Student Update

Hi this is Sammy.  It is almost THANKSGIVING.  This week is a short week . I am excited because on Wednesday it is my brother's birthday and we are going to Build A Bear.  Love Sammy

Weekly Update- 11/20

 This week we completed chapter 3 in math.  Students did a great job going back and checking their work on their tests to see if they made any "silly" mistakes.  We have started chapter 4: Time, Data, and Graphs.  Telling time can be a difficult concept for some students and is an easy one to practice at home.  If you have an analog clock in the house, ask your child what time it is throughout the day.

In science we have been talking about Atmosphere and Water.  We have been focusing on evaporation.  

We talked about the different variables that can change the rate of evaporation.  These variables are heat, light, and surface area.  The students worked in groups to complete an experiment about surface area.  They concluded that the larger the surface area of a container, the more quickly water will evaporate.

In shared reading we read the book, George Washington Carver: The Peanut Wizard.  With this book we focused on using background knowledge.  Before reading, students looked at the front and back cover to see if there were any pictures or words that they have heard before or could relate to.  While reading students thought about knowledge they already had that helped them to understand different parts of the book.  In guided reading we worked on the skill of comparing and contrasting.

In writing we learned about Book Blurbs.  Book blurbs are the short paragraphs on the back of a book that give you information and try to get you hooked into reading that book.  The students looked at examples of different book blurbs and learned about creating lead sentences.  At the end of the week students made their own book blurbs about the story, The Lucky Charm.

In Fundations we have continued to work on identifying, marking, and correctly spelling vowel-consonant-e (v-e) words.  We will be finishing unit 4 next week.

Since next week is a short week we will be doing extension activites in reading and writing.  We will be using different books to practice concepts we have already learned in class.  In science we will be learning about the Water Cycle.  In math we will continue to learn about different types of graphs. 

HAVE A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND ENJOY THE 4 DAY WEEKEND!

Weekly Update- 11/12

Even with days off and upcoming half days, we have been very busy in class!  In math we are finishing up chapter 3: adding and subtracting.  We will have our chapter test on Wednesday the 17th and then we will begin chapter 4 which focuses on time, data, and graphs.  While this chapter does not directly deal with addition and subtraction facts, it is still important to keep practicing those at home.  We will be starting multiplication in chapter 5 and the stronger the knowledge of addition and subtraction facts, the easier muliplication will be.

We have just finished our unit on continents, oceans, and other map skills in Social Studies.  Today we started our next unit in Science which is all about Atmosphere and Water.  We made a K-W-L chart (What we Know, what we Want to know, and what we Learned) and then watched a video about water.  We will be doing experiments and activities in class that relate to this topic.

In shared reading, we read a story called Isla.  In this story, a young girl sits with her grandmother and they go on an imaginary journey to the island where the grandmother grew up.  Through descriptive language, the granddaugther feels as if she is actually at the island with her grandmother.  The skill that we practiced with this story was making connections.  We discussed making text-to-self connections, text-to-world connections, and text-to-text connections.  Students shared some of their connections which included trips they have taken to islands (text-to-world), other books such as Magic Tree House books that also deal with characters using their imagination to go other places (text-to-text), and experiences they have had with their grandparents and storytelling (text-to-self).  By thinking about their own lives and experiences students can make stronger connections with the book they are reading.  This is a skill that you can emphasize when reading at home with your child.  In reading groups we have been working on skills such as identifying the main idea and details and making inferences.

In writing we have been learning how to write summaries of fiction.  We talked about the information that should be included in the summary and looked at examples of summaries of fiction.  Throughout the week we did activities that included working in groups to write summaries of popular fairy tales, modeling examples, and finally each student wrote their own summary of fiction for the folk tale, The Silly Armadillo.

In Fundations we have been learning about vowel-consonant-e (v-e) syllables.  We have practiced identifying these words, marking them, and learning how to add suffixes to them.  We will continue working with this concept next week.

We have started our Spanish classes with the new spanish teacher, Senora Sullivan!  Last week the students chose spanish names and made name tags.  This week we practiced learning how to ask someone their name and how to answer properly.



During the early dismissal days students will not have a lunch period.  Please send your child to school with a larger snack or lunch.  We will be eating in the classroom.  I am looking forward to seeing and talking with you all at conferences!

Veterans Day

Hi this is Rachel from Mrs.Sullivan's 3rd grade class. Today we made cards to go to some veterans (it's Veterans Day). I made mine to my Grandpa.  He was in World War 2.  He was in the navy.

Today we celebrated Veterans Day by watching a video which taught us all about the different branches of the military.  We also learned about the history of Veterans Day.  We read the book, The Wall and then told stories about our relatives who were fighting or have fought for our country.  We also made pictures and cards for veterans.