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!

February Pictures

New pictures taken this month have been added to our class Photo Album page. Look in on your child during his/her days in school.

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 kids have been focused, hard workers this week! You should be a fly on the wall to see their amazing effort and focus!

As expected, we began learning about division this week. Students have been taught to think of division as dividing things into equal groups either through counting cubes or drawing objects and putting them into equal groups, as well as through repeated subtraction. They’ve also been taught how to use their multiplication chart to solve division problems. As students work on their division homework in the coming weeks they can use any mathematical tool or method they want that works best for them (well, not a calculator) since they are just learning their division facts. Every child should have a multiplication chart at home. If your child does have one, you can find one in the File Cabinet section of our class website.

If your child loses or forgets to bring home their reading or math facts log, not to worry! I’ve also placed copies of both logs in the FileCabinet section of our class website. If you’re not able to print at home, your child can even just write their reading or math facts information on a piece of paper and bring that to school.

New pictures from December have been added to our class photo album. Of course if you follow our class on Twitter you’ll see pics almost daily, too!

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

Reader’s Workshop: Main idea and supporting details
Writer’s Workshop: Typing Information books
Spelling: Unit 16 - Words home on Monday, test on Friday
Math: Topics 7 and 8, Division

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

Practicing the Distributive Property of Multiplication

Picture Time!

New pictures from November have been added to the photo album page on our class website.  Stop by and take a look!

New Photos!

Lots of new photos have been added to our class photo album. Check them out here!