Third Grade News from Mrs. C
Jan. 5-8th
Tidbits From the Teacher
Happy 2016 Everyone!
It was so good to see everyone this morning. I pulled our class in early so we could talk with each other before beginning our day. As I hugged everyone hello I noticed haircuts, new clothes and growth! Everyone looked a little bit older and some were noticeably taller. *Sigh*
We are moving at a fast pace around here and have many, many things to do over the month of January. Report cards and Awards Ceremony are coming up soon. There are new rules about tardies and absences too- be sure and read carefully about all of that!
Absences & Tardies for 2016
Due to a new law going into effect concerning absences, Sommer Elementary will be focused more on making sure absences are accounted for. Unexcused absences add up. They can lead to warning letters being sent home, having to meet with officials, and/or discussions of retainment if absences are affecting school work enough. That means I'll need a note or email upon the return of a student EVERY TIME there is an absence.
IF YOUR CHILD WILL MISS SCHOOL FOR EXTENDED TRIPS/VACATIONS- you must set up a meeting ahead of time with Mrs. Varljen or Mrs. Wafford.
TARDIES:
Our class day begins at 7:35 and students are marked tardy at 7:45. Any student NOT IN OUR CLASSROOM at the 7:45 bell will be marked tardy. Excessive tardies will mean meetings with admin, working on work before or after school, and possibly a need to stop attending clubs/after school groups.
Please know that walking into the classroom at exactly 7:45 means your child has missed 10 minutes of instruction time already. The 7:45 tardy bell doesn't signal the start of our day- just that your child is late to class.
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 how authors use foreshadowing to help give hints to readers about what's to come. I've told the class that this is a deeper thinking type of inferencing skill. Once we've practiced our ability to spot foreshadowing, we'll move into author's purpose. This is always a fun skill to study because we get to think about PIE! (Persuade, Inform, Entertain through reading)
Writing-
We are spending the next month really digging into fiction writing. We tried our hands at writing a fantasy story and now we're going to keep on going! We'll look at how we can embellish a real event to give it that fiction zing and take on giving our settings more attention. After that we'll check leads and endings before letting the dust settle. We'll use favorite author's as mentor text to help guide our thinking and exploration.
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.
**Please make sure your child is practicing multiplication facts at home- even though there is no official homework this week. Most errors on our recent tests involved trying to add repeatedly instead of using multiplication- it caused careless mistakes to happen!!
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!)