Weekly Wrap Up

Early in the week we did some goal setting. Your child was asked to come up with goals for reading, math, home, and personal/social. Then they picked three of them and wrote them on a banner that’s now hanging in the hallway outside of our class. Ask your child to talk with you about the goals they set, and why they thought those goals were important to them.

It’s that time of year when Lost and Found fills up quickly! If your child is missing anything, please make sure to remind them to look for their missing items. In order to make sure your child keeps all items that belong to him/her, please take some time to write their name in coats, backpacks, lunch bags, and anything else that comes to school. Not only will that help make sure your child gets his/her things back, but it will also make sure someone doesn’t accidentally take something that looks like theirs, but belongs to your child.

Third grade is the year that your child begins working on keyboarding! We do this through the use of a program called Typing Club. Your child can even do this at home! If he/she logs into the Chrome browser with their district Google account information, and then accesses the site, they can pick up where they left off at school by selecting the option to save their data. Once they login again in school, they won’t have to repeat the section they did at home. The key is to make sure they login with their district Google account. We’ve done this in school before, so your child should be comfortable doing it at home if they want to, and if you let them online at home.

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

• Science: Force and Motion/Simple Machines

• Math: Division

• Reading and Writing: Finish organizing notes by sub-topic/chapter. Determine if chapters have enough information, or need to be combined or need more research, begin writing chapters.

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

Happy New Year! I hope that the holidays and vacation were fun and restful for all families! We are totally back in the swing of things, and your children have been such hard workers this week! You should be a fly on the wall to see their amazing effort and focus!

We’ve spent the week learning about the meanings of division. Students have learned that dividing means breaking things up into equal groups. They’ve practiced doing that with Fruit Loops (a yummy fun math lesson!) and with counting cubes. They’ve learned how to use repeated subtraction to divide, as well as use a multiplication chart to find the answer (quotient) to a division problem. They’ve also started learning to recognize when a story problem is asking them to divide. That one takes a little practice though. You can help at home by giving them a story problem, and asking them what operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division) they should use to solve it and why. The “why” is important, it helps them process through the problem, stopping to think what needs to be done. Once they can give you the why, then have them solve it. An example of a problem you might use at home is: Grandma has 9 cookies to share equally among the three kids in our family. How many cookies should each child get?

Just a reminder, your child has PE every Thursday. Please try to remind them to wear sneakers on that day, or have them in their bag to change into. Also, they have music every Tuesday and should bring their recorder and music folder to school.

The most recent math fact test scores went home this week for your signature. If you have questions or want at-home practice sheets, please let me know. Now that we’re learning division, your child should begin studying division facts at home.

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

• Science: Introduction to Force and Motion/Simple Machines
• Math: Division
• Reading and Writing: Finish up taking notes on information topic. Build new ideas from notes taken through different sources. Organize notes by sub-topic/ chapter. Determine if chapters have enough information, or need to be combined or need more research (this might go into the following week)

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

Learning to identify the main idea of a section of nonfiction text is hard work for a third grader! Your children have been working SUPER hard at it this week with lessons from from Mrs. Steck, our Literacy Resource Teacher, and me. An example of the way your child is learning to identify and state the main idea is in the picture below.

If your child is reading a nonfiction book at home, you can ask him/her to pick one section of it and tell you the main idea. It should be in a full sentence.They might need a reminder that it should be what the whole section was about, not just one part of it. Next week we’ll work more on this skill, as well as identifying supporting details that tell more about the main idea.

Once the snow starts to fly and your child is wearing boots, feel free to send in a pair of shoes for them to change into if you don’t want them in snow boots all day. I’ll be sure to give them time to change back into their boots before they head out.

If you have any extra plastic grocery store type bags around your house, we could use them in the classroom. They come in handy when kids have a cold and need a personal trash bag for tissues, forget their backpack at home, or have more stuff to carry home than can fit in their bag. Thanks!

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

• Social Studies: Cultures Across CT
• Math: Multiplication
• Reading: Finding the main idea and supporting details in nonfiction texts
• Writing: Rough drafts of nonfiction (information) texts

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

Do you know about the website, multiplication.com?  It’s free and has fabulous games for students to practice their multiplication facts. Now that we are well into our study of multiplication, your child should be including multiplication into his/her fact practice at home. As a reminder, we only go up to the 10’s in third grade, although I go ahead and teach them the 11’s, and strategies for the 12’s. Also, as a reminder, the math program we use does not teach the facts in sequence. Unit 5 covered 0, 1, 2, 5, 9, and 10. Unit 6, which we will start towards the middle of next week, will cover the rest. After that, we move on to division!

As the holiday season approaches, we often spend a great deal of time thinking about giving to others. At this time of the year, students and their families often like to give gifts to their teachers. This is certainly a very thoughtful and well-appreciated gesture. However, I feel that when one gives, the more people that can receive, the better. So this year, if you and your child would like to give, instead of giving me a gift please consider giving classroom a gift that all of the children can enjoy. If you want to do this, but need ideas, I’ve asked the kids to help me brainstorm a list of things they’d like to have in the classroom. From that list I created an Amazon wishlist. You can find it here: http://a.co/0dyF07a. Please don’t feel obligated to get anything from that list, I just wanted to put together something from the students that has what they wish they could have in their classroom.

Please make sure your child’s name is marked on their coats, hats, gloves, scarves, etc… Things can get left behind in specials classes or in the cafeteria, and can be more easily returned or found if there’s a name in them.

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

• Social Studies: Cultures Across CT
• Math: Multiplication
• Reading: Structures of nonfiction texts, finding the main idea in nonfiction texts (this is one of our big 3rd grade skills that we continually work on)
• Writing: Organizing information to begin writing nonfiction (information) texts

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

This is the time of year when we often pause to reflect on things we are thankful for. I want you to know that I’m so very thankful to have a class of children who are genuinely nice, care about and help each other, and work hard to learn new things each and every day. It is truly a joy to come to work each day and spend time with your children! They continue to put a smile on my face and make my heart sing! I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

As the holiday season approaches, we often spend a great deal of time thinking about giving to others. At this time of the year, students and their families often like to give gifts to their teachers. This is certainly a very thoughtful and well-appreciated gesture. However, I feel that when one gives, the more people that can receive, the better. So this year, if you and your child would like to give, instead of giving me a gift please consider giving the classroom a gift that all of the children can enjoy. If you want to do this, but need ideas, I’ll be asking the kids to help me brainstorm a list of things they’d like to have in the classroom or that need to be replaced. From that list I’ll created an Amazon wishlist and send home the link in the next newsletter. Please don’t feel obligated to get anything from that list, I just wanted to put together something from the students that has what they wish they could have, or feel we need, in their classroom.

On Wednesday we’re 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:

• Social Studies: Cultures Across CT
• Science: Matter experiments
• Math: Multiplication
• Reading: Unit 2 pretest on nonfiction (information). Begin looking at nonfiction (information) text features.

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

Today your child brought home the permission slip for our field trip to Indian Rock in Bristol. There’s a very short turn around time for this to be returned. Please sign and return it as soon as possible, but no later than Thursday of this week. This trip is the day after our Thanksgiving break, and we go rain or shine. We are outside for most of the day, so it’s important to dress for the weather and wear sturdy shoes. We need 2 chaperones, so if you’re interested be sure to return those forms, too! Those are needed by this Wednesday.

Don’t forget to try to set aside time from 2:45-3:15 this Friday, November 18 for Curl Up and Read time at Toffolon. Join your child in the classroom for a special half hour of reading together. Let them share some of their favorite classroom reads with you, and see a little of what they’re learning in action! Siblings from other classes are welcome to join us, as long as you send a note to their teacher. Also, if you want your child to leave our room and go to a sibling’s room, please send a note.

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

• Reader’s Workshop: Unit 1 test and unit 2 pretest
• Science: States of Matter, and physical and chemical changes of matter
• Social Studies: Cultures Across CT
• Math: Multiplication

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

Please try to set aside time from 2:45-3:15 on November 18 for Curl Up and Read time at Toffolon. Join your child in the classroom for a special half hour of reading together. Let them share some of their favorite classroom reads with you, and see a little of what they’re learning in action! Siblings from other classes are welcome to join us, as long as you send a note to their teacher. Also, if you want your child to leave our room and go to a sibling’s room, please send a note.

This week we started learning about the meanings of multiplication. Later 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 or early the following 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.

Along with studying addition and subtraction facts, your child can begin studying multiplication facts. The website 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. I hear that the dollar stores also have traditional flash cards. 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).

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 between Nov. 7-11. It will be distributed to our troops serving around the world!

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

• Reader’s Workshop: Unit skills review with summarizing, character traits, and predicting.

• Science: States of Matter, and physical and chemical changes of matter

• Math: Meanings of multiplication and multiplying by 2 ,5, and 9

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!