Welcome everyone to a great new school year! All the teachers have been busy getting ready for the start of school. We want our rooms to be just perfect for the arrival of our most honored guests --- the new students! We are excited to share our new grade level blog with you. This is where you can find lots of information and websites designed to help you have the best school year ever! Make sure to check the blog frequently for information about what we are doing in class including learning targets, units of study and upcoming tests. Add the blog to your favorites and start browsing. Before you know it, you will be learning and having fun at the same time. What could be better than that? Here what's happening the first week of school.
Getting to know you - A lot of time is spent the first couple of weeks getting to know each other. Each teacher will go over their classroom routines and expectations. Notebooks and folders will be labeled, and desks will be organized. Students will participate in activities designed to learn a little bit about their classmates and build a classroom community.
Citizenship- We will start the year reviewing what it means to RESPECT YOE. The students will discuss how to respect themselves, others and the environment in various places throughout the school. Students will learn how to earn "paw prints" and what a good citizen looks like and sounds like.
Reading- We start the year discussing books and why reading is important. The students are introduced to the classroom library and how to choose "Just Right" books. The students have their own reading box which they will keep stocked with books for independent reading time. The first story of the year is Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman. This is an entertaining story about a police officer and his dog Gloria, who work together to teach safety tips to children at various schools. We will use this story to discuss how to use CONTEXT CLUES to better understand the meaning of a story. For this first story, we will take the test together as a class and learn important test-taking strategies. These strategies will help the students throughout the year. Click on the links below to practice using context clues.
Find the Correct Meaning using Context Clues
Context is Key
Wordmaster
Writing - We spend the first few weeks of third grade launching the Writer's Workshop and reviewing basic writing skills. The students will set-up a writing notebook and explore topics to write about. The students start the year working on good sentence structure and different types of sentences. We will also discuss the steps of the writing process including prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.
Grammar - We start with the basics - common nouns, proper nouns, verbs and adjectives.
Nouns - name a person, place or thing (puppy)
Verbs - words that show action or movement (The puppy is wagging his tail)
Adjectives - describe nouns (The cute, little puppy is wagging his tail)
Check out the grammar games on the sidebar- fun, fun, fun!
Spelling - There is no spelling test the first week of school. There will be a pre-test Friday, Aug. 26th and the test for list #1 is Friday, September 2nd. You can find the spelling words at the top of the blog under spelling. Just click on the tab and the spelling words for each month will be listed with the test date.
Math - Unit 1 is a review of previously taught skills including time, money, numbers patterns, name collection boxes and counting by 5's and 10's. Students will learn about the "SRB' or Student Reference Book. Watch for the Family Letter to come home with your student. This letter comes home the beginning of each new unit to familiarize parents with the skills covered throughout the unit.
Accelerated Math-
Social Studies- We begin the school year with a short unit on Communities. What is a community? A Community is a place where people live, work and have fun together. We will discuss 3 types of communities; rural, suburban and urban. The students will also be making a brochure about the fabulous community of Naperville!
