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!  :-)