Week of January 9th -13th, 2012

Welcome back and Happy 2012!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful, relaxing break.  It was nice to be home and spend time with family and friends.  It is a chance to rest and re-energize for the new year.    Hopefully you also had a chance to reflect on the year and set some new goals for this year.

We are going to jump right back into the swing of things because we have a lot to do.  Please read on to see what exciting things are happening in third grade!

Remember to wear a warm coat and bring gloves and a hat.  We will continue to go outside for recess and the weather has been very sporacdic lately.  Isn't this crazy weather for January?

Also, prior to break we asked you for your help.  The third graders will be turning our hallway into an amazing animal habitat.  Did you save your empty wrapping paper rolls?  If so, great!  Please send in any rolls that you had collected to school.  You will still have to wait and see what they will become! : )

Citizenship – For the next 5 weeks we will be working on a program that will help the students solve problems and deal with different situations.  This week we will be focusing on Empathy.  The students will understand that all actions affect those around us.

Spelling -  There is no spelling this week, but there will be a pretest towards the end of the week.  It would be great week to review some of the past lists.  Check the spelling list tab for a review of the words from earlier in the year.

Reading-  Our next story is Balto, The Dog Who Saved Nome by Margaret Davidson.  It is a wonderful story about a heroic dog sled team that went through tremendous circumstances to help a town get medicine.  We will be discussing nonfiction text features and the skill of sequencing.  The students should be able to identify important events in the story and the order in which they occur.  Next week, we will have an open book quiz and watch the movie!

Writing -  Third Grade gathered information on ocean animals for their first research writing unit before break.  The students have worked on organizing their information and now we will put it all together.  Our end product will be a paper that summarizes what they learned in an efficient way.

Grammar -  Figurative language has been a great topic of discussion the last few weeks before break.  Alliteration is the repetition of an initial consonant sound. Larry's lizard likes leaping leopards is an example of alliteration.  We will have fun making our own sentences this week!

 Science -  We are going to review the habitats that we have already discussed so far.  There are a few more that we will learn about.  The students have been working on a packet throughout the unit to help them learn the essential items in this unit.  At the end of the week, we will be quizzing them on what they have learned.  They will be allowed to use their packets during the quiz.  Next stop, the rainforest!

3rd Grade Math-   The students will do a review of what we learned prior to the break.  We will be going over place value with decimals, focusing on tenths and hundredths.  The unit will be ending shortly.  A study guide will be given soon and the test will be next week.

The secure (mastered) skills for this unit are..

- Students will read, write and compare whole numbers up to 5 digits
- Students will identify place value in whole numbers up to 5 digits.

Remember that under "Math Games" on the right sidebar of the blog there are many place value games for students to practice their skills.  What a great way to get back into the swing of things!

Accelerated Math -  Students have been working really hard in Unit 5.  We only have one more concept to review and that is multi-digit multiplication.  The students will learn several different strategies for solving a multi-digit multiplication problem, but will only be tested on one... the traditional method.  A study guide will be going home on Monday and will be due on Wednesday, 1/11 in hopes that the Unit 5 test will be this Thursday, 1/12.  If I feel the students are not ready for the test, I will change the date and let you know.  Thanks for your support.