A Sneak Peek At Our Week

Writing:  Students finished their final journal for an assessment last week, so we are beginning a new unit on crafting Reading Responses & Literary Essays.  Students will focus this week on restating the question and finding textual evidence to support their claims/conclusions about a text. 

Reading:  Using different levels of text, today students finished finding the main idea of passages containing multiple paragraphs and text features.  Students will continue to practice this reading strategy tomorrow and Wednesday as well. 

Math:  Last Friday students learned the fourth step of writing math extended responses which is writing the steps you took when solving a problem.  During whole group and small group instruction, this skill will continue to be practiced this week.  Lessons 3.9 will be completed Tuesday and 3.10 will be completed Wednesday.   The Unit 3 math test will be sometime next week!

Science:  Students will finish up their "Ranger Rick photograph captions" tomorrow and take an open-notebook assessment over animal classification, physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics.  Then, the instruction will focus on habitats for the remainder of the week!

Important Information: 

• Thur., 10/31 - Skinner North Walk-A-Thon
• Thur., 10/31 - Field Trip (11:00-3:00)
• Friday, 11/1 - NO SCHOOL

Walk-A-Thon Schedule

Here is a school-wide schedule for Walk-A-Thon Thursday: 

Kindergarten 12:50-1:10

1st grade  1:15-1:45            

2nd Grade 9:35 -10:05          

3rd Grade 10:10 -10:40     

4th Grade 1:50 -2:20pm

5 & 6 Grade   2:25-2:55

Field Trip Thursday!

The third grade classes just got approved for a field trip this Thursday, October 31st to the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian (click on the link for more information!).  Students will be eating lunch before they leave school, and will be leaving for the field trip at 11:00 and returning back to Skinner North by 3:00.  The field trip fee is $10.00.  Permission forms and fees are due this Wednesday!  

If you are interested in volunteering to chaperone, please e-mail me!  

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Julia who celebrated her birthday yesterday, and Rohan who celebrated his birthday today!

A BIG THANKS!

A BIG THANKS to the Pfetcher and Lardin families!  Both families donated a Jenga game to the classroom, which has transformed into "Multiplication Jenga."  A multiplication fact is written on each Jenga piece for students to review and practice during independent free choice time.  

Also, a BIG THANKS to the Dobrow family who donated 6 staplers to the classroom.  This will be really helpful to the organization of student work, as each group will now have a stapler at their table.  

Homework with the Guest Teacher

Yesterday I was out of the classroom as I was attending a Literacy Professional Development seminar.  

As students came into the classroom this morning, some shared with me that not all students were able to copy down the assigned homework in time yesterday because the guest teacher had put it up later than normal.  In this situation, and in any similar circumstances, your child will not be marked down for incomplete/unfinished homework!  

Today we'll make sure to "tie up loose ends" in the classroom so that necessary homework is completed.  Thanks for your understanding and please let me know if you have any questions!

Skinner-North-a-Palooza

Skinner North's 2^nd annual music night is quickly approaching.  The event will take place on October 24^th, 2013 from 3:45-5:45.  On that night, classrooms will be transformed into stages where members of our school community will share their musical talent with other students and parents.   Hope to see you there!

KIDS Identification Event

This event is Thursday during the school day.  If you handed in a consent form for your child, a staff member from the City Clerk’s Office will take a quick digital photograph and finger print of your child.  They will print out the ID cards immediately and give them back to the teacher to be distributed to you. If you have not completed the consent form and would like your child to participate, an electronic copy was e-mailed to you!

Room 210 Wish List

I'm going to include a "Room 210" Wish List on the blog for any items I'm noticing our classroom could use.  Here is a list of items that would be helpful to have in our room:

• 6 staplers (I place a stapler in each table's supply bin, however they were dollar store staplers, and therefore dollar store quality :) - none work!)
• Jenga - multiplication facts will be written on the Jenga for an engaging way to practice multiplication facts
• Dice - a material to go along with different math games in the classroom

A Sneak Peek At Our Week ...

Writing:  Students will complete their final journal/paragraph construction entry this week and then choose their favorite entry to post on their blog.  This week they will also read and comment on each others' blogs entries.  On Friday students will create a final journal entry which will serve as a final assessment for this unit.  

Reading:  Students will continue to practice inferring the main idea of a paragraph when it is implicitly stated.  Starting this week students will be reading a text with multiple paragraphs and learn how to determine the main idea of each paragraph, as well as the whole text, using different text features.  Students will be using different levels of text to make sure instruction/practice is at their appropriate level.    

Inferring the main idea is a more challenging reading skill for students to acquire.  Additional games/practice can be found on the Main Idea & Summarizing page of the Third Grade website!

Math:  Lessons 3.4-3.8 will be instructed this week.  Along with multiplication and division practice, students have begun to learn how to construct a math extended response.  Instruction will continue to focus on constructing math extended responses this week using questions/word problems related to concepts found in Unit 3. 

Science:  Early this week, students will create a blog post that reflects their knowledge of different types of behavioral characteristics.  They will also begin to learn about the different biomes and habitats of animals, concluding how animals' physical and behavioral characteristics/adaptations allow them to survive in their environments.  

Important Dates Ahead

Here are some important upcoming dates:

• 10/21, 5:00-6:30 - FOSN Meeting
• 10/24, 3:45-6:00 - Skinner-North-a-Palooza
• 10/31 - Walk-a-Thon
• 11/18, 4:30-6:30 - Harvest Festival

A Sneak Peek At Our Week ...

Writing:  This will be the final week of journal/paragraph construction.  Based on student need, mini-lessons this week will be centered around using transition words, creating interesting topic/closing sentences, and choosing details to include details that strongly support the topic.   

Reading:  After learning how to find the main idea when it is explicitly stated in the text, students will learn how to find the main idea when it is implicitly stated this week.  Through whole group instruction, small group work, and individual conferences, students will practice inferring the main idea for the remainder of the week.  

Math:  Today students began Unit 3 in Everyday Math.  Unit 3 focuses on multiplication and division.  Additional resources such as the Family Letter, vocabulary, games, and the IXL checklist can be found on the Third Grade Website - Unit 3 Math.  

Science:  After learning how and why animals are classified, students will continue to learn about and explore animals' physical and behavioral characteristics and conclude how they help an animal survive.  There are great interactive science games found on the third grade website that your child can use to practice their skills!  Living Things Unit - Science Games

Homework:

• Students are bringing the Unit 3 Study Links packet home today; please make sure this stays in your child's homework folder
• For reading this week, students will complete a main idea packet which will be due Friday; your child can complete it at his/her own pace
• A separate journal packet will not go home with your child this week for writing; if your child does not finish their journal writing in the classroom they will need to complete it for homework instead (due the next day)

Important Reminders:

• Parent/Teacher Coffee is 10/16 starting at 8:30 and lasting up until 9:15
• Please have your child turn in the Walk-a-Thon permission form if they have not done so yet

Parent Coffee

Just a reminder that the Third Grade Parent Coffee is tomorrow starting at 8:30 and ending around 9:15.  Come in to enjoy coffee, snacks, and conversation!

Happy Birthday Ireland!

Ireland was Room 210's birthday girl today!  We all hope a special birthday is had for a special girl - Happy Birthday Ireland!

Happy Belated Birthday!

Both Isabel and Knowledge celebrated birthdays last week ... Happy Belated Birthdays to these two awesome students! :)

A Sneak Peek At THIS Week ...

So sorry that this was not posted earlier!  I was out of town both Friday and Monday and wrote this up Thursday night before leaving ... I accidentally saved it as a draft, instead of posting it, my apologies!

Interactive Read-Aloud:  As a class we will begin reading Holes by Louis Sachar next week. I used this novel with my third graders last year - it lends itself well to conversations about character development, conflict, irony, and symbolism!  Students will be able to make strong text-to-text connections to Holes and their summer reading book by Sachar There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom.  

Writing:  Students will revise and edit a partner's journal next week and will publish their favorite journal entry on their blog.  A focus for revision will be making sure students used a variety of sentence structures - simple, compound, and complex.  Students will also be practicing their commenting skills and comment on a classmate's post.  

Reading:  This week was our final week of our Self-Monitoring unit.  This past week students learned how to determine and differentiate between different types of context clues, helping them infer the meaning of unknown words.  Next week we will start a new reading unit focused on Main Idea & Summarizing.  

Math:  Next week students will complete the final Unit 2 lesson, lesson 2.8, take the Unit 3 pre-test, and collaborate together in a group problem-solving activity.  On Thursday we will play an in-class review game and on Friday students will take the Unit 2 test.  Please remember, IXL is a great way for your child to continue practicing their math skills!

Science:  We will be starting up science towards the end of this week!  This first unit focuses on living things.  During the first week students will learn about how animals are classified based on their physical characteristics.  

Addition & Subtraction Algorithms

You can use the following website as a resource if your son/daughter needs assistance with Study Links 2.9 tonight:

https://www.everydaymathonline.com/free_resources_main.html?frnologin=1#

Then click on: 
- Algorithms in Everyday Mathematics
- Grade 4
- Subtraction

The two algorithms that we are focusing on are:
1.  Trade-First Subtraction Method
2.  Partial Differences Subtraction Method

I will post this helpful Family Resource site on the Third Grade website, under the math tab!