Dear Amazing 3rd Grade Parents,
Thank you to our families for your patience as we settled in! We can honestly say that 2 full weeks in, our students are doing an amazing job at switching classes and developing great organizational skills! We are so pleased with their positive attitudes, kindness to each other, and willingness to learn every subject with enthusiasm. Thank you for sending such amazing kids to our classes-we are honored to teach them! Quick reminder: As students are getting used to routines and back in the swing of things with school, we expect to see some greens coming home. Please refer back to our parent packet from Open House. The consequence of a Green day is minor and meant to have students taking responsibility and ownership of their actions. It is an alert to correct behavior from that point, but we don’t feel those are “bad” days. We see them as a chance to improve! We never want anxiety from a Green day, so we have discussed this with our students as well and they know we see it as a day that can still be a good day! Fun Fridays started today! Teachers always volunteer to run the first one, but we hope to see *you* for the rest. We are trying to get parents to coordinate in pairs of two to run Fun Fridays for our classes. We know you love to be involved and we love to reward our students’ awesomeness! Any time spent preparing for a Fun Friday counts toward your volunteer hours. The dates we will have Fun Fridays are below. Please let us know via email if you’d like to sign up and a big THANK YOU to those who have already: Date: Parent Volunteer 1 Parent Volunteer 2 9/9 9/23 10/7 Mrs. Stegura 10/21 11/4 11/18 Mrs. Hernandez 12/2 Mrs. Stegura We have some upcoming events to take note of: Aug 29-Sep 2 Penny War by Student Council 8TH GRADE FUNDRAISING CHICK-FIL-A EVERY FRIDAY Sep 5 Labor Day-No school Sep 9 Mid-Term/Grandparents Day celebrations in class Sep 11 Back to School Picnic sponsored by PTO Sep 12 Patriots Day celebrations in class Sep 15 International Dot Day celebrations in class Sep 16 NJHS application deadline Sep 20 Dads Take your Child to School Sep 22 Chick-Fil-A PTO Spirit Night Sep 23 Kona Ice Sep 27 NJHS Induction Ceremony Sep 30 Movie Night for K-5 sponsored by Student Council Homework and class info for next week: This week in ELA: (English Language Arts/Reading & Writing) Spelling words and activities can be found here:http://sawyertracy.weebly.com/spelling.html This week the student's homework, which are both due on Friday, will consist of 3 spelling activities from their Spelling Menu Choices and 4 Reading Logs. There will be a spelling test on Friday. Students should read 20 minutes per night in independent reading. This should be reading from a book of choice on their level. It is recommended that they read aloud to parents/adult and may read 2 nights fiction and 2 nights non-fiction. In class we are continuing Unit 1 in Reading and digging deeper into our fiction stories to look closely the main characters, their character traits, and how their actions change the events in the story. (These are terrific things to converse with your child during nightly reading time to support their learning at home.) In writing, we will be learning to develop and write narrative stories. This week in Math: We will be reviewing old material and learning new items from Chapter 1 including Multiplication as repeated addition, multiplying on a number line, multiplying with arrays, the Commutative (order) Property, division: as sharing, division as repeated subtraction , using Appropriate Tools to Solve Multiplication and Division as well as Time and Elapsed Time. Our reviews will continue to include second grade material (telling time, elapsed time, addition, subtraction, measuring with a ruler, measuring with measuring cups. There will be a quiz next Thursday covering multiplication vocabulary, multiplication as repeated addition, multiplying with a number line, arrays representing the Commutative Property of Addition, and telling time to the hour, half hour, and quarter hour. A friendly reminder that Tenmarks lessons need to be completed by Thursday night as they are due on Friday morning. These generally will take about 15 minutes total once students get the hang of using the videos and hint features. They also can be saved over multiple sessions. The next one will be due Friday morning, September 2nd and is titled “Measuring Objects.” This week in Social Studies: Unit 1, Lesson 1 will take us through different types of maps and explain geography. We will have a test on this material in 1 week. This week in Science: We continue to study Living and Non-living things, specifically Plant Life Cycles. Students will have a science quiz next Friday. A friendly reminder that homework comes home once a week, so please watch for that to come home. Tests and quizzes are open book, which can be challenging. When science homework goes home, please encourage your child to show you where the glossary can be found to help them find definitions and to show you how they use their book to look up their answers for the homework. Thank YOU for all you do! The Third Grade Team
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Dearest 3rd Grade Parents, Thank you to our parents who came out last night to support the Plato PTO! We are off to a terrific start of our school year! Students are settling into new routines and are ready to learn. A big "Thank You" goes out to all of our parents and families- you have started your child off well prepared with classroom supplies for the year, and we are all so appreciative for your help in making this an effective year. We know that students are transitioning to this new routine, and transitions take time. This was our first full week and we all feel that each day they are becoming more and more comfortable with the class changes, and are making new life-long friends. We are SO proud of them and all their efforts to adjust & know they will benefit from the specialization in the subjects. Please know that any questions you have about the procedures in our day-to-day classes can always be brought to any of your child’s teachers and we will be happy to alleviate and address any concerns. We are here for you and your children to make them feel successful and reach their highest potential. We are also addressing the desire for classes to see each other and maintain old friendships, so students from each class will see each other some and there will be more opportunities for this as time moves forward and routines become more established. Please bear with us as our classes continue to normalize in these first few weeks. We are here for their education-but we are also looking out for their happiness! We have a terrific group of kids and are so excited to be on this year’s journey with them and to see them grow. As students are getting used to routines and back in the swing of things with school, we expect to see some greens coming home. Please refer back to our parent packet from Open House. The consequence of a Green day is minor and meant to have students taking responsibility and ownership of their actions. It is an alert to correct behavior from that point, but we don’t feel those are “bad” days. We see them as a chance to improve! We never want anxiety from a Green day, so we have discussed this with our students as well and they know we see it as a day that can still be a good day! Fun Fridays are coming up! We are trying to get parents to coordinate in pairs of two to run Fun Fridays for our classes. We know you love to be involved and we love to reward our students’ awesomeness! Any time spent preparing for a Fun Friday counts toward your volunteer hours. On August 26th, the teachers will run the first Fun Friday. The dates we will have Fun Fridays after that are below. Please let us know via email if you’d like to sign up: Date: 9/9 9/23 10/7 10/21 11/4 11/18 12/2 We have some upcoming events to take note of: Aug 18 PTO General Meeting Aug 26 Kona Ice Aug 29-Sep 2 Penny War by Student Council 8TH GRADE FUNDRAISING CHICK-FIL-A EVERY FRIDAY Sep 5 Labor Day-No school Sep 9 Mid-Term/Grandparents Day celebrations in class Sep 11 Back to School Picnic sponsored by PTO Sep 12 Patriots Day celebrations in class Sep 15 International Dot Day celebrations in class Sep 16 NJHS application deadline Sep 20 Dads Take your Child to School Sep 22 Chick-Fil-A PTO Spirit Night Sep 23 Kona Ice Sep 27 NJHS Induction Ceremony Sep 30 Movie Night for K-5 sponsored by Student Council Homework and class info for next week: This week in ELA: (English Language Arts/Reading & Writing) The students have done a great job at their first week of spelling homework and spelling test. This week the student's homework will consist of 3 more spelling activities from their Spelling Menu Choices, a Spelling Test on Friday, and 4 Reading Logs. Students should read 20 minutes per night in independent reading. This should be reading from a book of choice on their level. It is recommended that they read aloud to parents/adult and may read 2 nights fiction and 2 nights non-fiction. Reading Logs and Spelling Activities are due on Friday. In class we are beginning Unit 1 in Reading and digging deeper into our fiction stories to look closely the main characters, their character traits, and how their actions change the events in the story. In writing, we will be learning to develop and write narrative stories. Spelling words and activities can be found here:http://sawyertracy.weebly.com/spelling.html Reading logs are the most time consuming homework, but they also help in so many ways. They actually cover a variety of areas, including reading fluency (pronunciation and speed), vocabulary development, sentence and paragraph structure, summarizing, character analysis, critical thinking, writing development, handwriting/cursive, and the list goes on and on! They can even be used to study Science material by reviewing or previewing that week’s lessons. (In fact, we recommend 2 entries on fiction and 2 on nonfiction in order to keep a good balance.) These are all highly assessed third grade skills and every amount of practice that students receive is critical. For this reason, we do ask that the 15-20 minutes of reading be done out loud, with a parent next to them where they can see the words and assist with errors as needed. We also ask that parents actively guide students with their summarizing skills and help them create good entries. For example: Acceptable: In The Keeping Quilt, Patricia’s great-grandmother moved from Russia to the United States. She outgrew her clothes, so her family got together and added pieces of their own to make a beautiful quilt. The quilt was at many family gatherings for many years. It always reminded the next generations of their grandparents, where they came from, and made them feel connected to each other. (About 50-60 word count and every section completed properly.) Not Acceptable: The book was really good. It was sad when they moved. One day someone got married and a quilt was there. It was pretty. I liked it a lot. This week in Math: We will continue engaging our brains with a review of second grade material (telling time, elapsed time, addition, subtraction, measuring with a ruler, measuring with measuring cups) There will be a test next Thursday, August 25th, covering second grade material that homework has been coming home on: time, elapsed time, measuring to the nearest ½ inch, and subtraction and addition (fact families and using inverse operations.) You should have received the Tenmarks and Pearsonrealize.com passwords this week. Please hold onto them. We will have a Tenmarks assignment each week. These generally will take about 15 minutes total once students get the hang of using the videos and hint features. They also can be saved over multiple sessions. The first one will be due Friday morning, August 26th and is titled “Fact Families and Related Facts.” This week in Social Studies: Unit 1, Lesson 1 will take us through different types of maps and explain geography. We will have a test on this material in 2 weeks. This week in Science: This week in science we reviewed Living and Non-living things specifically what living things need to survive. Next week we will begin exploring plant structure by focusing on the vocabulary roots, stem, leaves, and pollination. We will be doing experiments to examine these features of a plant. Students will have a science quiz next Friday on plant structures. A friendly reminder that homework will begin next week as well so please watch for that to come home. Tests and quizzes are open book, which can be challenging. When science homework goes home, please encourage your child to show you where the glossary can be found to help them find definitions and to show you how they use their book to look up their answers for the homework. Thank YOU for all you do! The Third Grade Team |
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