Moskauski Minutes

Progress Reports:

In this week’s Monday folder, you will be receiving your child’s progress report.  The report will serve as a brief update on how your child has been doing over the first few weeks of school.  Please understand that I am still getting to know your child and we have just begun to have assessments.  If your child has a 2 or 3 in any particular subject on their interim, it does not mean that this is what will be given on the report card.  We still have several weeks until the end of the quarter, and plenty of opportunities to improve or maintain grades.  Please review and discuss the progress report with your child and help your child to set goals for the rest of the quarter.  Please sign and return the report for tomorrow.

Parent-Teacher Conferences:

Parent-teacher conference time is here!   I am sending home a conference sign-up sheet that lists some available times for conferences.  Please fill out this form and return it to school as soon as possible.  I will send you a confirmation note back to let you know your conference date and time.  If the times listed are not convenient for you, please let me know by indicating an alternate date and time, and I will do my best to accommodate you.  If you would prefer a phone conference, please list the best time of day to reach you, some possible dates and the number to call.

            Conference times will be selected on a first come, first serve basis.  Please return this form in a timely manner.  I will confirm your scheduled time immediately.

            It has been a pleasure working with you and your child.  I look forward to talking with you soon!

New Reading Log: We are starting a new reading log today.  We reviewed this in class.  Please make sure that your child is practicing with a reading skill each evening.  If you have any questions about the new log, please let me know!

Cog-At Testing:

Next week, from October 7th through 9th, the children will be taking Cog-At Testing.  These are the first round of tests to determine eligibility for the Academically Gifted (AG) Program.  There is no way for the children to study or prepare for these tests.  Please make sure your child gets a good night's rest, eats a healthy breakfast and arrives to school on time each day.  These are timed tests.  All other tests we have taken so far this year have not been timed, so this will be the children's first exposure to a timed test.  The children are encouraged to pace themselves and to not get stuck on a problem that they do not know but to skip it and move on to the next problem.  If there is still time left, they can go back to the problems they skipped over.  

We Have a Second Room Parent: A big thank you goes out to Miller’s mom, Betsy Brown who volunteered to join Ms. Bennett in sharing the room parent responsibility.  Thank you Ms. Brown and Ms. Bennett!  Looking forward to working with you!

Picture Day: Picture Day is this Wednesday.   Payment must be turned in by the time pictures are taken.  Have your child dress their best.  This picture will be the one used in the school yearbook. 

Community Service Volunteer Opportunity: Are you looking for a fun and educational way for your child to fulfill this quarter’s community service requirement?  I wanted to pass along information about a really cool spot I visited this past weekend with my family.  We went to “Winterpast Farm”, a petting zoo located in Wake Forest.  They have a variety of animals there the children can pet, feed and learn about.  There is a variety of animals from llamas, peacocks, pigs, donkeys, roosters, chickens, sheep, goats and more!  My daughter Jordanna’s favorite part of the visit was petting the baby chicks and feeding and holding guinea pigs and bunnies.  The farm is family owned and Farmer Mary said she would love to have our students volunteer.  For more information, check out her website at: http://redtiedesigns.com/new/

Curriculum Notes: In reading, we will be focusing this week on fiction.  We will be learning how to recognize literary elements (plot, character, setting, problem/solution and theme).  Our focus this week will be analyzing character traits, motivation and feelings.  In Science we will be finishing our unit on soil this week.  We will begin Social Studies with Mr. Otto next week.  In writing we will be finishing drafting our personal narratives this week.  We will continue through the writing process and learn how to revise and edit our work.  In math, we our continuing our unit on geometry.    We will continue working this week on identifying and drawing different quadrilaterals.  Make sure your child is studying the notes and handouts provided by your child's math teacher.  

Have a wonderful week!  :)  :)  :)

Dance and Science Collaboration

Today the third grade worked with Ms. Ridings and Ms. Taylor to review the parts of a plant life cycle and pollination.  Below you will find pictures from the collaboration.  Can you identify the life cycle stages?

Moskauski Minutes

Notes about Curriculum: In Math this week we will spend Monday as a review day on rounding.  We will have a rounding assessment on Tuesday.  On Wednesday we will begin studying geometry.  This week we will learn about parallel and perpendicular lines and line segments and also be learning about parallelograms, squares, rectangles and rhombuses.  There are a lot of new vocabulary terms this week.  Please help your child to study and review the notes in his or her binder to help with learning the vocabulary. 

In Science we will learn about pollination this week.  In writing we will be continuing drafting our personal narratives this week.  The children will begin volunteering in the Pre-K class this week.

In reading we will be continuing to look at non-fiction text features, strategies to help us figure out difficult words we come across during our reading and begin doing some word work.  This week we will begin "Read to Someone" during Daily 5.   Ask your child to practice our "EEKK" strategy and "check for understanding" while you read a book together.

Interested in Being a Room Parent? Ms. Bennett, Abigail's mom, has generously offered to be our room parent this year.  Thank you Ms. Bennett!  We are so lucky to have her!  Ms. Bennett and I have begun planning some things for the children and she is excited to begin volunteering and working with the class.  Douglas typically has two room parents per classroom.  If you would like to share the responsibility with Ms. Bennett, please email me.  Any questions?  Let me know.

Wish List Items:  If you are interested in donating items to our classroom, please check out  the list below.  Thank you for your support!

• Our class store opened for business on Friday, and the children enjoyed cashing in their Dragon Dollars.  The treasure chest was a big hit and many children bought items from it.  We can always use donations for the treasure chest, as this is always a popular way of spending Dragon Dollars.  
• Books for the classroom library 
• Stickers 
• Sharpies markers 

Upcoming Dates:

• Scholastic Book orders are due by this Tuesday, September 24^th. 
• If you are interested in presenting at the “Third Grade Community Helpers” presentation, please notify me by Thursday, September 26^th 
• Field Trip money is due Friday, September 27th. 
• First Early Release is Friday, September 27^th at 1:15 p.m.

Open House

Hello third grade families!  Tomorrow night is Open House.  The schedule is as follows: Open House will begin at 5:30 with a general PTA meeting until 6:00 p.m. in the gym. Class information sessions will be from 6:00 to 7:45. I wanted to let you know that due to not having childcare tomorrow night, I will be unable to attend. The third grade team will be presenting together.  This will give you the opportunity to meet your child’s math teacher.  Subjects that will be discussed are our math program, Daily 5 literacy program, field trips, our PBIS school-wide behavior program, and more!  If you attend Open House, your child will be excused from homework for the night (except must complete the math homework).   If you would like to volunteer this year in our classroom or chaperone any field trips, please stop by The Media Center tomorrow night to register as a volunteer.

 

Thanks so much!

Melissa

Rounding Videos

Rounding to the nearest ten video: http://youtu.be/CMdck80SHnw

Rounding to the nearest hundred video: http://youtu.be/bx-XKcgKqzc

Rounding rap http://youtu.be/3afU6JQG15I

Moskauski Minutes

COMMUNITY SERVICE: In Social Studies we will be studying citizenship.  Since citizenship is such an important objective in the curriculum, as well as within our daily lives, I have my class participate in a yearlong community service project.  We will be learning about the different communities we belong to and ways we can help serve these communities.  

We will begin by helping within our school community.  We will start this week with volunteering in Ms. Levine's Special Education pre-kindergarten class.  These are students who need extra support to help them get ready for kindergarten.  We will be helping them by modeling social skills such as teaching them how to play correctly and how to build their communication skills.  The students will volunteer once per week in Ms. Levine's class.  We are going to meet with Ms. Levine on Friday to discuss the program. 

We are also paired up with Ms. Caldwell's first grade and will meet with them as book buddies.  As book buddies, we will help the first graders with their reading and writing. Each of the third graders will be paired up with a first grade buddy.  Ms. Caldwell and I hope to get the program up and running within the next week or two. 

We will also be learning about how to volunteer and help out within a local level.  We will be assigned at least thirty minutes of service to do within our neighborhood communities per quarter.  Some popular service projects my students have done in the past are: donating old toys or clothing to those in need, helping with our school Backpack Buddies program, doing a walkathon or fundraiser for a special organization that is dear to the student's heart, doing a park clean-up, making holiday cards for people in a nursing home or hospital, helping an elderly neighbor with things like raking leaves, pulling weeds, etc.  More information about this will be in this week’s Monday folder.  My hopes is that be making service to others a part of their regular routine, it will inspire a lifelong love for helping others!

NOTES ABOUT THE CURRICULUM: In reading we will continue to ask and answer questions on our reading.  We will also learn strategies such as using context clues to help us with our reading.  In writing we will be drafting our personal narratives this week.  We will be looking at the different parts of a story.  We will learn about how to write a stretched out middle to our stories.  Ask your child what he or she is writing about! In math we will be learning about rounding numbers and estimation.  In science we are continuing learning more about parts of a plant and seed and also the life cycle of a plant.

UPCOMING DATES:

Open House is this Thursday, September 19^th from 6:00 to 7:45 p.m.

If you are interested in being a chaperone for our High Touch High Tech field trip, please let me know by this Friday. September 20^th.

Scholastic Book orders are due by Tuesday, September 24^th.

If you are interested in presenting at the “Third Grade Community Helpers” presentation, please notify me by Thursday, September 26^th

Field Trip money is due Friday, September 27th.

First Early Release is Friday, September 27^th at 1:15 p.m.

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK!  :-)

Community Helpers Needed!

Community Helpers Presentation

Dear Families and Students,

We will be studying citizenship and learning about community helpers in Social Studies this quarter.  The third grade team is excited to announce that we will be hosting a “Community Helpers” presentation on October 24^th from 2:15 to 3:45.  We are looking for members of our third grade Douglas families that have Community Helpers jobs to come in and talk with the third grade.  We would like the children to get to experience hearing from members in our community about what their job entails and also the contributions they make to our community.  

Some examples of community helpers we would love to have come in are:

Teachers, Custodians, Bus Drivers, Medical Field, Law Enforcement, Government, Librarians, Public Waste Workers, Firefighters, Veterinary Medicine

If you are interested and available during this time, please email me at mmoskauski@wcpss.net by Thursday, September 26^th.  Please email a brief excerpt of your job description and if you are available for all or part of the time slot.   Please do not write this into your schedule until we confirm your participation.  I will get back in touch with you by Friday, October 4^th

Thank you,

            The Third Grade Team

Classroom Pictures...

Our Class Rules!  Written and Created by Us!

This is our class Dragon Dollar chart for the children to place their individual Dragon Dollars.  The children have been doing a wonderful job earning Dragon Dollars!

This is our class CAFE board.   These are the CAFE strategies we have learned so far.  Ask your child to explain to you what each one means.

This is our Daily 5 Rotational Chart.  A big part of Daily 5 is the children having a say in what they are learning.  We will soon be doing two rounds of Daily 5 and the children will get to choose what they would like to do for each round.

This is our "Read to Self" chart. 

It explains what the children and teacher are doing during this time of "Daily 5".

This week we began "Work on Writing".  The children were so excited!  They especially like the part that they get free choice of what to write about.

This is our class job chart.  To build classroom community we will take turns sharing in the classroom responsibilities. 

Our "Big Banana" Star Student will begin next week with Caroline being our first Big Banana.  We will have a different member of our class family being the Big Banana each week.  The Big Banana will get to decorate this board and also be celebrated in a special way each day of his or her assigned week.

This board is used for the children to write compliments to their classmates for a job well done.  We are a family and always will support, encourage, and inspire one another!  :)    More pictures to come!!  :)  :)  :)