Week 26: March 5 - 9

Week 26: March 5 - 9

Reminders:
9 - Report Cards go home
12-16 Spring Break (No School)
20 - Third Nine Weeks Recognition Ceremony at 9:00 in the cafeteria
23 - Solar System Test
30 - Good Friday (No School)

Reading: Our students worked hard last week and showed amazing effort and skill on the READING practice STAAR test.  Please look for an email from your child's reading teacher by Friday, March 9th to tell you more about your child's reading strengths and areas for growth.  Mostly, know we are PROUD of their reading accomplishments thus far and it is only MARCH!

Narrative NonFiction will continue to be our genre focus for this week. Above you can see some of the titles we have been reading and discussing in class.  Specifically, this week, we will teach students a silly song that can serve as an EXCELLENT strategy for writing summaries or answering STAAR like questions about summary with narrative.  For a sneak peak, or simply to keep the fun going at home, check out this clip.



Writing: Essays will continue to be our genre of focus.  This week we will look at how to write a strong lead.  We will look at many styles and try them out with our first drafts to see which style might be most effective.  Below is a sample anchor chart.  Something like this will be built together in our classroom this week as we write.


Social Studies: Students will finish up their work with map skills.  We hope that maybe a few students have gotten excited and talked to you about how we learned to play BATTLESHIP using our grid map skills.  This week, we will also look the cultural traditions associated with St. Patrick's Day.

Math: During our math block this week, we will continue to look at division strategies and how we can apply these strategies to word problems. Your child will work to create division word problems to help with their understanding of the parts of  division word problems. On Wednesday and Friday, we will learn about area (Area Video). We have taught area models during our multiplication unit and we will make the connection between area and the area models we have already studied. On Thursday, we plan to complete a reflection paper from the practice STAAR that was taken last Monday. This tool helps your child zone in on the concepts they really understand and helps us to identify areas of need. We will send this paper home with your child so that you can use this as a discussion tool at home.

For homework this week, we will have a worksheet come home on Monday - Wednesday. We will not have a problem of the week this week. We will take a fast facts quiz on Friday. If you plan to be out of school on Friday, please let your child's teacher know so that they can take their fast facts quiz before the break.

Science: This week during science, we will continue talking about the relationship between the sun, moon, and Earth and our other planets. On Monday, we will work on the next set of vocabulary cards for the solar system unit. We will send home these cards and review sheet so that your child will be able to study nightly for our test. The date of the test Friday, March 23rd.  During the rest of the week, we will be studying the planets.

Week 25: February 26th- March 2nd

Week 25:  February 26th- March 2nd

Reminders:
26th:  Math Practice STAAR
27th:  Reading Practice STAAR
Please make sure your child gets a good night's sleep and eats a healthy breakfast at home or at the school cafe these two days of testing.  A rested body and full belly will make a huge difference as we tackle these practice tests.

28th:  Field Trip to Houston Museum of Natural Science
We're excited to head to HMNS on Wednesday!  Please have your child wear their #cougarstrong school t-shirt on Wednesday for the trip.  We also request all children bring a lunch packed in a bag that can be thrown away after use.  We will be eating lunch on our field trip and returning to school later in the afternoon.

Reading:  We will tackle note taking strategies using informational texts once we resume our normal schedule on Thursday.  Determining importance and synthesizing information is an important skill for our readers to learn.

Writing:  We will continue our expository writing unit this week.  We're drafting essays to form a collection in our Writer's Notebook.  We're already flagging essays we look forward to publishing at the end of our unit.

Math: The students will continue to build their problem solving skills by identifying word problems and exploring different types of division word problems and strategies. One of the most important parts about identifying a word problem is NOT finding a keyword. Students must find the key concepts and determine how they are to solve the problems. There will be a fast facts quiz this friday.

Science: Your scientist will be given their unit vocabulary cards and study guide later in the week. We will continue learning about the characteristics of the sun, moon, and earth. Please make sure they are studying 20 minutes a night.

Week 24: February 19th-23rd

Week 24:  February 19th-23rd

Reminders:
19th:  Monday is a student holiday in honor of President's Day.  We'll see you tomorrow!

23rd: GO TEXAN DAY! Wear your best Cowboy/Cowgirl/Cowperson clothes!

26th: 3rd Math Practice STAAR 

27th: 3rd Reading Practice STAAR

28th: Field Trip Museum Natural Science. Please have your child bring a sack lunch to eat while on the field trip.

Reading:  We will continue to work through narrative nonfiction texts and comprehension strategies during our Reader's Workshop mini lessons.  Your readers will use text evidence to make inferences about the subject(s) of the true stories we read.  We will also spend some time this week reviewing strategies your readers can use while answering a multiple choice question.  

Writing:  Students will continue to write expository pieces. We've worked with graphic organizers to brainstorm supporting details that support our main ideas.  This week, we will focus on the structure of an expository essay.  We will model how to transfer important information from a graphic organizer into paragraphs within their essay.  

Social Studies:  We're looking forward to this week's activity in social studies!  We will be using a paper-based grid map to play Battleship.  Students will play one another to practice navigating grid maps.  We will then journal about our experience and strategy of using a grid map to play the game. 

Math: We will continue to dive deeper into Division word problems while introducing them to the various strategies that will build their confidence in solving those problems. We will discuss what Division means, review new vocabulary words (multiples, dividend, divisor, and quotient), and discuss when they divide in their life. Knowing their fact families can them solve problems! Please have your students study their multiplication facts. We like to have students skip count for fun (multiples of 6: 6, 12, 18)! 

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 begin our Solar Sytem unit this week! This includes exploring main characteristics of the sun as a source of energy and physical characteristics of the Sun. Later in the week, we will explore the main characteristics of the moon and how it compares to Earth. We are so excited about this unit and your scientist will too!

Week 25: February 20-24

Important Dates and Reminders:

February

20- Presidents' Day (No School)

23- 3rd Grade Practice Reading STAAR 

24- Go Texans Day

27- 3rd Grade Practice Math STAAR

27- PTA RALLY DAY in Austin 

27-  Family Fair Raffle begins in cafeteria 

March

February 27- March 2- Family Fair Raffle in cafeteria 

3- HCE Family Fair

This week in third grade:

Reading: Readers will take the practice reading STAAR test on Thursday, February 23rd. We will spend a couple of days thinking aloud through STAAR-like nonfiction selections to become more familiar with their length and structure. We will also review fiction selections from previous PSA tests. Please be sure your child gets a good night's sleep and eats a solid breakfast on Thursday! 

Writing: Writers will continue our persuasive/argumentation essays unit. This week, we will move forward with the topic we chose last week. We will focus on the claim and support points, making sure our claim is well supported. Students will begin writing in essay form using their graphic organizer to help navigate this new structure. 

Be sure to ask your child what they are writing about; we have some really creative topics! 

Example of Persuasive Essay Outline (we will also include an introduction and conclusion): 

Spelling: Students will receive new words on Thursday, February 16th and their test will be on FRIDAY, February 24th. (This change is due to the practice reading STAAR taking place on Thursday.) 

White group: Students will receive new words on Wednesday, February 15th and their test will be on Wednesday, February 22nd. (There is no change for this group.)

Social Studies: We will continue our economics unit with our Econ and Me Videos!  ECON AND ME revolves around four children and their invisible friend, Econ, who applies economic principles to individuals, families, and communities. This week, we will study consumption. Econ will show how children can use their $4.00 to spend on goods, save it, or pay for services. 

Math: This week we continue our work with equivalent fractions. Students will fold paper to be able to see fractions that represent the same amount of space. They will also examine number lines to see that equivalent fractions are at the same place on the line. On this image, it is clear that 2/3, 4/6, and 8/12 are at the same place on all three number lines. 

The second half of the week we will practice model drawing to solve fraction word problems. Visualizing and drawing what is happening in a problem will greatly improve understanding. 

Mom ordered a large pizza for dinner. It came cut into

12 equal pieces. Mom ate 3 pieces, Dad ate 4, my sister 

and brother each ate one piece and I ate 2.  What fraction

of the pizza was left?

By drawing and labeling the details of the story, it is visible that the remaining piece is 1/12 of the pizza.

Students will have written homework Tuesday and Wednesday nights and the usual FFF quiz on Friday. Please monitor that your child is studying facts every night. The district expectation for third grade is for students to master their multiplication facts through 12. Many students still have a long way to go. 

We are enjoying our new online adaptive learning system, Dreambox. Students will have access to it both at school and at home. They have already received their login information and we hope you will encourage your child to take advantage of this great resource. Use this link to access the program: Dreambox. It can also be accessed on the blog page entitled Math Websites.  Ms. Moore has added Dreambox to the Symbaloo homepage. Students just need to click on their homeroom teacher's name and they are ready to go. Thank you PTA!

Science:  Natural resources are Nature's gifts to us. We use them to survive and to make products that we use every day. We will review how resources can be categorized as renewable and nonrenewable and will create a flowchart that shows both classifications. The information on this chart will be tested the week of February 27. Students will examine everyday objects and determine the natural resources used to make them, stating whether they are renewable or nonrenewable. And as the week progresses, we will try to justify why certain resources are used to make certain products. What properties make them best suited for the job?