February 9, 2018

Adventures in Third Grade

February 9 , 2018

News for the Week… . February 14-Valentine’s Day Party. If your child is bringing Valentine’s Day cards to pass out please make sure they have one for every student in the class. A list of the students in the class went home last week in Friday folders, if you need a new copy please let me know and I will provide your student with one. No School-February 19-President’s Day Please save a cereal size box at home for your child to use for their Wax Museum display at our Wax Museum. Cereal boxes should be brought to school on February 16. Please check with your child to see if they need any of their school supplies replenished at school such as pencils or crayons. Just as a reminder please make sure that students come to school with hat, gloves, boots and warm coats due to the cold temperatures this winter. When the temperature permits students will be going outside for recess. Current Events for this quarter are due on March 15, 2018.

ELA We have been exploring expository texts. We have identified text features within expository text and compared and contrasted two texts. We are currently working on finding cause/effect relationships within an expository text selection. We have begun our study of biographies. In class students have been working on writing 3 paragraphs about their chosen person which include a paragraph about their childhood, one about their adult life and one that highlights their achievements and accomplishments. The students will use their notes and paragraphs to write a speech for the Wax Museum. Information regarding the time for the Wax Museum will be coming home next week.

Math We finished the chapter which focused on Properties and Equations. We are now moving on to Area and Perimeter. Students should continue practicing their multiplication facts at home in order to increase their math fact fluency. We are using the computer program XTra math for practice at school. During our Math time students participate in daily lessons and then work in centers to reinforce new skills, practice previously introduced skills, and practice fact fluency. We have begun our multiplication timed tests at school and a letter was sent home about our Ice Cream Sundae incentive.

Science We have been doing more investigations about the states of matter and the characteristics of each state. We did a cracker activity in which we had a variety of different crackers and we used them to describe the different properties of matter. We did a balloon pop activity that demonstrated the states of matter. Students were scientists and filled out a lab report to record their findings and observations. On Friday we are planning to do two investigations about changing states of matter.