To help your student learn organizational skills, please check their
homework planner daily. Homework should be checked and placed in their
homework folder. Developing good organizational skills is a key to success
in school.
Please practice math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division with your child throughout the year. Fact triangles are a great
way to reinforce these operations. Creating some problems which involve
real life situations,such as "How much change do I have in my pocket?", is
another important way you can reinforce the skills we are working on in
class.
Also, please help your child become a life long reader and lover of
literature. Set aside at least 20 minutes of quiet reading time for your
child to explore the books he or she enjoys reading. Good readers become good
writers, spellers, and thinkers!
WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON IN CLASS?
MATH - We are working with many math skills. The children have been reviewing
and mastering their addition and subtraction facts. For the few facts that
still need to be mastered, fact triangles are the best skill builder. Each
fact triangle teaches the relationship between addition and subtraction fact
families. We have also practiced place value skills with whole numbers,
telling time, and working with money. Students have used number grids to
reinforce our facts. They are also looking at number patterns and reviewing
measurement skills. Daily homework in math reinforces the skills we have been
studying in class.
We have started working on our multiplication and division facts. Practice at
home with fact triangles. Story problems are an excellent way to apply the
skills we work on in class. We have also worked with measurement - perimeter,
area, and measuring with a ruler. The students are also studying place value
of larger numbers, as well as decimal amounts.
READING AND WRITING - Encourage your child to read a variety of books at
home to help strengthen their reading fluency, vocabulary and
comprehension. Have your child talk about some of the books that we share
in class. The children should try to make connections between the books
they are reading and experiences from their own lives.
In class we will read many different genres throughout the year. In READER'S
WORKSHOP the children are enjoying reading stories in the genre of realistic
fiction. We are currently reviewing and applying our reading strategies. The
students are making excellent connections between what they
read and their own experiences.
The children enjoy reading a variety of genres in class, including adventure
stories. We will begin reading biographies to expand our skills with
informational texts.
In WRITER'S WORKSHOP the students are working on "small moment" stories from
their own lives. These stories explore the writing style of the personal
narrative. Throughout the year the students will become excellent
storytellers. We are also working on factual writing,learning how to write
non-fiction pieces.
The third graders are switching classes for SCIENCE and SOCIAL
STUDIES. Check with your child for homework assignments and tests in these
subject areas. In SOCIAL STUDIES the students in third grade are learning
about communities and map skills. We are currently learning about Native
Americans, making the connection between natural resources and how these
groups lived in their environments. In SCIENCE the children are learning
about magnetism.
