Friday, November 15, 2013

Moskauski Minutes

Nightly Homework: Each quarter the nightly reading time is increased.  The children are now required to read for at least twenty-five minutes.  Please be sure to have your child alternate fiction and non-fiction every other night.  In addition to the nightly reading, your child will continue to receive weekly comprehension homework.  Please remind your child to write detailed, well-written, third grade sentences.We will continue to have a nightly math assignment.
We will continue to have community service for each quarter.  The children did a fabulous job on their first quarter projects.  I am so proud of their big hearts!

Curriculum Notes: In writing this quarter we have been learning about opinion writing.  Next week we will learn about how to write a book review.  Please help your child to choose a good book that he or she recently completed and enjoyed to write a book review in class next week on it.  We will be writing reviews to persuade our classmates to check out their book recommendation.  Please check out this fun website to see great examples of book reviews written by kids for kids: http://www.spaghettibookclub.org/title.php

In reading we will be beginning book clubs.  The children will be working in small groups to discuss and share their thoughts on their book.  The children will be reading a chapter on their own, and then getting together with their book club once a week to talk about the book.  They will be using post-it notes to write on to mark pages in their books of parts that they want to discuss about the book.  They can write down predictions; connections; questions; a part in the book they thought was funny, sad, interesting, significant, etc.  If you are able to donate post-it notes to the class, we would be so grateful!

In math class we will be writing word problems and equations, and also looking at patterns.  In science we are studying the properties of matter.  We will be doing many fun experiments next week!

question stems: Here is a link to third grade common core question stems for literacy.  You can use these with your child for your book discussions as part of the nightly reading. 

https://domino2.wcpss.net/mail/8/86800461.nsf/0/0EDFB412F8A22F6985257C0E004D26DB/$File/Grade3Questions.pdf?OpenElement&FileName=Grade3Questions.pdf

Classroom Wish List: electric hole puncher, small items for the treasure chest, post-it notes, stickers

Scholastic Book Orders: Our next round of book orders are due Tuesday, November 26th. 

Have a wonderful weekend!  :)