McDaniel Memo
Friday, September 16th
Specialty Research Schedule
Now that animals have been selected and assigned, please read below about helping your child gathering research.
Examples of research items would be:
Printouts from the internet, pages copied out of a library book, or magazine articles. It is helpful to have copies so that children can highlight specific facts within the articles. Please make sure that information is 3rd grade appropriate.
Students will read through the information in class and pull out facts. Please do not write out the facts separately as in a bulleted list. The goal is for students to read for the information. You can help by printing an article that is focused on “habitat” for example, but I want students to do the actual fact finding. I suggest when you do an internet search to type in specifically “elephant diet facts”, or “elephant survival facts”, for example.
It is important that children have facts to work on in class as I may not have information on their particular animal.
Appearance facts- Friday, September 23rd
Habitat facts- Friday, September 30th
Diet facts- Friday, October 7th
Life-Cycle facts- Friday, October 14th
Survival/Adaptation facts- Friday, October 28th
Behavior and Work Habits Sheets
Students will now be bringing home a weekly behavior/work habits sheet. This sheet reflects the items on the 3rd grade standards based report card. On the back will be specific comments if needed. If nothing is marked, your child had a great week.
I will need these signed and returned only if your child had items written on the page.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Reading Workshop
We have been working hard on building stamina through reading. Hopefully children are bringing home their green reading log folder to add their home reading. Skills we have talked about here at school are: giving themselves a comprehension check after each chapter, thinking about what the text is trying to tell us, predicting as we read, and retelling the BIG parts of the story.
Please help your child do this at home when you read together.
Writing Workshop
Math
Now that we are into the math book students should be completing a math home link at least 3-4 times a week. This will be written in their planner. If students are not filling out their planners, please have a conversation with them. I have had several students not return their homework. This is not a good practice to have this early in the school year.
We will also begin fact fluency next week. Students will have facts, on a ring, to work master. These rings need to go to and from school. Students will be assigned a day to "orally test" with me. During this time students will get new cards. There will be 7 cards at a time that they are working on. We will begin with addition. Our goal with this is to gain speed in knowing the answers. Students will work at their own pace and move along as needed.
Social Studies
Upcoming Events
September
23rd- Colts Spirit Day
28th- Jog-a-Thon
30th- Jog-a-Thon Rain Date
October
3rd- 7th- Box Top Collection Week
5th- Walk to School Day
6th- Dining for Dollars at Which Which
28th- ZCS Sprit Day
Wish List
- I am in need of prize box items from the dollar store or Target One Spot. Students are excited every Friday to have Safari Star tickets drawn for great behavior. I will need to keep refilling my bucket throughout the year. Donations are always appreciated.
- Clorox Wipes
- Band-Aids