Third Grade News From Room 2108
Mr. Donnellon's Classroom Newsletter
Odds and Ends
Parent/Teacher Conferences:
This year parent/teacher conferences will be held on Tuesday, November 14; Monday, November 20; and Thursday, November 30. I have three opening left which need to be filled. If you haven't signed up yet, please use the embedded link above which will take you directly to my Parent/Teacher Sign Up Genius.
Fun Run Fund Raising Event:
Northwood's Fun Run is taking place on Thursday, October 5th. The third grade activities run from 10:00-10:40. Please help us make our classroom goal by registering your child and collecting donations. We are very close to our goal. A flyer went home on Monday, September 11, detailing registering your child on-line. If you need additional information please contact me. You can check out the whole school's fund raising progress using the embedded link below!
Mr. Doody's Physical Education Website
Dear Families,
We’ve been up to a lot of fun and exciting things in Physical Education! I wanted to give you an opportunity to take a peek. Please friend Facebook.com/RoyalOakPE to see pictures of your children in action. Only friends of the web page will be allowed to view the contents of the page. If you are not a member of Facebook, you must create a user name and password to see updates. Enjoy!!
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PTA Fall Book Fair
Northwood's PTA Fall Book Fair runs during the school day Oct. 12 (Thursday), Oct. 13 (Friday), Oct. 16 (Monday), and Oct. 17 (Tuesday). It is also open to the public from 3 to 6 p.m. on those days. Flyers will be distributed to students the week of October 2. Our in school classroom shopping date will be Thursday, October 12, from 10:45-11:10 (during our scheduled Media Center time slot). This will be on the opening day of the book fair, so the popular titles should be readily available. Please watch for flyers this week!
Media Center and Media Center Policy
Mondays............Music 10:20-10:45
............................Physical Education 10:45-11:10
Tuesdays............Art 9:30-10:20
Wednesdays......Spanish 10:50-11:15
Thursdays..........Music 8:40-9:05
............................Media Center 10:45-11:10
Fridays...............Spanish 9:05-9:30
............................Physical Education 10:45-11:10
Classroom Curriculum News:
Mathematics: Third graders dove right into multiplication and division facts in the first unit of our math series. A core concept that students will learn is that multiplication and division are inverse operations. Students will learn to understand the language to describe underlying concepts and situations of multiplication and division, including repeated equal groups and arrays.
Students will learn multiplications and divisions for each number by looking for patterns that become the basis for count-bys for that number.
Students will learn how to use products they know to find products they don't know or don't recall. Students study division almost as soon as they learn multiplication. Studying these together makes the process faster because each division is just finding an unknown factor. Through their daily in-class work and goal-setting, as well as studying with their "Homework Partner", students build fluency with multiplication and division.
Writing Workshop: In our first unit, "Crafting True Stories," Third Grade students will write narratives in which they establish a situation and introduce a narrator or characters with naturally unfolding sequence of events. Additionally, students are expected to use details including dialogue, descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words and phrases to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure. The goal of this unit is for students to write well-elaborated true stories based on each students' experiences.
Reading Workshop: In our first unit, " Launching Strong Reading Habits," Third Grade readers focus on three concepts.
- Concept 1 will ask Third Graders to think of the habits they bring to reading and the habits they want to create to strengthen their reading and make their reading community and their own personal reading growth the best it can be.
- Concept 2 asks Third Graders to understand that every bit of text they read is important to their understanding. Readers will enhance their reading strategies to clear confusion by stopping, rereading, and taking the time to figure out unfamiliar words while still envisioning the text and keeping their appropriate pace.
- Concept 3 organizes readers into like-level partnerships. Readers reading the same or about the same levels will be paired for thinking conversations. Partners will not read aloud to each other except to prove a point or take their partner back to a page to clear confusion.
Social Studies: In this first unit, "The Geography of Michigan," students use a geographic lens to explore the state of Michigan. The unit focuses around the five major themes of geography: movement, region, human/environment interaction, location and place. Students begin by reviewing geographic concepts learned in second grade and then explore the concept of “state” using a map of the United States. In studying location, students use cardinal directions, identify various ways to describe the relative location of Michigan, and begin to explore how location can influence the development of a state.