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!

Weekly Wrap Up, Sept. 25th

It was fabulous to meet so many of you at Open House! I know it can be a whirlwind of a night, especially if you have multiple classrooms to visit. Hopefully the tour your child gave you of our room and their things gave you a little insight into their life at school. Our first conference isn’t until December, so if you have any questions or concerns between now and then, or just want to check in on your child’s progress, please let me know. I’ll be glad to schedule an earlier conference.

As you know, we are working on writing small moment stories, telling a true story bit by bit, moment by moment. You can help at home when your child is telling you about something that happened. You can ask him/her to tell you their story in very small detail, bit by bit, moment by moment, so you can picture it like a movie. It’s often helpful for a child to rehearse telling a story, listing what happened across their fingers. This helps them remember to tell it in order.

If your child has trouble with their math homework, the instructional video from the day on the enVision Math website can always be watched at home. To access the video after logging into enVision from the link on our Just for Kids page, students can click on the “Explore” button on the right side of the banner. From there they can click on topic, and then select the lesson. I showed the children how to access their books and videos today, so they should be able to help you if needed.

Thanks to everyone who filled out the contact information/permission. I will send home contact information for the class by the end of next week. If you did not return the form to me, I cannot include your child’s contact information. When/if missing forms are returned, I’ll send out updated contacted information.

Here's what's on our learning safari next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Strategies to understand a story, and focusing on increasing reading stamina
• Writer’s Workshop: Paragraphs in narrative writing, and mapping out elements in narrative writing
• Math: Using mental math to add and subtract (we start rounding to nearest 10 and 100 and estimation 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!