February 15

We would like to thank all of you for the sweet Valentines and gifts we received on Friday. You made us feel very special and loved!

Check out the wonderful star posters 

our students created in science! 

Great teamwork!

Resources this week:

Cox:

Tuesday: Media... Please return all library books!

Thursday: Art

Kluge:

Tuesday: Music

Wednesday: PE

Friday: Art

Field trip on February 29! Permission slips were sent home on Friday. Please return as soon as possible. Fort Menendez is a wonderful trip and we look forward to it! Click on the photograph for the link to the Fort Menendez website.

Jump Rope for Heart will be this Thursday and Friday. Please wear appropriate shoes for this event. We will let you know when we find out which day our classes will participate.

ELA: Students will be bringing home reading homework periodically. Please check the planner for days when it is due and look over it with them at home. 

I'm thrilled with the usage of Achieve3000 this month! Many students have already completed at least 4 lessons in February! Remember the goal is to score at least 75% and to write a complete answer on the thought question at the end of the lesson. Before writing the thought question, click on the blue box that says "Include in your answer" to make sure you know what is expected! Student Lexile growth has been incredible! Thank you for supporting your child in using this program!

We will continue to read Peter Pan. Students will meet in discussion groups to debate about which character's actions affected the events in the story the most. Students will also identify Peter Pan's thoughts, feeling, and actions in chapter 9. All of these guide Peter's motivations. Students will consider all of this in their character analysis of Peter. 

MATH: This week in math we will begin to identify a shaded fractional part in different ways depending on the designation of the whole.  Place whole number fractions and fractions between whole numbers on a number line and compare fractions and whole numbers on a number line by reasoning about their distance from 0.  The students will begin to recognize and show that equivalent fractions refer to the same point on the number line. 

Homework:                                                                                        

Module 5 Lesson 13

Module 5 Lesson 14

Module 5 Lesson 15

Module 5 Lesson 16

Things to practice and review at home:

Help your child partition things at home into equal parts and comparing fractional parts of a whole.

Practice identifying number patterns using multiplication, addition or subtraction strategies.

Continue to review  multiplication and division facts 2 to 10  (We will be testing our facts weekly.)

Practice solving two step word word problems involving all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284

for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

SCIENCE: Students will continue learning about energy and recognize that energy has the ability to cause motion or create change.  Students will identify examples of energy changing form and learn about ways energy can travel from one place to another.

Module 5 Lesson 13:

Module 5 Lesson 14:

Module 5 Lesson 15:

Module 5 Lesson 16:

February 8

Wednesday is Early Release.
Don't forget to make your Valentine boxes and bags for our card exchange on Friday! Class lists were sent home last week.



Resources this week:
Cox:
Monday: Computer lab
Tuesday: Art
Wednesday: Music
Friday: Music

Kluge:
Monday: PE
Tuesday: Computer Lab
Thursday: Art

ELA: This week, students will participate in a Socratic Seminar. This involves two students working as a team. One is the speaker and one is the coach. Then, they switch roles. The speakers all sit in a circle with their coaches behind them. They are given an open ended question and then conduct a self-directed discussion. There is no correct answer to the question and students know the question ahead of time so they can prepare, The question is based on their opinion with evidence to support that opinion. The coaches listen carefully and evaluate their partner based on the following criteria:

Did my partner...

• Respond to other students' comments in a respectful way
• Listen attentively without interrupting
• Keep his/her eyes on the speaker
• Come prepared to the seminar
• Refer back to the text to support his/her comments and opinions
• Participate in the discussion

We will also complete a mid-unit assessment. Students will create a character analysis of the character Peter Pan focusing on traits which describe him, what motivates him to behave as he does, and how his actions move the story forward. This can be based on anything that has happened so far in chapters 1-5. Students will also reread chapter 6 and answer several multiple choice questions.

MATH: This week in math we will begin to build non-unit fractions less than one whole from unit fractions.  The students will represent parts of one whole as fractions with number bonds and build and write fractions greater than one whole using unit fractions. We will also compare unit fractions by reasoning about their size.

Homework:                                                                                        

Module 5 Lesson 6

Module 5 Lesson 8

Module 5 Lesson 9

Module 5 Lesson 10

Module 5 Lesson 11

Things to practice and review at home:

Help your child partition things at home into equal parts (exa.  Pack of crayons, pieces of food, paper)

Practice identifying number patterns using multiplication, addition or subtraction strategies.

Continue to review  multiplication and division facts 2 to 10  (We will be testing our facts weekly.)

Practice solving two step word word problems involving all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284

for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

SCIENCE:

The students will identify  some basic forms of energy such as light, heat, sound, electrical and mechanical and recognize that energy has the ability to cause motion or create change.  We will begin to identify ways that energy changes form. 

      

February 1

Report cards go home Monday. You will also find recent assessment scores compared to baseline scores from the beginning of the year. Please sign the report card and send the lower right hand corner back in the envelope.

BSE National Honor Society is collecting items to make activity bags for Wolfson Children's Hospital. Please consider sending in any of the following items to assist in this service project.

- crayons - coloring books - puzzle books - Sudoku - small crafts - water color paints and paper - colored pencils, etc. Let's help to make the day brighter for a child in the hospital.

We had our BSE Jump Rope for Heart kick off last week. Coach Carney will be stationed at the World Wall each morning to hand out earned prizes for pledges. 

The BSE School Advisory Committee will meet Tuesday, February 2 at 6:00 pm for  the annual Mid-Year Stakeholder Meeting. It will be held in the Media Center. Everyone is welcome!

Resources this week: 

Cox: 

Tuesday: art

Thursday: music

Friday: pe

Kluge:

Monday: pe

Wednesday: art

Friday: music and media (please return all books)

ELA: This week we will continue reading Peter Pan. We will be introduced to the concept of characters and their motivations... why they do certain things, For instance, Peter returned to the Darlings' house because he wanted his shadow back. His motivation for returning was the fact that he missed his shadow and wanted it back.

We will use the questions:

     What reason did the character have for doing, or saying something?

     What was his/her motivation?

     What goal did the character have? What did he/she do to meet the goal?

These questions can often be applied to characters in almost any book. 

We will continue to build our character trait knowledge by noticing how the characters act and what they say. We are discovering there is a difference between feelings and character traits.

MATH: In math we will begin to develop an understanding of fractions as numbers.  The students will partition or break apart a whole into equal parts, identifying and counting unit fractions using models or fraction strips.  They will describe the shares using the words halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, and eighths, and recognize that equal shares of identical wholes may not have the same shape.

Example:

Shape	Total number of equal parts	Total number of equal parts shaded	Unit Form	Fraction
	6	1	1 sixth	1/6

Homework:                                                                   

Study for End of Module Assessment

Module 5 Lesson 1

Module 5 Lesson 2

Module 5 Lesson 3

Things to practice and review at home:

Help your child partition things at home into equal parts (exa.  Pack of crayons, pieces of food, paper)

Practice adding and subtracting numbers within 1000.

Continue to review  multiplication and division facts 2 to 10  (We will be testing our facts weekly.)

Practice solving two step word word problems involving all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284

for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

SCIENCE: The students are concluding their star projects.  We will continue  learning about the sun’s energy and observe what effect sunlight has on objects.

Module 5 Lesson 1:

Module 5 Lesson 2:

Module 5 Lesson 3:

January 25

Tuesday, January 26 is FSA Parent Night at 6:00 pm. Third grade teachers and parents will meet in the Media Center. We will be sharing important information about the upcoming state testing. Please join us!

Wednesday, January 27 is an Early Release Day.
Thursday, January 28 is BSE Spirit Night at PDQ Bartram Park from 4:00 - 8:00 pm.

BSE yearbooks are currently available for pre-order for $20 until January 31. The price increases to $25 on February 1. You can order online at www.leonards.com/yearbooks. BSE order number is 35037.

ELA: We read the first chapter of our novel, Peter Pan last week. As we continue to read, we will focus on some new concepts directly related to reading literary text. We will track literary elements such as WHERE: the setting of each chapter, WHO: the most important characters and traits that describe them, and WHAT: the main events that take place. We will use Where / Who / What throughout the book to help us keep the elements organized. What we read in class is great to talk about at home to work on summarizing and retelling skills.

There will be no spelling this week. Instead, students will have 2 sheets due Thursday that review important third grade language skills. They will go home Monday. Please continue to read daily and complete at least one Achieve article during the week.

Below are some pictures of us sharing our Freaky Frog Trading Cards... After researching, note taking, and writing, it was fun sharing and listening.

MATH: In math the students will analyze different rectangles and reason about their area.  They will apply the distributive property as a strategy to find the total area of a large rectangle by adding two products. They will solve problems to find the possible side lengths of rectangles with areas of 24, 36, 48, or 72 square units using the associative property.The students will solve word problems involving area and find area by decomposing or completing figures to form rectangles.

Example Problem:

Homework:                                                                   

Module 4 Lesson 10

Module 4 Lesson 11

Module 4 Lesson 13

Module 4 Lesson 14

Things to practice and review at home:

Explore number patterns:  For example: 47, 55, 63, …  what is the 5^th number in the pattern?

Developing fluency in skip counting by 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

Continue practicing adding and subtracting numbers within 1000.

Practice multiplication facts 2 to 10 and division facts (We will be testing our facts weekly.)

Practice solving two step word word problems involving all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284

for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

SCIENCE:  The students are sharing their information on their specific star.  They are creating star posters with all information collected on their stars.  We will begin learning about “radiant energy”.  We will explore the sun’s energy and observe what effect sunlight has on objects.

Module 4 Lesson 13:

Module 4 Lesson 14:

Module 4 Lesson 15:

Module 4 Lesson 16:

January 18

There will be no school on Friday as it is a Teacher Planning Day. Report cards will go home on January 28.

ELA: No spelling this week... We completed our frog module last week. Below are a few examples of both sides of our Freaky Frog Trading Cards! Students researched using several sources and wrote informational narratives in the first person. We will share our cards this week. So proud of their great effort and work!!!

S

This week, we will begin our third module centering around the classic tale, Peter Pan. We will read this closely and focus on the characters, their emotions, traits, and motivations. 





MATH: In math the students will form rectangles by tiling with unit squares to make arrays.  Draw rows and columns to determine the area of a rectangle when given an incomplete array and find the area of a rectangle by multiplying the side lengths.

Homework:

Module 4 Lesson 5

Module 4 Lesson 6

Module 4 Lesson 7

Things to practice and review at home:

Explore number patterns:  For example: 47, 55, 63, …  what is the 5^th number in the pattern?

Developing fluency in skip counting by 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

Continue practicing adding and subtracting numbers within 1000.

Practice multiplication facts 2 to 10 and division facts (We will be testing our facts weekly.)

Practice solving two step word word problems involving all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284 for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

SCIENCE: The students will continue researching their stars and begin to share their star information.  The students will create star posters with all information collected on their specific stars.

Resources this week:
Cox: music
Wednesday: pe
Thursday: computer lab

Kluge:
Wednesday: music
Thursday: pe

January 11

ELA:
Wow! We took our mid-year level set assessments in Achieve3000 this week. Students took it very seriously and did very well! I am so proud of their increases in their Lexile levels! Awesome! Their articles will now be at their new Lexile levels. Students are encouraged do complete 1-2 Achieve articles each week at home. Please record them on the RAH log for reading at home that day.

We have resumed our spelling texts each week. The lists reflect third grade spelling patterns and language concepts such as plural nouns, irregular verbs, and base words with prefixes and suffixes.

In class, we are continuing to work on our Freaky Frog Trading Card performance task. Students are using information from multiple sources to share what they have researched about a specific frog species. They are quite the experts!

Math:

This week in math the students will begin to understand area (the amount of two-dimensional space in a bounded region) as an attribute of plane figures.  They will decompose and recompose shapes to compare areas.  The students will model filling in a shape with centimeter and inch unit squares as a strategy to measure area.

Example Area Problem:

Homework:

Study for End of Module 3 Test

Module 4 Lesson 1

Module 4 Lesson 2

Module 4 Lesson 3

Things to practice and review at home:

Continue practicing adding and subtracting numbers within 1000.

Practice multiplication facts 2 to 10 and division facts

Use the example area problem above to create practice problems at home

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284

for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

Science:

The students will work researching their stars and begin to compare star information.  They will also begin to discuss  tools scientists use to observe objects in the sky.  The students will discuss how telescopes help scientists learn about space and what features of stars might a telescope allow scientists see.

Resources this week:
Cox:
Monday: music
Tuesday: pe
Thursday: art

Kluge:
Tuesday: music
Wednesday: pe
Friday: art

No school on Monday, January 18 and Friday, January 22.

Module 4 Lesson 1:

Module 4 Lesson 2:

Module 4 Lesson 3:

January 4

It's 2016! We hope everyone had a wonderful break! We are excited to see all of you on Monday!

Resources this week:

Cox:

Monday: PE

Tuesday: Computer Lab

Wednesday: Art

Thursday: Art

Friday: Media   Please return your library books!

Kluge:

Monday: Music

Tuesday: PE

Thursday: Music and Computer Lab

Friday: Art

Wednesday, January 5 is an early release day.  1:45 pm

Thursday, January 7 is Middle School Information Night at 6:30 pm. There will be a PTA meeting at 6:15 pm. It's not too early to start thinking about the options for middle school. There will be formal presentations from several middle schools followed by an informal opportunity to talk with middle school students and staff. 

ELA: We will begin our final unit in our frog module on Monday. Students will choose one of four frogs they wish to research further in preparation for creating a "Freaky Frog" trading card. We have already studied the frogs when reading one of core texts, Everything You Need to Know about Frogs and Other Slippery Creatures. We will now read an additional text about the same type of frog to further our research. This will reinforce one of our third grade standards where we compare and contrast two texts focused on the same topic.This will be a great culminating project for our frog experts! It will combine both reading and writing skills.

glass frog

Amazon horned frog

water holding frog

poison dart frog

We also begin to learn cursive writing starting with the basic strokes. Students will eventually bring cursive practice home with them. 

Math:  This week in math the students will reason about and explain patterns using units of 0 and 1 as they relate to multiplication and division.  They will identify patterns in multiplication and division facts using the multiplication table and they will continue solving two-step word problems involving all four operations and assess the reasonableness of solutions.

Homework:

Module 3 Lesson 15

Module 3 Lesson 16

Module 3 Lesson 17

Module 3 Lesson 18

Things to practice and review at home:

Practice adding and subtracting numbers within 1000.

Continue practicing multiplication facts 2 to 10

Continue practicing division facts

Please check out our DCPS site http://www.duvalschools.org/Page/17284

for homework help and strategies to help with solving homework problems.  You may also find the homework videos helpful.

Science:

Students will continue learning about stars and star patterns.  The students will work in groups to research 2 stars, that will be assigned to them, and compare and contrast the 2 stars. 

Module 3 Lesson 16:

Module 3 Lesson 17:

Module 3 Lesson 18:

Module 3 Lesson 19:

Module 3 Lesson 20:

Module 3 Lesson 21: