January 5, 2010
Dear Third Grade Families,
Happy New Year to all of you! I hope everyone had a fantastic and restful Christmas break! January
will be another busy month.
You will notice some changes in the workload and changes in the classroom. These changes are
only to help better prepare your child for the 4th grade. The students are now required to read 25
minutes instead of 20 minutes. Also, students who do not finish their work in class will need to do it
for homework. If this work is not completed on top of their regular homework, there will be a
consequence. All the work we do is very important for your child to complete.
In Math, we have moved on from division to learning our multiplication facts 6-10. It is very
important for your child to memorize these facts. Our class will be learning how to do more complex
multiplication problems later in the year and they will struggle if they do not have these memorized.
Also, if your child is still working on passing multiplication and division facts 0-5, it is very important
they master these immediately. I know each and every child is capable of doing this.
Third grade has moved to the second reader in the reading series and will continue to read short
stories out of the reader and complete different projects that go along with each story. This week we
are reading a story about a piano recital so in partners, the students are designing their own piano and
writing a paragraph describing their unique piano.
In Religion, the students are continuing to further develop their understanding of the Sacrament of
Reconciliation and are going to start learning about the Holy Trinity.
Our class has started a Science unit on energy. We will also be learning about light and sound
during this unit.
The third graders have started studying about Martin Luther King Jr. in Social Studies. We are
reading a book titled, If you Lived During the Time of Martin Luther King Jr. The students seem to find
this book very interesting. We will be doing many different activities to go along with this book.
Thanks,
Lindsey Hahn
lhahn@csdo.org
925-685-8700 ext 3203