Happy New Year!!! We hope you had a magical holiday season with family and friends. We were excited to see your children return to school and impressed with how eagerly they jumped right into their academics.
In reading, students have been exercising their compare and contrast skills, as well as analyzing a text in order to formulate an informed opinion. As we continue through the month we will discuss author’s purpose, summarize, analyze characters to better understand them and work on our inferring and predicting skills. We are also working on homophones and homographs, so when you come across any, have some fun and discuss them with your student. A very exciting third grade reading incentive, called the Newberry Club, begins in February. Students will have the opportunity to read award-winning books to become part of the club. The process involves independent reading of appropriate level books reaching different goals along the way. Be on the lookout for more information about this project to come home soon.
In writing, we are focusing on growing our independence and ability to self-assess while moving through the writing process. In addition to practicing this in school, students will take responsibility for completing the entire cycle once a month for homework as was outlined in the writing contract which was recently sent home. As we write, we continue to work on organization, sentence fluency and using sensory words in our descriptive details. This month we will also focus on making our stories come to life by showing, not telling, what is happening. This means instead of telling you “Janet was happy”, we will show you by writing “Janet’s eyes lit up and a huge grin broke out on her face”.
Our exciting journey through Colorado history continues. We culminated our study of Native Americans by completing a Venn diagram comparing Ute Indians to Plains Indians. Our interactive map, timeline, and e-book have all been updated, as we added many key events and people to them. We are now learning about the trappers and traders who came to Colorado to hunt for beaver, Rendezvous, and Bent’s Fort.
During our Math in Focus work this month we are expanding our multiplication skills by mentally solving problems involving ones, tens and hundreds. Ask your student how the problems 8 x 1, 8 x 10, and 8 x 100 are all related. We are also solving multiplication problems involving two and three digit numbers multiplied by a single digit multiplier. As you can tell by the increased complexity of our work, mastery of our multiplication facts is extremely important. Please take time to work on these with your student three or four times a week. Quizzing them on facts while driving, for a few minutes before or after dinner, or before bed is helpful and important. At this time in the year, we expect students to have mastery of addition and subtraction facts and to be working daily on multiplication.
Señora James has arranged an exciting experience for us. To complement our Spanish classes, representatives from the Denver Zoo will educate third graders with a bilingual presentation on Colorado animals. They will even bring live animals with them!
We continue to feel fortunate to be able to spend our days with your children and thank you for all the support you provide at home.
Wishing you a healthy, happy new year filled with heartwarming experiences,
The Third Grade Team
Upcoming Events:
January 18 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (no school)
January 29 – Spirit Day
February 12 –Third Grade Concerts, 8:20 – 9:00 and 2:20 – 3:00
February 17 – Field Trip, Naturalization Ceremony
February 24 – Third graders have a role in the Sixth Grade Play. More details to come.
