Newsletter Week of October 30th

Week of October 30th-November 3rd

Students had a wonderful field trip to FRIM and learned a lot about patterns and the different biotic and abiotic elements in that diverse ecosystem. Thanks again to our parent volunteers for helping make it a smooth trip. If you would like to see some of the pictures from the field trip, please click on the photos tab at the top of this blog, it will take you to a google drive folder. All of the pictures are in the October folder.

On Tuesday, students will be able to dress up in their Halloween costumes (no weapons and no masks). While there will not be any specific parties, students do love to see the different and creative costumes. You may wish to have your child bring in their school uniform to change into as sometimes those costumes are not comfortable to wear all day.

On Thursday, storyteller Tanya Batt will be sharing her ideas, creativity, and storytelling with grade three.

On Friday, nonfiction children’s author Melissa Stewart will do a Skype call with students, explaining how she writes her books, amongst other things.

Also on Friday, it will be the Deepavali Celebration and Dress up day.

This week will begin on Day 2.

Reading Students will take stock of their progress in nonfiction reading so far and set goals for themselves. They will then make plans to help them reach those goals.  Readers will also read and take notes, knowing they will have conversations later.  They will read holding those conversations in their heads.

Writing Students will create a table of contents to help organize and chapter the information they write. When writers revise, they will consider ways they can add more or elaborate.  Information writers can elaborate by studying mentor texts, taking note of all different kinds of information that writers use to teach readers about subtopics.

Math Students will begin to look at different subtraction strategies for three digit numbers. They will be using place value, number lines, decomposing, and a standard algorithm.

Science Students will look at ecospheres and study what makes them function and survive. They will study food chains and food webs and analyze how biotic elements are interconnected in an ecosystem.

October 30, 2017- Choose 2 activities to complete before Friday to share in class.

Math: Jesse practices the trumpet for a total of 165 minutes during the first week of school. He practices for 244 minutes during the second week. Estimate the total amount of time Jesse practices by rounding to the nearest 10 minutes. Estimate the total amount of time Jesse practices by rounding to the nearest 100 minutes.	Language arts: Make a list of things that strong informational authors include in their writing.	Language arts: Read an informational book and take research notes as you read. You can organize the notes into boxes and bullets. Then you can teach your new understanding to an audience.
Math: Subtracting two digit numbers. Directions: Make the smallest (or largest) difference by filling in the boxes using the whole numbers 1-9 no more than one time each	Science Design  your own ecosphere or closed terrarium. Draw and label your design in the home learning journal. If possible, make it!	Other: Go outside for a walk, observe the different biotic and abiotic (living and nonliving) elements on your walk.

--- Remember: Reading is just what we do. It is expected each night.

Newsletter Week of October 24th

Week of October 24th-27th

Students had a short, but productive week last Monday and Tuesday. They spent time tuning in to the different Biomes (ecosystems) around the world and figuring out what are some of the common characteristics they all share.

Hopefully, you had an enjoying and relaxing holiday. Speaking of holidays, we have had a lot of them recently. But we now enter a long stretch on the calendar with very few disruptions. Which is good, because the students have lots to learn! A friendly reminder that if you are planning on taking your child away on a trip, please email the school so we are notified.

This Friday, students will be going on a field trip to FRIM. They will need to bring a home snack, as we will be eating our snack at FRIM. Children also need to bring: sunscreen, water bottle, hat, bug spray/repellent. For those of you that are chaperones, please be at school by 8:00. Parents will ride on the bus with the students. We should arrive back at ISKL around 11:45.

This week will begin on Day 4.

Reading Students will organize the bits of information in a nonfiction text into categories.  They will also teach others what they’ve learned from their nonfiction texts, paying close attention to the main ideas and supporting details.

Writing They will make plans for how to organize their information writing and try different organization structures on for size. Writers look at the different parts of an informational text paragraph, breaking them apart and identifying their purpose. They will write an informational paragraph.

Math Students will continue to practice a variety of addition strategies to find the sum of 3-digit numbers. They will also be solving real-world problems involving addition and measurement.

Science Students will look for commonalities among components of biomes in different locations, as well as adaptations that plants and animals make to these different biomes. They will begin to study food chains/food webs to think about the interconnectedness of living and nonliving elements in an ecosystem.

October 24-27, 2017 - Choose 2 activities to complete before Friday to share in class.

Math: Show an adult how to add 3 digit numbers. Using partial products (expanded form). Write down 2-3 problems in your home learning journal.	Language arts: Write an informational paragraph about your favorite animal or biome.	Language arts: Read a favorite nonfiction book. Summarize one or more sections of the book using boxes and bullets.
Math: Play a math game that you have learned in class.	Social Studies: Write down and explain to an adult what are some common features/characteristics of all biomes.	Other: Play a musical instrument. If you do not have any instruments, make your own!

Remember:

• Reading is just what we do. It is expected each night.

Newsletter Week of October 16th

Week of October 16-17th

3AH really enjoyed participating in the cardboard challenge last Wednesday. It gave them the opportunity to collaborate, be creative and passionate, have fun, and share their creations with the whole grade. We wrote about the cardboard challenge for this week's blog post. We will be sharing with you your child individual blog in the coming week.

Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedule to attend the conferences. It was a great opportunity for the students to share their work and talk about their learning goals.

This week will begin on Day 2. It will be a short two day week. Please turn in the Field trip form by Tuesday. Home learning is also due on Tuesday.

Have a safe and relaxing holiday!

Reading During this shortened week, students will get ready to read nonfiction by revving up their minds even before they start reading a text by: previewing it, accessing prior knowledge, identifying the different features and thinking about how the book might go.

Writing Students will create a list of topics that they have a lot of prior knowledge with and feel like experts in. These topics will be used for future nonfiction informational writing. They will then choose one of those topics that they wish to develop further and write about in detail.

Math Students will begin the week by learning and practicing a strategy for adding within 1000, the first being the partial sums strategy.

Science This week marks the beginning of the Ecosystems unit. We will start out by thinking about what an ecosystem is and what are some different ecosystems around the world.

Newsletter Week of October 11th

Week of October 11th-13th

Hello, 3AH parents. It was a busy week in the class. We were finishing our units in Reading, Writing and Social Studies. We also were preparing for our conferences. We will be sharing with you a piece of writing from the beginning of the year and the piece they finished this week. I was really impressed with the growth they have shown thus far!

As our narrative writing unit came to an end last week, students had the opportunity to share their stories with a variety of different third-grade students, both in their class and in other grade three classes. They enjoyed being able to share, as well as give and receive feedback. Students are encouraged to continue writing personal narrative stories at home and bring them to class to share.

It is not too late to bring in cardboard! We need as much as we can get for our Cardboard Challenge taking place on Wednesday, October 11th.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, we look forward to seeing you AND your child for Conferences! It is a great opportunity for us to have a conversation about your child’s progress thus far and set goals together.

This week will begin on Day 5.

Reading During this shortened week, we will transition toward information/nonfiction reading, with the first focus being on finding the main ideas of the text and text structures. Students will be accessing their prior knowledge of this genre and tapping into topics of interest.

Writing The informational writing unit will be taught in conjunction with our information reading unit. Although this is not a unit where the focus is on researching to write, rather the students will use informational writing strategies as they compose texts about subjects they already know well. This week will give the students the chance to show what they already know about the genre. Students will also begin to develop plans for how to organize their writing.

Math We will continue to use rounding as an estimation strategy by introducing rounding to the nearest 100. Students will continue to show different ways of proving their thinking by using a number line, using benchmark numbers, and finding halfway numbers. As always the parent learning connection has ideas for you in math and reading/writing here.

Social Studies  This week will mark the end of our Mapping and Landforms unit. Students will get an opportunity to share and celebrate the maps that they have created (landform, resource, climate, and population) as well as analyze and ask questions about the maps created by others.

October 10-17th 2016- Choose 2 activities to complete before next Tuesday to share in class.

Math: Explain and show an adult how to round 343 656 to the nearest hundred. Explain and show an adult how to round 343 656 to the nearest ten.	Language arts: What is the difference between fiction and nonfiction? Show what you know by making a list, brain frame, T-chart or anything else to show your thinking.	Language arts: Read a nonfiction book. Write down as many different text features as you can find and their examples. (example: caption, label glossary)
Math: Roll a dice 3 times to make a 3 digit number. Round that number to the nearest 100 (write it down). Do this 5 times.	Science: Draw a picture of what you think an ecosystem looks like. Label your drawing.	Other: Clean/tidy up a room in your house that is not your bedroom

• Remember: Reading is just what we do. It is expected each night.

We recommend that students do typingweb.com at home for additional typing practice!