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 22: February 5th-9th

Week 22:  February 5th-9th

Reminders:  
Tuesday, 6th:  HCE Book Fair will be held in the library.  There will be a book fair dinner from 5:30-7:30pm on Monday evening.  Bring your special friends and family. 
Wednesday, 7th:  HCE Book Fair continues before school and during the day!  You have the opportunity to come early from 7:15-7:55am for breakfast with buddies in the library while you browse and shop. 
Thursday and Friday, 8th and 9th:  Noon dismissal.  

What should I bring on Valentine's Day?
The students can bring Valentines cards or candy, but we ask that you bring something for everyone in the class. The students make a valentines treat bag as well during the Valentine's party, so they do not need to bring a container for their treats and cards to go into. The class size list is below:

1. Saint-Val: 20
2. Ford-20
3. Badrak: 18
4. Duncan: 20
5. Morphey: 19
6. Rozzell: 21

Reading:  Our nonfiction journey continues this week as we head into determining importance within informational texts.  Good readers learn to recognize important information from interesting information as they read.  Interesting information is fun to read and adds to the overall text, but is not necessarily needed to understand the text topic.  This skill can be tricky for third graders as they have to set aside their personal opinions and think about the information, just the facts! 
Writing:  We truly enjoyed celebrating your writers last week at the end of our poetry unit!   We're headed to a new genre of writing, expository.  Expository writing is meant to give information, explain, and describe.  Your writers will be introduced to the genre this week as we model what it means to be an expository writer.  
Social Studies:  Our map projects are in full swing!  This week we will focus on fine tuning our last details as well as creating questions based on the our maps to ask others.  We're excited for our third graders to interact with and solve one another's questions.  What a great way to apply what they have learned within our map skills unit! 

Math: We are so proud of your mathematicians! They have been working hard to understand and learn each multiplication strategy (skip count, equal groups, area model, array). This week, the students will be more exposed to multiplication word problems. 

Science: We ended last week beginning the rapid changes unit. The students learned how earthquakes and mountains were formed as well as the layers of the Earth. We will continue building that knowledge by engaging in hands on activities. The Weathering, Erosion, and Soil Vocabulary cards and study guide were sent home today, February 6th. We will update you soon on the day of the quiz.

Homework: Please be sure to have your students be on DreamBox every day for 20-30 minutes as well as Homework #1-3 Monday-Wednesday. We will not a Problem of The Week this week. The Weekly Planner tab in this website is also a resource to communicate the specific homework(s) for the week.