August 19, 2018

23 Aug 2018 - Grade 3, News

Good evening.

We hope your family has had an enjoyable weekend, with the right amount of relaxation and adventure. It is time for another week of school and learning.

Our schedule is becoming a little more focused each day. We have moved from establishing our learning family to cultivating the expectations and routines necessary for third grade. While we will continue to develop these over the next few weeks, this week’s schedule is much more academic than the two before.

We will spend a few more days selecting the right books for independent reading, establishing reading partners and creating opportunity for conversations about our reading, and setting personal goals for the weeks to come. Later in the week we will transition to a focus on reading comprehension as we begin a shared reading of the book, Stone Fox, by John Reynolds Gardiner. Not only will we be working to develop strong readers, but writers, as well. Using writing exemplars and models, students will develop their “muscles” as writers. Individual reading assessments will be administered throughout the week.

As you know, we’ve been focusing on the playing of math games at school and home. While that will continue, we are moving into the formal curriculum of Everyday Math. This week we will work on telling time and calculating elapsed time–which can be tricky for some. The measurement of time is rather abstract for many 8- and 9-year olds. Finding ways to casually talk about time is really helpful. Some suggestions are:

Predict how long it will take for a shower (or any regular task) and then measure with a stopwatch. Compare the prediction with the actual time. Compare everyone’s time and discuss the differences.
Make up silly story problems involving time. (Example: Ms.Rachel decided she was going to ride a unicycle to school on Wednesday. The ride should take 57 minutes. If she left her apartment at 6:36 a.m., at what time would she arrive at school?)
Cooking is a great task for children. If using a recipe, it requires the cook to read and comprehend a recipe (as well as learn new vocabulary!) and to provide an authentic context in which to measure time. You could measure the time it takes for preparation and the time for cooking. Building that internal concept of the length of a minute, 15 minutes, and hour, etc. is so critical.

On Thursday we will begin a Social Studies unit on culture, the beauty of the world’s diversity and the cultural elements we share. More information next week.

We look forward to seeing you at the Open House on Tuesday evening. We will have approximately 30 minutes in our classroom to share the year’s overview, answer questions, and become acquainted. We have a secret request for that evening–secret from your children. We are in the process of creating a bulletin board space where students can recommend their favorite books. There is a brief form to complete for the recommendation. Think about one or two of your favorite books you’ve read–one that might become a favorite of a third grader. For example, Ms. Rachel would share Mystery of the Old Clock from the Nancy Drew series. She read it in 4th grade, and it is what made her a reader. Tuesday night we will invite you to complete a recommendation form for our board and take your photo to accompany it. If you have a copy of the book or can find it in the school or classroom library, it would be great to include it in the photo. We will not tell the class about your contribution, it will just appear on the board to their surprise. We feel sure it will create a lot of buzz and excitement. You are the best model for your child’s reading life.

This week’s homework:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday