Nightly Reading:
The children had a great first week with completing their nightly reading homework assignments. Thank you parents for continuing to sign your child’s reading log each evening and for the wonderful discussions you are having with your children about their books. This week the children will begin to check out books from our class library and our school’s Media Center. I would like to see the children to alternate their nightly reading between fiction and non-fiction books every other day. Reading a wide variety of books will help them to become better readers by allowing the children to stretch and grow as readers.
Recommended Book List:
If you are looking for book suggestions for your child, The Wake County Public Library has book lists on their website. If you go to this link, they have recommended picture books and chapter books by grade level.
Also, on this link you can get a custom book list created based on your child's interests.
http://www.wakegov.com/images/library/reading/readersinterestsurvey_kids.html
http://www.wakegov.com/images/library/reading/readersinterestsurvey_kids.html
Behavior Folders:
In today’s Monday Folder, you will find your child’s behavior folder. This folder will serve as a weekly progress report to relay to you your child’s work habits and conduct for the previous week. It also will list for you any learning objectives your child needs to continue to practice on at home. Please review the behavior folder with your child, sign it, and then return it the following day.
Morning Meeting Share Schedule:
To help build classroom community, we begin each day with a class family morning meeting. During this time, we do small activities and go over news and information. This is also a special time when the children can have a special sharing time with the class. During this sharing time, the students can tell a short personal story, share a special treasure from home, tell a joke, sing a song, etc. We are beginning this week with a rotational schedule of sharing days beginning with A Day on Wednesday.
A Days: Maliyah, Jackson, Alyssa, Leah
B Days:Emily, Loring, De’Andre. Owen
C Days:Simont, Kylie, Matthew, Aaron
D Days:Gabriel, Caya, Raven, Adrian
E Days:Juan, Jaiden, Zoe, Kennedy
F Days:Eric, Auden, Canell
Thank Yous:
Thank you to all of you for helping to donate classroom supplies such as tissue boxes, wipes and copy paper. These items really do add up fast, and with your donations, you have helped me a bunch! Thank you for your support!
Thank you to those of you who had signed up to volunteer on “Meet the Teacher Night” and help out in our classroom. If you have not yet registered to volunteer this year, please stop by The Media Center to sign up. I will get in touch with you within the next few weeks to get things set up. Thanks so much! We would love to have your help in the classroom. Your support is very much appreciated.
Curriculum Notes:
Last week we began switching classes for math. Our math program is off to a great start! The third grade has begun using binders for math. Binders will go home each evening. In the binder we have the agenda, homework folder and also class notes. Class notes can be utilized to help students with completing their homework and also to teach parents about the math we are currently doing. This week in math we will continue working with subtraction with and without regrouping. We will also be working on subtraction across zeros. Here is a helpful video I found that has a neat trick on how to subtract across zeros:
We will begin our first Science unit on plants and soil this week. We will be learning this week about parts of a flower and parts of a seed. We will look at wet and dry seeds.
In writing class we will continue to work on establishing our Writer’s Workshop Program. We will be focusing this week on generating story ideas for our writing. We will be learning how to focus our stories on small moments, on a seed story—rather than a big watermelon story!
In reading we will continue practicing with “IPICK” books. We will also learn comprehension strategies to help us with our reading. We will be using context clues to help us figure out unknown words. We will use other strategies, such as: reread, read ahead and check for understanding to help us to monitor our reading comprehension.
Important Class Reminders:
- Please send your child to school with a healthy snack each day. Please also send a water bottle that your child can keep on her desk.
- Students are requested to wear sneakers every day, due to recess and gym.
Upcoming September Dates to Remember:
- Tuesday, September 11: Open House 6-8pm
- Friday, September 21: Early Release at 1:15 p.m.
- Wednesday, September 26: School Closed for a vacation day