Classroom News Week of Sept. 24th

^{Early dismissal on Wednesday-Students will be dismissed at 1:29 pm.}

New Homework Packet-Homework will now be assigned in a packet on each Friday and it will be due the following Friday. The “Monday Night Journal” is still an assignment but it does not need to be completed on Mondays. I hope this helps the busy weekday schedules you have. Nightly reading should still be done each night.

Writing-This week we will be learning how to write an entertaining story beginning. By using a sound, action, or dialogue, a story beginning hooks the reader and makes them want to read more.

Reader’s Workshop-Making inferences is a difficult skill in reading. To teach inferring, I use an activity called Picture of the Day. We look at the picture and list our observations. Next we make guesses and inferences about the picture. This activity is always a favorite. We will begin Picture of the Day this week.

Science- We begin our study of the sun by observing it as it moves across the sky. By recording the shapes of the shadows cast by the sun throughout the course of a day, we can tell how high the sun is in the sky (as seen from our location on Earth). We will discover the patterns of how the sun appears to move in a day.

Math-We will learn how to determine elapsed time using open number lines. We will also work with scaled bar graphs and some learn multiplication strategies.

Classroom News-Week of Sept. 17th

Upcoming Dates for your calendar
Curriculum Night-This coming Thursday 6pm
Early Release Day-Wed. 9/26
Conference Nights-10/18, 10/25, 10/29

Hopes And Dreams-We have had a great start to the year! Last week we talked about our Hopes and Dreams for the year and each student chose one goal that is important to them. Next, we wrote our classroom expectations so that we can achieve our goals. Ask your child what their Hope and Dream is. You might be surprised how instinctive they are about their learning goals!

Snack-We will have a working snack every day so if your child would like to have a snack, feel free to send one in.  We are a peanut free classroom so please do not send in peanut or tree nut products.

Reader's Workshop-We just finished our first read aloud, George's Marvellous Medicine by Raold Dahl. This week we will begin discussing character traits with our next read aloud, Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant. Last week we set up our Reader's Notebooks. The students will be learning to respond to reading (both independent and read alouds) using this notebook. Right now we are practicing using post it notes to keep track of events in the books we are reading. I find this to be a great tool to help students monitor their comprehension and understand what they are reading!

Writer's Workshop-The students decorated their Writer's Notebooks last week. They are all so creatively decorated! We are beginning to write some narrative stories about events from our own lives. Some goals we will look at this week are writing with details and elaboration and how to use an entertaining story beginning.

Math-We are reviewing some second grade skills and building upon them. These skills include telling time to the minute, using number grids to add and subtract,  and some beginning multiplication and division skills. 

Science-The Solar System is our first Science unit. We will learn how the sun and moon move in predictable and observable patterns. We have a Skype virtual field trip on Monday, Oct. 22nd at 2pm with a docent from the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum in New York City. We will virtually (over Skype) visit the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum, learn about a day in the life of an astronaut, and the history of the space shuttle.

Homework-Students in 3rd grade will have homework each night. Reading for at least 20 minutes each night is a requirement. Students will begin using a nightly reading log this week which will be due on Friday. Monday night homework is a weekly Monday Night Journal prompt and Tuesday -Thursday is math review for the skills we are working on in class.

• 
  

Seesaw Digital Portfolios

Seesaw-We LOVE Seesaw! Seesaw is a way for you to see what your child is learning in school! If you haven’t logged on to see your child’s Seesaw account, please do! Let me know if you need me to resend you a link to connect. You can also invite grandparents to view your child’s digital portfolio. All you need to do is forward them the Seesaw invitation I sent out. Its also helpful to give me a heads up if you are adding a grandparent so I know who I am adding to your child’s account. We will be uploading items each week for you to see and comment on. The students are so excited and proud to share their work with you! I will be teaching them how to reflect on the specific lesson objective when they upload each item. This keeps you in touch with how our daily work supports the curriculum!