3rd Grade Newsletter
Third Grade Newsletter
Volume 7, Number 18 sadkins@pennoyerschool.org March 13, 2009
Hello Parents! What a relief for all of us that the ISAT tests are over! Yay! We tend to have a more relaxed feeling in school now that these high stakes tests are over, especially in math. I would like to thank all of you for getting your children here and on time for each day of testing. It is so nice to not have to deal with any make-up tests in our class! Hopefully the students used their many strategies that they have learned this year and exceeded the state’s standards. Miss Wierzgac is now teaching the full day, and she has been doing a great job. I will hand the rest of this Newsletter over to her. Here’s what’s been happening:
Reading ~ Our story this week was a realistic fiction story called My Very Own Room. Our focus while reading this story was to monitor our comprehension by making predictions and reading to see if they were right. When I met with each group in our centers on Tuesday, we used our story to continue with the idea of making predictions. Now, even though they already knew what was going to happen, and they finished the story, I decided to ask the children to make predictions about how the story could continue and what could happen to the girl now that she has her very own room. So, while we were talking about this, we also discussed the importance of imagery and how it helps us understand the reading. If the illustrations weren’t there, could you create an image in your mind to help you? Next time you and your child are reading at home, try covering the images in the book and begin reading. Take the paper off as you go to see if the images, which your child created in their mind, were similar to the ones in the book!
Language Arts ~ The grammar lesson this week dealt with comparing words, words that end in –er or -est. The kids each created a mini book using words and pictures in magazines, and each page had to have at least one –er or –est word in it. The children also created a story during their reading centers using contractions. Aside from this, we have begun a new topic in writing. We are now talking about Narrative writing and we have been brainstorming in different ways to provoke memories. Narrative writing can be a bit tricky. The children should think about their life and choose an experience or a story to write that they remember. Most of the time, the kids will tell me stories randomly and they start off by saying, “When I was a baby I remember….” I usually tell them that they really can’t remember stuff from when they were a baby, someone told them that story. So, the activities that we have been doing and will be doing will help them think of times in their life that they ACTUALLY remember! J
Math ~ Congratulations to Matthew for successfully completing his timed multiplication test this week! He completed 100 problems in 5 minutes. The rest of the children in the class keep getting super close!! I bet next week we will see a few more names on here! In math this week, we continued a chapter that we started prior to the ISAT tests. We are working on chapter 20, which is mostly about decimals. We did different activities such as writing decimals that are greater than one, deciding whether an answer is reasonable or not and comparing and ordering fractions and decimals. Ask your child about the different ways that we explored these concepts! Also, we left our classroom and did something extra special today!
Science ~ We started our new chapter on Heat. To start off the week we investigated the idea of how to get thermal energy. Your children used simple everyday items such as buttons, wool, paper, and pennies to figure out how thermal energy works. Try this at home! Ask your child if they can show you what they learned from how they did their experiment! In addition to this, we read through our first section of the chapter and covered three new vocabulary words, thermal energy, friction and heat. Most of the children thought that the words were easy! That’s good! Next week we will be conducting an experiment and reading the second section of the chapter.
Social Studies ~ This past week in social studies class we read and discussed different biographies about many historical figures. Some figures we read and talked about were John Glenn (astronaut) and Betsy Ross (designed the first American Flag). We will continue next week with different literatures on famous historical figures. Be sure to ask your child about this. Your child has turned in the slip declaring who he/she will be for the Wax Museum. As a reminder, the biography report is due on March 30th. If your child should finish the report earlier, they could hand it in immediately. The Wax Museum is on April 2nd and April 3rd. You will be able to come April 3rd anytime between 1:00 – 2:20. Please make sure your child is well prepared for the museum with his/her costumes and props. If you are not sure about something, feel free to email me at rmichaels@pennoyerschool.org.
Other Areas of Interest:
- The last day of the third quarter is next Friday, March 20. Since that is also the last day before spring break, report cards will not go home until Friday, April 3.
That’s it for now! It looks like we are in for a warming trend in this weather, thank goodness. Spring fever is in the air! Please remember to have your child practice their multiplication flash cards regularly and they should be reading every night. We wish you all a wonderful weekend, and remember to keep your child reading!
Miss Sarah Wierzgac
Mrs. Sarah Adkins
