Week of November 17

Resources:
Monday: ART
Wednesday: Computer Lab Kluge
Thursday: MUSIC
Thursday: Computer Lab Cox

Fall Picture Retakes: Tuesday, November 18

Early Dismissal: Wednesday, November 19

Mid-term Progress Reports: Friday, November 21

Movie on the Lawn sponsored by our PTA 

Friday, November 21 6:30 PM

BSE track area

Bring chairs or a blanket. Admission is free! 

You can pre-order a whole pizza 

or purchase slices that night.

      

November 26 - December 1  No School  Thanksgiving Holiday
We will see you Tuesday, December 2!

READING:  Our RAH logs are looking great! THANK YOU for making reading at home a regular occurrence and for working on KidBiz3000! When we went to the computer lab this week, it was obvious we are becoming comfortable with the program due to frequent use. I really see an improvement in the written responses and in referring back to the article before choosing an answer on the multiple choice questions.

Our novel, Charlotte's Web, takes place in the state of Maine. To incorporate comparing and contrasting important points in two different texts, we read 2 articles about the climate in Florida and the climate of Maine. After reading the articles, we determined and underlined similarities and differences. We then organized them on a T chart. This week, we will respond to the following: Compare and contrast important points and details presented in two texts on the same topic.

We will also begin reading Charlotte's Web. As we start reading we will examine how the illustrations in the text enhance the meaning conveyed by the words. We will explain how the illustrations contribute to the mood in the text or give us information about the characters, plot, and setting.

WRITING: Opinion Writing... This is similar to the persuasive writing students wrote in previous grades. During this grading period, our opinion pieces will include the following:

• introduce the topic or text they are writing about, state an opinion,and create an organizational structure that lists reasons
• provide reasons that support the opinion or point of view
• use linking words and phrases such as because, therefore, since, for example, to connect the opinion and reasons
• provide a concluding statement or section

This week we will begin developing opinion statements and reasons to support the statements.

MATH:  This week in Math we will work on understanding the meaning of fractions.  We will focus on the following points:

• Finding equal parts of a whole and naming them with fractions
• Dividing an area into equal part
• Naming fractional parts with unit fractions (1/2, 1/3, ¼, etc.)
  

Homework:

Monday: Reteach and Practice 9.1

Tuesday: Unit 7 pg. 5

Wednesday: Unit 7 pg. 7

Thursday: Unit 7 pg. 8C

SCIENCE: This week in Science we will continue learning about the different forms of energy.  We are learning that all energy is connected and can be converted into different forms. 

Week of November 10th

We do NOT have school Monday or Tuesday... DCPS weather day and Veteran's Day holiday.

Resources:
Wednesday: Music and Media Please return all library books!
Friday: PE

Our Thanksgiving holiday break is Wednesday, November 26 through Monday, December 1. School resumes on Tuesday, December 2.
              

Thank you for encouraging your child to work on KidBiz3000! I have seen a definite increase in usage. Keep it up!

READING: There will be no spelling or vocabulary this week!

Map Skills: map title, map key, compass rose

Standard: RI.3.7: Use information gained from illustrations (maps, photographs, etc.) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (where, when, why, and how key events occur).

It is important to understand the key elements of maps. When reading informational text, maps are often included to give additional information about the subject. We will look at map keys, symbols, etc. which should be a review from second grade.

WRITING: We will begin to explore a new writing genre...opinion writing. Opinion writing is writing to communicate one's belief, conclusion, or judgment based on reasoning. It involves stating one's opinion and supporting it with reasons. We will be reading reviews of Because of Winn-Dixie written by children and determining their opinion statements and reasons. Then we will write opinion pieces on what type of community we would like to live in: urban, suburban, or rural.

MATH: This week in Math we will continue focusing on the following points:

Using multiplication combinations to solve division problems

Using the inverse relationship between multiplication and division to solve problems

Homework for the week:

The students will be writing their own multiplication and division story problems.

SCIENCE: This week in Science we will continue to focus on the different forms of energy.

November 3rd

We finished our first novel, Because of Winn-Dixie! On Friday, we watched the movie version. It was great hearing the characters speak lines directly from the book! Reading the book so closely, really helped us to make comparisons and notice similarities and differences. Although there were some differences, we loved seeing a book come to life. Hope everyone enjoyed it!

We will be taking our first CGAs this week!

Monday: Reading

Tuesday: Math

Upcoming Events!

Monday: Report Cards

Tuesday: Awards 2:00 PM

Thursday: Math and Science Night  6 – 7:30 PM

Friday: Veteran's Day Flag Raising at 9:15 AM -  Wear red, white, and blue! We have several parents in our classes who are Veterans and also are currently serving our country. We appreciate you!

No school November 10th and 11th. Veteran's Day and DCPS Weather Day

The 6 Pillars of Character: As a school, we will be focusing on 6 basic values that define ethical behavior.

Our first pillar is...

TRUSTWORTHINESS

• Be honest
• Don’t deceive, cheat, or steal
• Be reliable — do what you say you’ll do
• Have the courage to do the right thing
• Build a good reputation
• Be loyal — stand by your family, friends, and country 

Resources this week:

Tuesday: PE

Wednesday: Early Release

Thursday: ART

READING:  Before beginning our novel, Charlotte's Web, we will work with chapter 1 in our social studies textbook. 

Chapter 1: The Places We Live

Lesson 1: What is a Community?

Lesson 2: Kinds of Communities

Map Skills: map title, map key, compass rose

While using this text, we will concentrate on determining the main idea of specific sections of text and explaining how the key details support the main idea.

Our vocabulary this week comes directly from chapter 1. Students will be bringing their social studies books home several days this week for at-home reading. They should log this in on their RAH logs.

WRITING:  We will begin to explore a new writing genre... opinion writing. Opinion writing is writing to communicate one's belief, conclusion, or judgment based on reasoning. It involves stating one's opinion and supporting it with reasons. We will be reading reviews of Because of Winn-Dixie written by children and determining their opinion statements and reasons. Then we will write opinion pieces on what type of community we would like to live in: urban, suburban, or rural.

MATH: This week in Math we will focus on the following points:

• Understanding division as the splitting of a quantity into equal groups
• Using the inverse relationship between multiplication and division to solve problems
• Using multiplication combinations to solve division problems
• Writing and solving multiplication and division problems in context
• Identifying and learning multiplication combinations not yet known

Homework:

Monday -  Math Investigations Unit 5 pg. 44

Tuesday – Unit 5 pg. 45

Wednesday – Unit 5 pg. 47

Thursday – Unit 5 pg. 48

SCIENCE: This week in Science we will begin identifying basic forms of energy such as light, heat, sound, electrical, and mechanical.  We will learn that energy has the ability to cause motion or create change.

Week of October 27

BSE Literacy Week

As a school, we will celebrate our love of reading!

Monday: Some of our BSE teachers will perform a play about reading:

Peter Pan and the Lost Books

Tuesday: Dudes Do Read Day                
Wednesday: Flashlight reading... Please bring a flashlight if you can.
Thursday: Read Around the School
Friday: Kindergarten Book Character Parade and our classroom Because of Winn-Dixie Celebration

On Tuesday, all 3rd grade students will be having lunch provided by Sonic Drive-In in Julington Creek! They will be delivering the 140 lunches at no cost to us. The lunch will consist of a corn dog, chips, cookie, and bottled water. If your child would like to bring their lunch or buy in the cafeteria, that is fine as well.


Resources this week:
Monday: PE (wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday: ART
Wednesday: PLC Day (wear tennis shoes)
Friday: MUSIC

READING: We will finish Because of Winn-Dixie this week. On Friday, we will watch the movie version and I guarantee if anyone has already watched it, this time will be different!
The reason? We have looked at each character in depth... analyzed them, made judgments about them, and looked closely at the special relationships between them. It will be wonderful to see if the movie characters live up to our expectations that Kate DiCamillo has helped us create in our minds.

As we finish our novel, we will annotate our thoughts, discuss within the Socratic Seminar format, and think about the central message of Because of Winn-Dixie. The central message is what the author is telling us or teaching us in the book... usually an important life lesson. There are several underlying themes in our novel such as friendship and love, but the central message that Kate DiCamillo is sharing with her readers is that we can all affect the lives of others through our actions and words.

Please try to include at least one day of KidBiz3000 into your reading at home. Log it on your R.A.H. log and include the title of the article. Click below to log in!

WRITING: We will complete the publishing of our Because of Winn-Dixie "Prequels". Our focus the second nine weeks will be opinion writing.

MATH: This week in Math we will be focusing on the following:

Using arrays to find factors of 2 –digit numbers up to 50

Breaking an array into parts to find the product represented by the array

Identifying and learning multiplication combinations not yet known

Using known multiplication combinations to determine the product of more difficult combinations

Homework:

Monday- Finish array cards started in class/ Review addition and subtraction strategies

Tuesday- Unit 5 page 29/ Review ways to show multiplication

Wednesday – Unit 5 page 33/ CGA study guide

Thursday – Study for CGA 1

This week we will focus our attention on reviewing for our upcoming CGA assessment next week.  Look for study guides to help with reviewing concepts learned in class.  We will also be busy with our Literacy Week activities.   

Week of October 20th

We will not have spelling, vocabulary, or language tests this week due to our field trip and the teacher planning day on Friday. RAH logs will be due Thurday.

Wednesday is our field trip to Fort Menendez in St. Augustine. Don't forget your lunch and to wear your BSE t-shirt!

       Click on the photo to view the fort's website!
       

This Week is Red Ribbon Week! As a school we "Pledge to be Drug Free!"

Monday: We will have a school banner students can sign.

Tuesday: Wear crazy socks for "Sock it to Drugs" day.

Wednesday: Wear BSE t-shirt for our field trip!

Thursday: Wear you favorite sports jersey for "Team Up Against Drugs" day.

Friday: No school... Teacher Planning Day

RESOURCES:
Monday: ART
Thursday: Cox has COMPUTER

CGA ASSESSMENT INFORMATION:
We now have our CGA 1 assessment schedule. The tests will cover the standards we have worked with during the first 9 weeks.
The dates have been moved to the first week of November!
We will not have a science CGA.

Monday, November 3  READING    20 questions (45 minutes)
Tuesday, November 4  MATH    28 questions (60 minutes)

3RD GRADE AWARDS:
Tuesday, November 4 at 2:00 PM in the cafeteria

MATH AND SCIENCE NIGHT:
Thursday, November 6 at 6:15 PM

READING: This week we will continue with cause and effect. We will also begin thinking about the central message of Because of Winn-Dixie. The central message is what the author is telling us or teaching us in the book... usually an important life lesson. There are several underlying themes in our novel such as friendship and love, but the central message that Kate DiCamillo is sharing with her readers is that we can all affect the lives of others through our actions and words.

WRITING: We will work on completing our "prequels" to Because of Winn-Dixie so they are ready to be published!

MATH: This week in Math we will be focusing on the following:

Understanding the relationship among skip counting, repeated addition, and multiplication

Understanding that doubling (or halving) one factor in a multiplication expression doubles (or halves) the product

Using arrays to model multiplication situations

Using arrays to find a product by skip counting by one of its dimensions

  

Please continue to practice multiplication facts at home. 

Homework:

Monday – Arrays and multiplication R4-2/P4-2

Tuesday – Unit 5 pg. 26F

Wednesday – Field Trip

Thursday – Arranging chairs

We will also begin to review for our math CGA.  Please review place value, rounding numbers, addition and subtraction strategies.

SCIENCE: This week in Science we will be completing our “Ocean Biome” unit.  The students will be choosing and making an animal from one of the ocean layers.

Week of October 13th

      
It was so nice to be able to enjoy recess outside this week after the many rainy days! It's hard to believe the end of our first nine weeks is near. Monday, October 20th is the last day of this grading period. Friday, October 24th will be a teacher planning day.

We will begin taking our first CGAs (curriculum guide assessments) on Tuesday, October 22nd. This will be a good opportunity for students to show all they have learned during the first nine weeks! We will provide a more detailed schedule of the assessments soon.

Both classes are in need of hand soap. If you could possibly donate, we would greatly appreciate it! Also thank you for sending in box tops!

           
Individual school pictures are this Thursday, October 16th!

Also, we are nearing the end of the PTA membership contest...

Here is the link to print the membership form. There is a tab at the top of the blog!

http://bsepta2014.blogspot.com

Resources this week:
Monday: ART
Wednesday: MUSIC
Friday: PE

READING: I hope you had a chance to read the excellent written response about the character, Gloria Dump, in the graded work folder this week. I was very proud of how students supported their understanding of this new character by citing text evidence - Gloria's actions, words, and thoughts. It's great to see them do this automatically when they write about characters now. They are learning new words to describe the traits of a character. We have moved from nice, happy, mad... to brave, determined, responsible, honest, boastful, etc.

This week, we will focus on this question: How does what the author said earlier in the text help me understand what is happening now? This helps us understand that the relationships between the characters build on what happened earlier in the story. These relationships change and become stronger. The relationships have an effect on the characters and events in the story. We will relate this to the concept of cause and effect.

WRITING: As we finish our prequels to Because of Winn-Dixie, we will work on creating endings that will provide the reader with closure, bring everything together, or show a change in the main character. We will also meet with peers to revise and edit our drafts.

LANGUAGE: This week, we will review and work with base words and affixes (prefixes and suffixes). Below is a chart showing the affixes we will focus on this week:

PREFIX	MEANING	EXAMPLES
dis-	not; the opposite of	disagree, disorganized
un-	not	unhappy, unknown
re-	again	rewrite, rearrange
pre-	before	preview, preschool
mis-	wrongly	misbehave, misunderstand
SUFFIX
-ly	in a way that is	bravely, softly
-ful	full of	beautiful, forgetful
-able	able to be	bendable, respectable
-less	without	penniless, friendless

MATH: This week in Math we will focus on the following points:

• Understanding multiplication as combining equal groups
• Identifying the number of groups, the number in each group, and the product in a multiplication situation
• Understanding the relationship among skip counting, repeated addition, and multiplication
• Writing and solving multiplication problems in context

Homework:

Monday: Unit 5 pgs. 1-2

Tuesday: Make a “picture of things that come in groups” and write the multiplication equation

Wednesday: Unit 5 pg. 9

Thursday: Study Multiplication Facts 0, 1, 2

Friday: Continue studying multiplication facts 

SCIENCE: This week in Science we will continue studying our “Ocean Biome”.  We will learn about the different animals that live in the various layers of our oceans.

Week of October 6th - 10th

Resources this week:
Tuesday: Music
Friday: PE

Wednesday is Early Release!

READING: We will read chapter 9 in Because of Winn-Dixie and students will independently analyze a new character, Gloria Dump, based on her thoughts, words, and actions (evidence). Students will be writing a 2 point response about their new understanding of Gloria based on what they have concluded by reading chapter 8.

We will also read a social studies article from KidBiz 3000 about money and allowance. We will talk about how it is important to distinguish one's own point of view from that of the author of the text. Developing one's own point of view about a text indicates that the reader not only comprehends the but also has thoughts and opinions about the text. If this takes place, the reader can compare his thoughts and feelings to that of the author.

Late in the week, we will continue reading Because of Winn-Dixie with a new focus: cause and effect. Students will refer back to earlier events in the novel and determine how they are contributing to what is currently happening. They will begin to realize that what characters do affect later events.

LANGUAGE: In language this week, students will form and use regular and irregular plural nouns.
To form a regular plural noun, an -s (lesson - lessons) or -es (fox - foxes) is usually added to a singular noun. Sometimes we have to remove a y and add -ies. (baby - babies)

Irregular nouns do not have regular rules:

singular	plural
foot	feet
mouse	mice
tooth	teeth
sheep	sheep
fish	fish
man	men
woman	women
child	children

WRITING: As we continue to work on writing our "prequels" to Because of Winn-Dixie, we will learn how to add actions, dialogue, thoughts, and feelings of characters to make them more interesting and developed.

MATH: This week in Math the students will continue solving subtraction problems that involve finding missing parts, comparisons, and reason how changing the numbers affect a subtraction problem.  The students will determine effective strategies for solving subtractions problems and ways to represent a subtraction situation.  Please continue to review the addition and subtraction strategies learned in class.    

Homework:

Monday – Unit 3 page 69

Tuesday – Study for “Travel Problems” and “Distance Riddle” assessment   

Wednesday – Unit 3 pages 77-78

Thursday – Unit 3 page 81

SCIENCE: This week in Science we will be completing our studies on “Matter and Its Properties”.  We will be conducting a variety of investigations changing solids into liquids and measuring the volume of different objects.  We will have an open book assessment on this unit Friday.