Week of August 25th-29th

Woo!  We made it through the first week of school!  We had a great time getting to know each other and getting started on the 3rd grade curriculum!  Students also began CGA testing. They took the math on Thursday and Friday!  This week students will take science on Wednesday and reading baseline the following week on Wednesday and Thursday (9/3 & 9/4).  These tests help us know exactly where your student is at the 3rd grade level.  Thank you for getting all your paperwork back in on time.

Resources will begin this week:
Monday- P.E. (both classes please remember to wear tennis shoes!!!)
Tuesday- Art (both classes)
Thursday- Music (both classes)

This week we will work on...

Reading: We have started the year with informational text. Last week, we looked at several pieces of informational text and how the author organized the information. We know authors use special text features to organize the information and support readers in their understanding.

Text features:

• help us find our way around the text 
• provide visual cues to emphasize important information
• give more information about a topic.

Click on the image below to view a slide show about informational text features.

In class, we identify text features, determine what they tell us, and how they help us as readers.

We have also started to review main idea and supporting details. Using headings and text, we think about the broad main idea and find details to support it. 

Writing: In writing, we have been learning how to answer questions. We have discussed a 2 point written response rubric and looked at examples of answers that would score a 0, 1, and 2. I am very proud of how hard everyone has worked on this. As a class, we have created a checklist to help us remember to include the following in our responses:

• Use specific language from the question to begin our answers.
• Provide strong details or evidence to support our answers.
• Include correct capitalization and punctuation in our sentences and paragraphs.

We will expand on this, but it is a start. Way to go third grade writers!!!

Math:
We will continue our discussions on place value through the thousands place.  We will also discuss rounding to the nearest ten and hundreds place.  There will be homework nightly!






Science:
We will continue to learn about scientists-- including the different types of scientists, tools they use, and information they record and share with others.  We had a fun activity using our 5 senses last week, that including eating a bit of popcorn! :)

Happenings this week:
Monday, August 25th- Open PTA meeting 6PM in the cafeteria

No school on Monday, September 1st for Labor Day!  We will see you on Tuesday!