Arts Website" link on the right side of this blog and can be accessed both during and after school. Please feel free to ask your child about these resources and use them at home as well.  

We are thankful to have the opportunity to work with reliable technology thanks to our HCE PTA!  Our students have been able to log into our Chromebooks and work with these resources daily. We are beyond grateful for these additions to our classrooms! 

Writing:  We will be wrapping up our letter writing unit this week.  We will begin this week with writing a letter to a community worker.  Students will write a letter to a police officer, fireman, or nurse/doctor in our community.  We will practice addressing envelopes as well during this process.  The publishing process will start mid-week with revising and editing. We will celebrate our letters and share with our classroom community on Friday.  

Spelling:  Students will take a test this Thursday, April 27th.  Next week, April 28th- May 4th, teachers will be looking for students to apply these spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work. 

Social Studies:  We will continue to learn about Texas cultural celebrations this week.  We have and will continue to use the online component of our Studies Weekly social studies resource to read articles about various celebrations in Texas.  We will dive a little deeper this week in certain cultural celebrations to learn about what types of foods, activities, and dances are celebrated.  The students are very interested in these celebrations! 

Math: We have now entered our STAAR Camp Unit. STAAR Camp is where we will be reviewing all of the skills covered this year in preparation for the May 8th, Math STAAR test. The main focus of this week's review will be on place value, comparing numbers, word problems, and graphing.  Homework this week will include practice problems in a STAAR-like format.  This homework is a great way to review old concepts at home. 

Thanks to PTA, we have been provided with new Chromebooks in 3rd grade. These new computers have allowed us to provide class time to work on Dreambox. This program allows for individualized lessons that are leveled to your child needs. Think Through Math is another program your child can log on and is a great review of past math concepts.  These can be accessed at home.  Your child has been provided with login information.  In addition, their username and password information was sent home on our red spring information/conference form.  Please encourage your mathematician to try these out at home as well as show you what they've been working on at school.    

Science:  We have moved from measuring temperature with a thermometer to other units of measurement. We ended last week by discussing the difference between mass and weight and determining appropriate units to measure mass and weight. We want your child familiar with both customary and metric units since we use both.  We will begin our week by looking at customary and metric units of capacity and volume. We will then transition to measuring on a ruler looking at 1/4 and 1/2 inch. 

Week 16: December 5-9

Upcoming dates to put on your calendars:

12/7 - Toys for Tots- Please send a new and unwrapped gift to donate.  Children will get a chance to drop their toy with local firefighters and Santa Claus.  

12/9 - Fun Run at Woodview.  Permissions slips are required for students to ride the bus for this event.  All donations will help support the SPARK PARK at our sister school, Woodview Elementary.

12/16 - Noon Dismissal- Please make arrangements for this different dismissal time.  Teachers will need hand written notes if you are making  a change in your child's transportation schedule.

1/6 - Third Grade Recognition Ceremony for the Second Nine Weeks, 9:00-9:30a.m. in the HCE Cafe

1/10 - STAARY STAARY NIGHT - Informational Parent Meeting covering information on the STAAR test. We will meet in the library from 6:00 - 7:00p.m.

Reading: Readers will continue to read poetry this week.  We will focus our attention on what information in the poem pulls at the reader's sense of hearing, smelling, seeing, feeling, and tasting.  Descriptive details that pull at our senses help the reader visualize while reading.  Later in the week, we will use these sensory details to also help us infer more about the character and situations we read about in poems.

Writing: This is PUBLICATION WEEK.  Writer's will focus on fine tuning their stories to help the reader.  Developmentally, this is a hard skill for third graders.  It's hard to admit that our first attempts are perfect.  Encourage your child at home, by sharing times that you changed your thinking after your first impression or effort.

Spelling: Spelling tests are this Wednesday, December 7.  An application grade of words in daily work will take place between 12/8-12/14.  We will also give the spelling inventory again between 12/8-12/16.  The information gathered will help us readjust spelling groups based on learner's needs.  

Social Studies: Jane Addams will be added to our bank of Good Citizens.  Her work in Chicago made a difference for so many men, women and children as she founded and worked at the Hull House.  We will discuss the many reasons she was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Students will also learn about various ways that people are honored and remembered.  Pointing our monuments, plaques, road markers, and awards that are created in memory and honor of those who make a difference will help our students understand ways we remember and recognize good citizens.

Math:In math this week, we will continue practicing our strategies for multiplication. We will decode word problems to pick out the important parts. We will identify what number in a multiplication sentence tells us the groups and which number shows how many in each group. We will use word problems to reiterate these skills.

For example: There are 4 groups with 3 strawberries in each group

 On Thursday, we will practice creating our own multiplication word problems to help us understand multiplication even more. On Friday, we will get to solve the multiplication word problems we created the day before. We will have our normal math homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Our fast facts quiz will be on Friday. We will not have a problem of the week this week. 

Science: On Monday and Tuesday during science time, we will participate in an energy lab. We will apply the information we know about mechanical, thermal, light, and sound energy. On Wednesday, the third graders will take the Science PSA (Priority Standard Assessment). This assessment is created by the district and gives us information on how your child is progressing through the concepts that we have taught so far in science. On Thursday, we will take the Energy Test. We will review in class before the test is given.