Third Grade Newsletter
WHAT’S NOW! WHAT’S NEW! AND WHAT’S NEXT!!
The past few weeks have been amazing! Our team is organized, enthusiastic about learning and adjusting well to 3rd Grade. We wish you and your families a healthy and Happy New Year! L’Shana Tova
Language Arts- Our focus in September has been on and will continue to be on grammar. Our team has focused on the types of sentences and sentence parts. We will emphasize writing and as our foundation becomes stronger we look forward to becoming outstanding writers. Our projects are very important to us and the one that is coming up is an autobiography, “My Story.” Please send in pictures that correlate with dates, or special events to help our students create a time line. Please send all pictures with your child by Wednesday , 9/9/2015. The time line will reinforce the concept of sequential order.
Math-Our focus has been on place value, estimating and mental math. Going forward addition, subtraction and problem solving will enable critical thinking skills.
Science-To compliment our science lab, classroom teaching and student interaction will include classroom experiments using the scientific method and activities from Scholastic Magazine.
Social Studies-We began our knowledge learning about map skills using our Scholastic magazines. We will continue to explore this important skill throughout the month.
Hebrew
Dear Parents,
The fall holidays of the Hebrew month of Tishrei are almost here! On September 13 we will begin the holiday season with Rosh Hashanah, the Head Of The New Jewish Year. The students will learn the symbols, blessing, songs, and of course the Mitzvot (commandments) and Minhagim (customs) of the holiday. Our focus during the time of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will be on the themes of forgiveness,Tzedaka, apologizing, and true repentance, teshuva. We will also experience many holiday programs in school such as baking Challah, performing tashlich, and classroom preparations for the holiday. Next, we will celebrate Sukkot and look forward to sharing breakfast in the Sukkah with our classmates and families.
During Hebrew, our daily routine works on improving our oral conversation skills and comprehension skills, focusing on the theme of Behatzlacha, how to be successful in class and how to work as a team for to be better! We are also starting our Parsha Drama program with Rabbi Billet. Each week we will learn about the weekly Torah portion and act out scenes from the weekly parasha. We will start our studies in class about the weekly parsha once we reach Simchat Torah, where we finish the cycle of reading the Torah and begin again from the beginning.
We wish you all Shanah Tova Umetuka (a good sweet new year)!
Yours,
The 3rd Grade Hebrew Team
Exploratorium
In a four man crew with roles that represented a Commander, Material Specialist, Communication Specialist, and an Information Specialist. Our third and fourth graders conduct lab missions and perform a set of rotations through the STEM Lab. With detailed explorations that include designing and building a pneumatic machine, experimenting with inertia and constructing wind-powered surfboards, to creating electromagnets. These are just a few of our lab activities that our students will embark on. With such a rigor and relevant learning experiences students develop skills for investigation, group cooperation, and practical lab production.
Spanish
During the month of September students are learning about school objects through several activities such as listening to books, creating books, and completing written worksheets. They are already responding to and answering greetings and simple phrases in Spanish, such as “hola”, “buen día”, “levanten la mano”, “escriban su nombre”. They will be also creating a craft for Rosh Hashanah while learning terms related to this holiday.
Wishing you and your family a Sweet and Healthy New Year.
Que tengan un Año Nuevo Dulce y con Salud.
Chinese
This month we will learn to say “good morning” and “he/she is my father/mother”. Conversations will be focused on introducing family members (younger/older sisters and brothers), as well as learning the differences between “here” versus “there”. We will also say “good bye” and “see you tomorrow”. We will be writing the characters “morning, small, older brother, father, and day”. Hello China videos will be shown to better understand Chinese cultures. Students will also be participating in interactive educational games. We will have activity for Rosh Hashanah as well.
Music
In September the students will learn the biography of the greatest composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They will listen : “Little night music”, Fantasy in D, Symphony 41 and other compositions created by Mozart. They will continue study the theory of music.
PE
We are looking forward to another awesome year of Physical Education. We started off with going over rules and expectations and then went over different stretches and exercises of which a different third grader will lead the class every day.
Our first unit is flag football. We learned and reviewed the proper way to throw and catch a ball and how to move to avoid tags which are Common Core Standards. We went over game play rules and are now practicing those skill in play.
Please remember to apply sunscreen, wear sneakers (full uniform) and bring water and a hat to class.
I am looking forward to a fun and exciting new year with all of my students.
Art
Welcome back to another year full of creativity!
We started the year with a project about our names. Every grade was creating a piece of art using different instructions and techniques.
Third Grade was exploring the embossing technique, using thick foil and a pointy stick they create beautiful pieces of art that later filled with color using permanent markers.
The Art Room needs your help! I am going to be collecting egg cartons, and newspapers during the whole year. If you have the chance to send some, I will really appreciate it.