September 8 - 12

Our Open House is this Thursday at 6:15. Both classes will meet in room 124 for our presentation and then students can show parents around both classrooms. We truly hope everyone will be able to attend. This is an opportunity for parents to hear first hand information about third grade from us. 

We took the first session of our reading curriculum guide assessment Friday. Session 2 will be on Monday.

Resources this week:
Tuesday: PE  Remember to wear sneakers and bring a water bottle!
Thursday: ART

Wednesday is our first EARLY RELEASE at 1:35.

Reading: As we read Because of Winn-Dixie, we will continue our focus on characters. Students will think about what the author wants us to know about Opal, Winn-Dixie, and Opal's father, the Preacher. Mid-week, we will learn a new term: 
Annotate: When we read with pencil in hand, show the tracks of our thinking, and interact with the text.

An example of annotating. This shows a page from chapter 1 of Because of Winn-Dixie with questions about what is happening in the text.

Annotating text increases comprehension by keeping students engaged while reading. It also helps them reference the text to support their thinking with text evidence.

We will talk about "question starters" we can use as we annotate. These are great to use when reading any fiction book. They are great to use at home too! This week's R.A.H. log has a back side and asks students to write 3 questions they have as they read their chapter books at home.

• Why...?
• I'm curious about...
• I wonder...
• What does it mean when...?
• Is (character name) feeling...?
• Does (character name) think...?

Language: LAFS.3.L.1.1 We will work with 3 types of pronouns this week. Pronouns take the place of a noun.

Personal (can stand alone): 
me  her  him  it  them  us  you   he  she  I

Possessive (comes before a noun): 
his  her  my  our your

Indefinite (names someone or something that is not specific): somebody  everyone  nobody  everybody

Spelling: short a and e... See Word Work tab above for this week's list.

Vocabulary: See Vocabulary tab above for our words this week.

Writing: We will begin planning a narrative related to Because of Winn-Dixie. After creating individual plans, we will write stories telling about the events leading up to Winn-Dixie entering the grocery store.

Math: This week in Math we will be using our understanding of place value to solve multi-digit math problems and to help us continue practicing rounding whole numbers.  We will be identifying and explaining patterns in math using our 1,000’s chart and we will decompose numbers into expanded form. 

Home Learning:  Practice rounding numbers to 10’s, 100’s, and 1,000’s place.

Homework:

Monday: Unit 3 pp. 13 & 20
Tuesday: Unit 3 p. 22D
Wednesday: Unit 3 p.24
Thursday: Unit 3 pp. 28-29
Friday: Unit 3 Assessment

Science: This week in Science we will continue discussing the importance of communication in the scientific process and explore our ocean biome in more detail.