Dear
Families,
We’ve had
an exciting start to a new year in third grade! In every aspect of the
curriculum, learning is happening. From getting to know each other and our
classrooms, to researching Colorado life zones, we are hard at work.
The
Responsive Classroom approach provides the foundation for our social
curriculum. We begin each day in morning meeting and strengthen our community
with greetings, sharing, activities, and messages. Arriving to school on time
is especially important as we begin our morning meetings promptly.
Just as
we are building our communities in the classroom, we are watching the building
around campus. We are looking out now at a flat, dirt area. Soon it will hold a
beautiful, new building for us all to use. This is like our classrooms. We
start out with many unknowns and begin to construct our classroom family with
safety, respect, responsibility, and honesty. Ask your child about some of the
routines we employ each day, and ways we have shared our personal experiences
and passions with each other.
In math,
we are reviewing place value and extending our understanding of our number
system with numbers up to 10,000. Daily math fact practice at home will
reinforce automaticity with the basic facts, and allow your child to meet more
challenging math concepts.
In the
coming weeks, we will be conducting Fountas and Pinnell reading assessments to
identify your child’s instructional and independent reading levels. The
students already know “The Rule of Thumb” for figuring out whether a book is
just right for them, but knowing the F&P reading level will help your child
find a book that meets his/her fluency and comprehension. “Just Right” books
should be used for the daily 15/5 assignments as well as for Repeated Oral
Reading.
Our
Writing Workshop during this unit focuses on writing personal narratives. We
are learning how to use details to enhance stories. One game you might play to
help this skill is to say a noun and see how many descriptive adjectives your
student can attach to that noun. We are also exploring kinds of sentences,
compound words, subjects and predicates, and more.
During
social studies, students will be researching Colorado life zones in small
groups. They will then select a specific life zone and an animal for their Life
Zone Project. More information about this project will come home soon.
Third
grade is looking forward to climbing Chief Mountain! In fact, students are
climbing a mountain of independence and responsibility throughout third grade.
Working together, parents and teachers are essential in supporting this journey
for the children. We foster positive attitudes, and perseverance as the
students’ sense of independence grows.
We are
looking forward to a great third grade year!
Warmly,
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