Third Grade News from Mrs. C
Jan. 11-15th
Tidbits From the Teacher
Good Day Everyone!
It's another fine week around the Caldwell Classroom and my little bees are as busy as usual.
We started exploring this week with Google Classrooms and will transition you into using this app for homework NEXT WEEK. That means that homework is going to change in looks and expectations. There are several reasons for this so check out below to find out more information about that.
**Be sure and look at the class wish list too!
Thank you!!
New Homework Format and Expectations
In light of how much time we spend using multiplication strategies during problem solving, there is a hiccup there. Students aren't using these strategies at home or during tests. "Hummm," I thought. "How can I try to bridge the gap?"
That's when I decided to transition us to Google classroom and different homework! Starting this week, your children will be working on multiplication in different ways. Because they are learning to use Google Classroom (before we have you learn how), their homework will be to review for their upcoming geometry DCA.
I will share a doc with you and that will have every kind of question being asked on it PLUS interactive websites for students to use in order to practice concepts. The websites are also linked on my website under math links.
Enjoy!
Wish List
-we need your clean, mismatched socks to use as erasers for our dry erase boards
Gardening PBL
Dates to Remember
Jan. 12th: Mrs. C is absent all day ( I was accepted into a writing program within the district- super excited about this!)
Jan. 14th: Report Cards go home
Jan. 18th: MLK holiday
Jan. 19th: Math DCA over geometry
Jan. 21st: Awards Assembly 9:15-10 in the cafeteria
Jan. 22nd: 3rd-5th grade Friday Assembly
Jan. 25th: Science Fair
What We're Studying and Learning...
Reading-
We are learning about traditional tales, author's purpose, and themes. We'll be reading fables and figuring out the morals, looking at folktales & fairy tales to find the theme. We also had a talk on Monday about what the STAAR reading genre looked like. We went over the last reading benchmark and used some skills the third graders last year recommended.
We'll read and practice once passage a week to work on this genre of reading & comprehension so students will be at ease about how the test works.
Writing-
We are spending the next month working on fiction stories. I began my training on Tuesday on becoming a stronger writing teacher! It was fantastic and I am so excited to share my learning with the class. I cannot wait to try out some of the new skills and ideas. My goal is to teach your children that to be a writer, they need to be a reader. I want them to know that not every piece of writing will be amazing but by writing often, they are gleaning ideas that WILL make a story that they think is too amazing not to make the world read! Wanna come join us?
Math-
We are beginning a two week study of geometry. Our first week will concentrate on vocabulary and attribute comparisons. We'll be studying polygons, quadrilaterals, and comparing 3D shapes by attributes.
We'll also begin practicing finding the area of arrays in preparation for next week's work with irregular shapes and area models.
Science-
We will begin a two week study of environments and how changes to them can cause good or bad consequences for the animals living in them. We're super excited to use words like "thrive" and "perish" or "ecosystem" so get ready for some big talking around here!
Social Studies-
We're going to spend some time learning how communities change over time. While we'll be looking at animal communities in science, our social studies component will focus on how individuals, events, and ideas influenced the history of various communities. We'll be researching some big names such as Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Boone, the Founding Fathers and Juan de Onate (I cannot figure out how to put a tilde above my 'n' so it's spelled correctly- please forgive!)