Third Grade News
March 2017
Mark Your Calendars
March 17-Third Grade Program 9am (more info coming soon)
March 23-Tiny Town PTA event
March 31-April 7-Spring Break
Looking Ahead
April 17-April 28th-Milestone Testing (The actual 3rd grade test dates will be available soon)
Reading Rocks
We will focus on the following standard in the next couple of weeks:
3LA.A.5: refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.
As we move closer to Milestones, we will be reviewing text structure, main idea and details, how to cite evidence from text, and how to compare and contrast characters, setting, plot, and theme.
Please keep reading a variety of genres with your child every night! This will help him or her build stamina and enthusiasm for reading.
Writing for Success
Third graders demonstrated they know how to write! However, we are still working on mastering Opinion Writing to include three or more paragraphs with three reasons to support their thinking. Please review this checklist with your child and practice at home!
Opinion Writing- Checklist
Did I indent?
Did I give reasons to support my opinion and wrote more about each one?
Did I write to get other to believe the way I feel or got the reader thinking in a certain way?
Did I punctuate dialogue correctly with commas and quotation marks?
Did I have a conclusion restating my opinion?
As always, Students should review Parts of Speech, Punctuation and Capitalization, Quotation Marks, Types of Sentences, Subject Verb Agreement, Nouns- Pronouns/Antecedents, Possessive nouns.
Grammar Fun
We will complete the summative writing assessment for this grading period. The skills that will be on the test are subject/verb agreement, pronoun/antecedent, regular and irregular plural nouns, using dictionary, thesaurus, glossary and alphabetical order.
In class we will continue to review these skills.
We will begin to focus in class on using comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs. These will link nicely to our word study lessons, using the suffixes er and est. Basically making sure that students know when to use the correct forms and making sure they spell them correctly.
For example: My doll is pretty. Angel's doll is prettier. Jessie's doll is the prettiest of all.
Our Spelling City link is a great way to practice these skills.
Math Corner
Our next unit will be on telling time to the nearest minute and solving for elapsed time. By the end of the unit students will be able to use a clock or a number line to...
Tell how much time has passed from the start and ending time of an event and give the start or ending time of an event based on how long the event lasts.
We will also start learning how to measure items using rulers. We will begin with measuring to the nearest inch and then we will work our way up to measuring to the nearest 1/2 or 1/4 of an inch.
These units in math lend themselves nicely to practice in our everyday life.
Ex. We left the house at 3:30pm to go to baseball practice. We returned home at 5:45pm. How long were we at baseball practice?
If we need to be at school at 8:00 and it takes us 15 minutes to get there. What time do we need to leave the house?
As far as measuring is concerned, allow your child to use a ruler at home to measure objects around the house and record their lengths into a journal. The more practice they get with a ruler, the better.
*An example is provided below to show how to use the number line to show elapsed time.
Investigating Science
Our next and final Science unit is Magnets! The students will explain how magnets affect other magnets and common objects. They will determine which objects are magnetic and nonmagnetic. Students will be able to explain how magnets attract and repel. They will give an example of a small magnet that is stronger than larger magnets, and lastly, make a temporary magnet and explain the steps it took to make it.
Magnets Vocabulary: attract, compass, lodestone, magnet, magnetic field, magnetic poles, magnetism, permanent magnet, repel, temporary magnet
Social Studies Update
We will study Economics! In Economics, we will describe ways that producers and consumers are interdependent; explain the importance of free enterprise in the United States, and how supply and demand affect prices. The four types of productive resources (human, natural, capitol and entrepreneur) will be described. They will learn how assembly line works and replicate one to visualize it. We will explain how some goods are made locally, some in the United States and some in other countries, how trade benefits the countries and people involved and how trading partners are interdependent. The students will also learn that most countries create their own currency for use as money, we will compare and contrast bartering and describe the personal spending and saving choices people make. The costs and benefits of saving money will be explained and they will create a budget using a given amount! They will learn about the relationship between scarcity and choice. They will learn how the local government collects and uses taxes to pay for services. Once we have completed the unit, we will then have the opportunity to have a real-world application of economics! We will set up a school store! More information will follow closer to the end of the school year!
Economics Vocabulary:
Opportunity cost, tax, currency, goods, services, trade, income, budget, costs, benefits, scarcity, producer, consumer, interdependence, supply, demand, export, import, human resources, capital resources, natural resources, entrepreneur, assembly line, marketplace
Historical Figures
We have learned about most of our Historical Figures. During the next nine weeks, we study our last Historical Figure: Cesar Chavez. He was an American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist.
Word Study
We will continue the Latin Bases unit with the bases:
mov, mot, mobil meaning move
graph, gram meaning write, draw
We will test on these and then move into the suffixes.
The suffixes are:
-less meaning without
-ful meaning full of
-er meaning more
-est meaning most
-ly in a certain way or manner
Then we will review and test over unit 4 sometime after spring break.