August 27

Dear Families:

Welcome to a new week and welcome to two new members of our classroom family, Caffery and Kaleigh. We met them briefly on Friday and are sure they will soon find their niche at Lincoln School. Each of us will do our part to make their transition a welcoming one.

Can you believe this is the beginning of the third week of school? There is lots to accomplish this week. One of our primary goals is to complete all of our beginning-of-the-year assessments, get them scored, and begin sharing the results with students. Of course, we will make this friendly information for a third grader. This will allow each student to celebrate their strengths and set goals for growth. We will share this with parents in the near future, as well.

Last week we were so impressed with the class. They created anchor charts for display in the classroom that define four important tools: dictionary/glossary, table of contents, thesaurus, and atlas. Not only did they create the definitions, they determined what criteria we would use for developing a high-quality chart for display. They used these criteria to give feedback to each other about their design drafts. That is not easy work for early third grade. Way to go!!!!

We have decided to organize our week’s highlights in a table with optional suggestions for support at home. The only requirement for homework is the reading (in bold).

Please remember to copy Ms. Meenakshi on emails. (mrana@lsnepal.com) We always work in tandem.

The weekly quote is from Katherine Patterson, a Newbery-winning author. It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations-something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.

Have a wonderful week.

Ms. Rachel

Ms. Meenakshi