Sorry for the delay in communication this week! After school meetings are very important, but do take up some of my writing time. And just when you thought I had nothing more to say! HA!!!
One special event that I would like to share with you is that your child is helping to make someone's day very special. The third grade students are participating in a place mat designing project for the Meals On Wheels program in our area. Each child was asked to create a winter scene on a white place mat. Each place mat will be laminated and will delivered with the food as needed. Our contact person for this project was overjoyed and thrilled that we wanted to do something special to help make a difference. The children have been working on this project in their free time and are excited that they get to do this one more time in the spring. Also, please make sure that your child is taking the Do You Care? game board sheet seriously. They can turn this in anytime during the month of January and into February since I know it will take some time for them to figure out how to accomplish some of the tasks. I did share with the children that if along the way they come up with an idea of another service learning type event, then I would be all ears!
On Friday, January 20, the third grade will take a journey to the Tampa Bay History Center. This history center has done an outstanding job of sharing the history of the Tampa Bay Area. It correlates nicely with what we studied the first part of the year with Native Americans of Florida and the explorers. We will leave school that morning around 9:15 so that we can arrive by 10 to begin our tour. The children will be engaged in the tour for 2 hours. We will have lunch on the grounds there at the History Center and then return to school around 1:30. The children and I will travel on a bus. If you would like to attend as well, you can either meet us at the museum or follow us from school. However, you will have to pay for yourself upon your arrival. Also, it will be the expectation that you would travel with your child and the class in the museum and help with the attention and supervision of the group. Please let me know by the end of this week if you think this is something you would like to do. There is a limit of extra adults that we can take.
We are beginning Lesson 7 in Wordly Wise this week. The words are as follows: act, additional, advice, crumple, fan, memorize, mystify, pause, transparent, and vanish. The story this week that will spotlight these words is entitled, Abracadabra! This story will share some advice on how to perform magic and some ideas that may actually make things disappear. Watch out!
Spelling words this week are as follows: badge, cardinal, cracker, hinge, century, peace, goose, curtain, rage, gravity, certain, glad, great, cotton, large, bragging, cord, giraffe, sincere, and decide. We are working with words that have a hard and soft sounding c and g.
This week in math we are diving into decimals. This traditionally is a harder concept for the children to grasp. We will work on this concept for several days while we are trudging along with out multiplication tables. The multiplication chefs are ready for stickers to be earned. Tomorrow the children will have a practice 8's quiz.
We are beginning our Realistic Fiction unit in Writer's workshop. We are also going to begin our Realistic unit in Reading workshop as well. I will share more about this approach as I see if unfold. But basically the children will have a little more control over what they are reading and how they will explore the reading with a reading buddy. We will have a great deal of conversations about what makes a good reading buddy and how to plan while reading. Each child will receive a Reading binder much like the one they have in writing. Each child will be more responsible and more accountable for their own reading.We have had a couple of mini lessons on recognizing the genre of a book or story and realizing that sometimes we have to branch out and explore other genres for various reasons. Today they went to the library and began the process of checking out a biography. I asked the children to at least read the first chapter of the first 10 pages of find out if the book they chose was really a person of interest. We will begin to chat in class about the writing part of this project, but for now, I just want the children to read and enjoy the book.
I will be discussing and sending home an essay contest idea. We have been and continue to be concerned about sun safety when the children are outside, not just at school but any time they go outside. I am going to review the main idea and explain the contest to them. I will them send home the contest essay form. I would encourage any child to participate. If your child shows a desire to do this, I will help them in class during a writing conference time. However, it may take some work at home too and then we can make the finishing touches here at school. So be on the lookout for the Writing Essay Contest, What do you Know About Sun Safety?
The reading comprehension work, Arctic Disaster, is due on Friday. Please make sure that you and your child signs the paper
The children have a science experiment activity in their homework folder on how to make a whirlwind. They have until next Monday to complete and turn in their observations.
The children are working on a great project in computer lab. Please make sure you ask them to explain about Scratch.. and no it's not an itch.
Thank you again for your continued support and help at home. Please make sure your child is reading at least 15 to 20 minutes every night and practicing multiplication tables at least 15 minutes every night as well. I am backing off of the writing homework this week to give them more time to do the drill that they need to be successful.
Also, in thinking ahead, January 27 is Grandparent's and Special Friend's Day. Please make sure that all the proper forms have been filled out and sent to the office letting them know if your child will have a special visitor. No worried is they don't as I will pair them up with another classmate to help with the tour at school and sharing work. Please make sure that your child has a plan for that day and please let the visitor know that they will be responsible for signing your child out in the classroom with me that day before they can leave at noon.
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