Weekly Wrap Up

A few times a year I send home a Scholastic book order. This is just one of many ways to find reading material for your child. Please don’t feel obligated to purchase anything, but if you do want to buy a book, you can either order and pay online, or you can send in the form with a check (please do not send cash). A larger selection of books is actually available online. The order link and our class code are on our class website. Online orders are delivered to the classroom and distributed to your child. They do not get sent to your home. Click here for the link on the class website for Scholastic Book Orders. Online and paper forms are due Friday, Nov. 13.

This week we started learning about the meanings of multiplication. Next week we start with the facts. Our math program does not do them in order (0-10). Topic 5 covers multiplying by 2, 5, 9, 1, 0, and 10, in that order. I also throw in 11 since it’s so easy. Late in the week ask your child to show you the nine’s trick with their hands. I’ll also tweet out a video of the trick on the day we learn it.

Once again we are collecting treats for troops. This is a great chance for your child to be a Goodness Gorilla (ask them what this means). Please send in a bit of extra Halloween candy next week. It will be distributed to our troops serving around the world

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Review of skills taught in unit 1
• Writer’s Workshop: Continue revising and typing small moment stories
• Math: Multiplying by 2 ,5, and 9
• Social Studies: Northeast Woodland Native Americans

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

On Wednesday we begin learning about multiplication! It’s first introduced through the concept of repeated addition, such as 4x2=8 is the same as 4 groups of 2, or 2+2+2+2=8. We will also learn about it through arrays. An example of an array is shown on the attached family math letter. Another way that we’ll learn about multiplication is through skip counting. If your child can count by 3’s six times, then they’ll know that 3x6=18. Next week a skip counting chart and a multiplication chart will be sent home. Your child will likely need to refer to those while doing his/her homework.

Along with studying addition and subtraction facts, your child can begin studying multiplication facts. The website multiplication.com (http://www.multiplication.com) has some great games that kids tend to love. The “Just for Kids” page on our class website has many resources listed by topic, as well as basic fact sites. One thing I find is that in their excitement to learn something new and “grown up” kids often fall back in their subtraction progress as they focus on multiplication. So, they’ll need to keep circling back to study subtraction facts (and addition too).

Today your child is bringing home a sheet with of all of their logins and passwords for the various sites we use in school. This is so they can login from home if they want, and so you always have access to what we’re doing in school. If you ever have questions about these sites or want help with them, don’t hesitate to ask!

I realized that I never sent home the math test scores from Topic 2 last week. I’m so sorry! The kids took the test on the Chromebooks, and they can’t print from them. I meant to print them, and then it slipped my mind. They’re coming home today.

Friday we are making slime in class! It’s a VERY messy activity. Your child is very likely to get it on their clothes. Please don’t send them to school in good clothes that day.

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Strategies to read and understand meanings of tricky words and phrases (including figurative language, synonyms, and antonyms)
• Writer’s Workshop: Typing small moment stories
• Math: Test topic 3 and start Topic 4- meanings of multiplication
• Science: Physical and chemical changes of matter

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

Next week we start Topic 3 in math, which focuses on 3-digit addition and subtraction with regrouping (what we grew up calling carrying and borrowing). We’ve actually already been working on addition with regrouping as part of our morning work, so our lessons will be focused more on subtraction with regrouping. By late in the week we will be doing what’s called subtracting across zeros. This means doing problems like 400-127. To help students with this, there’s a great free iPad app we use in school, Number Pieces Basic. If you have an iOS device at home, you may want to download it for your child (there doesn’t appear to be an Android version, but there might be something on the same idea). It can also be accessed on the developer’s website: http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/web-apps/number-pieces/.

 Did you hear the news? We blogged AGAIN this week! Last week your child wrote their introduction blog post. Today your child blogged about the favorite book he/she read in September. Please take a minute to read your child’s blog, and comment. Feel free to share their blog with every relative you have, and have them comment!, too. :) The kids LOVE it when people comment on their writing, and it is highly motivating.

 It was a techie week. Along with blogging, the children created their first Educreations slideshows on the iPads as a review for math. Each group had to choose whether to teach how to round numbers to the nearest ten and nearest hundred, or teach about the three properties of addition. A couple of the presentations are in the next blog post down.

 As you might have noticed this week, your child does not always have some type of worksheet to do for homework. I only send worksheets home when there’s been a skill taught in class that day (or sometimes that week), that I want them to practice and apply their new knowledge to, reinforcing their in-school learning. Even when there’s not a worksheet, they still need to be doing their home reading and math facts, and recording on their logs. 

Here's what we'll be learning about next week:

•  Reader’s Workshop: Strategies to read and understand tricky words and phrases (including figurative language, synonyms, and antonyms) 
•  Writer’s Workshop: Putting together all the pieces of personal narrative writing. 
•  Math: Addition and subtraction of 3-digit numbers with regrouping. 
•  Science: Matter 

 Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Educreations Math

We've been learning how to use the iPad app, Educreations, to create math presentations to help us review topics we're learning about.  Here are two that were made this week:

Weekly Wrap Up

We are just a few weeks away from starting multiplication! What that means is that your child really needs to know his/her addition and subtraction facts. Once we start multiplication, they’ll need to start focusing on memorizing those facts. A couple of months after that we start division, and then they have to learn those facts. That gets tricky if they’re still working on addition and subtraction. Third graders should know their math facts with immediate recall. This means no longer than about 2 seconds per fact! As fast as a child knows that 1+1=2, they need to know that 15-9=6. Thanks for making sure your child is practicing their addition and subtraction math facts at home, five nights a week, for at least ten minutes a night, and recoding it on their math fact log.

The final copy of the contact list is coming home today. If you move, change your phone number, or email, and want it updated on the contact list, please let me know, and I’ll make a new one to send out.

This morning I ran across an article on the free app, Bedtime Math. I briefly looked at the website, and thought the app looked promising. I haven’t used it yet, but wanted to share it with you in case you might be interested. If you do use it with your child, please let me know what you think about it.

You know from our class Twitter that I take a lot of pictures in class. But, I don’t post all of them on Twitter, just a select few. All the rest of the pictures get posted in the photo album page of our class website. All of the pictures from September will be posted by the end of the weekend. Stop by and take a look!

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Strategies to read and understand tricky words and phrases (including figurative language)
• Writer’s Workshop: Review using storyteller voice, not reporter voice.
• Math: Review and test Topic 2
• Science: Matter

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

We’ve been working hard on learning to make higher level predictions in reading. This means that your child doesn’t just predict what might happen night in the story or with a character, but they also use evidence from the story to support their opinion. We’re even learning to kick it up another notch to include information we know from our own lives to help understand the motivation of the characters. You can help at home by asking your child to tell you about what they read, and then ask them to make a predication about what might happen next, reminding them to use “because statements” to support their prediction.

A DRAFT copy of the contact list is coming home today. Please note that DRAFT is on it. When I was putting it together I realized just how easy it is to make a mistake typing all that up. Please check over the info. for your child. In most cases of multiple phone numbers and emails I just listed the house phone and the first email written down. If you see an error or want all contact info. listed, please let me know by Wednesday. I’ll send home a final contact sheet by the end of the week.

Any time your child has a special event in his/her life, such as a sporting event, music or dance recital, trip, etc... feel free to send in a picture or email it to me. Short videos are okay too. I’ll put it up on the SmartBoard so your child can share his/ her big events with the class. No show and tell tickets are required for this! Also, I know it’s not until the end of the month, but send in a picture of your child trick or treating so they can show their costume off to their friends in school!

Here's what we'll be learning about next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Strategies to understand a story, including retelling
• Writer’s Workshop: Writing endings
• Math: Estimation for addition and subtraction

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

We Will Round You

We made a math music video today!