Saturday Baseball Fun

Mrs. Kluge and I got to enjoy a little fun at the baseball fields cheering on one of our students!  We had a great time and even got to see him hit a home run!  Thank you for the invitation! 

Feeling the love...

We had a great Valentine's Day... Students chose positive character traits to describe each classmate and then delivered them. Everyone left with a little red bag full of how their friends see them. Lots of fun and smiles!

Week of February 17th-21st

                     

Thank you for all of the wonderful Valentine cards and treats!

No school Monday, in observance of President's Day!  Early release on Wednesday.

All field trip money is due this Friday!  Progress reports will be sent home on Friday.

Next week, we will go to St. Augustine on Tuesday, students will need to pack a bag lunch!!

Math:  We will look at combining and separating shapes this week to make new shapes.  We will have a test on topic 11 on Friday!

ELA:
This week, we will read a Chris Van Allsburg story,
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.
        

Our lessons will focus on the following:

1. Student led discussions of text dependent questions. Students will work in small groups to answer questions that require locating and quoting evidence from the text. An example of this type of question would be:
Reread page 398. What evidence from the text can you cite to defend the idea that Alan takes pet-sitting Fritz seriously? 

2. Revisiting elements of plot... character development, setting, problem, and the solution as a series of events. 

3. Reading informational text and identifying the text structure (how the author organized the text) by using text clues and signals. We will read several pieces of text tied to a common topic and see how an author can organize the text in a specific way.
  
       

Science:
We will talk about what happens in the sky during day time and night time.  A common misconception is that students think stars "come out" at night, we will conduct an investigation that will show them what happens during the daylight.


Resources:
Tiberio
Tuesday- P.E
Thursday- Teacher directed PE
Friday- Computer Lab

Kluge-
Thursday- PE
Friday- Computer lab/ Media- return all library books!

The Winter Olympics!

This week we began learning about the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Everyone was very excited and we discovered many things about the history of the Olympics, Olympic traditions, and Russia.
Here is a link to a Time for Kids website to explore.

      

Week of February 10th-14th

Please remember to bring in your Valentine containers by Friday, they do not need to be decorated but they can be.  We sent a list home of student names last week.

Please return field trip permission slip and payment as soon as possible.

ELA: 
       
This week, we will take a close look at poetry and discover how we read it differently than fiction and informational text. We will read many poems and learn that poetry uses sensory words to create feelings and emotions in the reader. Poetry often makes us think differently and deeply.

As we look at poetry this week we will actively read and analyze each poem for better understanding. Below are some of the things we will annotate:

-the number the lines and stanzas

-figurative and descriptive language

-questions we have about the poem

-rhyme and rhythm

-inferences about the speaker and author of the poem

-details that support the main idea

-word, phrases, or parts that confuse us

-text details that lead us to form inferences 

Reading poetry is a great way to revisit descriptive and figurative language. In third grade, we focus on similes, metaphors, and personification. Students do not have to necessarily identify the type of figurative language, but more importantly, they need to be able to determine the meaning and how the author uses this language to describe something by comparing it with something else. 




Don't forget to check out the fluency tab above!

Math:

We are going to discussing types of angles, polygons, and the different types of quadrilaterals.

For our review day (safety nets) we will cover multiplication & division.

Science:

We will continue our discussion and research on the telescope and then begin discussing the sun.  We are working on chapter 2 in the students science workbooks.

Resources:

Tiberio

Monday- Media (return all books)

Wednesday- Music

Thursday- Art/ Teacher directed PE

Kluge

Tuesday- Music

Thursday- Teacher directed PE

Friday- Art

No School Monday, February 17th- Presidents' Day!

Progress Reports will be sent home Friday, Feb. 21st.

100th Day Posters!

Wow!  We certainly have some creative 3rd graders!  Check out the pictures!

Week of February 3rd-7th

Monday is our 100th day of 3rd grade!!

Wednesday is early release.

Upcoming field trip to St. Augustine on Tuesday, Feb. 25th, be on the lookout for a permission slip.


Math: We will wrap up our unit on fractions on a number line, improper, and mixed numbers.  We will have a quiz on Wednesday.  Thursday we will begin our unit on geometry by talking about triangles and quadrilaterals.
Also, on Wednesdays we will start our FCAT review and prep, each Wednesday we will review a topic or two that we have already covered in class.  You will see these papers sent home, please continue to review past concepts with your child.  This Wednesday we will review place value.  Students should also work on multiplication facts, they can do this with Reflex math or by simply using flashcards.

Science: We will focus on telescopes this week, we will do some more research.  We will discuss Galileo Galilei & the Hubble Space station.


ELA:
In READING this week we continue our unit, Incredible Stories. We will read The Mysterious Giant of Barletta written by Tomie dePaola. This Italian folktale is about a real statue in the town of Barletta, Italy.

We will look at the story and create a plot diagram together including (1)beginning information (exposition), (2)rising action including the problem, (3)climax, (4)falling action, and (5)resolution.

This is a great way to organize any story after reading.

I have also added a new tab, Fluency, that has a poem we are working on in class. Poetry is an excellent way for children to work on their fluent reading. Reading the same poem multiple times improves their fluency, intonation, and expression. Repeated readings are one of the most studied and most effective strategies for improving fluency. Feel free to listen to them read it.

Resources:

Tiberio:
Monday- P.E. (wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday- Computer Lab
Thursday- Teacher directed P.E.

Kluge:
Tuesday- P.E. (wear tennis shoes)/Computer lab
Thursday- Teacher directed P.E.
Friday- Media (return all library books)