October Newsletter

October has been a busy month for third graders.  Learning about bridge building, old time schools, and jury trials figured into our Literature study.  Ask your kids about mentor sentences and how we’re learning to mirror the sentence structures of wonderful authors.

When you head to the store, check out third graders’ estimating skills.  Have them try mental math addition and subtraction problems and ask them to explain the front-end estimation process they’ve been working on.  When they do math assignments check-in with them to discuss “reasonableness”. Does their answer make sense based on the numbers involved? Help your students manage their MobyMax time.  They should have almost completed the subtraction fact section. Our next math chapters will deal with addition of larger numbers and solving problems involving money. 

Technology and the Colorado Life Zone Project have been well integrated with the writing process these past few weeks.  Taking dash notes from on-line and book sources, and then turning these notes into well-developed paragraphs about life zones and animals, were classroom activities for all third graders.  Creating a bibliography, working with a life zone team to design a Google presentation, and creating a QR code to bring them directly to their blogs from their dioramas, have been creative learning experiences. In addition to all that, we’re learning how to use blogs to comment appropriately on the work of others.  Special thanks to Bryann Nourse, our Technology Specialist, for supporting all of these efforts.  The end of this month we will begin a foray into Colorado geography and topography.

Weekly spelling assessments have begun and homework is growing.  Please remember that third grade homework is designed to be completed over the course of the week and not in one night. If you have concerns about this aspect of homework, please share them with your child’s teacher.  Your child’s conference would be a good place to have a homework discussion.  Be thinking about what other questions you might have for your conferences on Oct. 16^th and 17^th.

Third graders will have met their buddies for the second time and participated as partners in Field Day.  The next Buddy Activity will take place during the Halloween Parade, scheduled for 8:30 on October 31^st.

Third Graders will have a special treat this month when they visit the American Museum of Western Art. This premier collection, located at the Navarre, provides an opportunity for students to view Colorado history through a different lens. Mrs. Crane, one of our Graland art teachers, is coordinating this trip.

Thanks to the teamwork between home and school, our year of learning is right on track.