Third Grade Newsletter
Good day, Families!
In week three, we are starting to use our anthologies to read adventure stories. In third grade, students should make the transition between learning to read and reading to learn. To begin this transition, the students will be discerning between fantasy and realism, sequencing plot events, predicting outcomes, summarizing, and noting character development. In summarizing, students should be able to state the key characters, setting, and conflict/problem from the beginning of the story, how the plot gets more exciting in the middle of the story, and how the conflict is resolved at the end of the story…all in four or fewer sentences. The students need practice doing summaries that include the key points and are short!
All third graders will review the spelling patterns for the short vowel sounds for a, e, and i. Students will add a word or words from their writing that are appropriate for their current spelling development level. Watch for spelling lists to come home on Tuesday.
For writing, the students will continue their journaling. Additionally, they will be identifying sentence fragments and creating sentences from fragments.
We continue our study of numeration in math this week, reviewing the use of >, greater than, and <, less than. Also, we will be learning how to round numbers and key vocabulary for identifying when estimation/rounding is appropriate or when exact numbers are necessary.
Having completed a step-by-step use of the scientific method this past week with a great set of lessons involving bubbles, we move into looking at how living things change in science. Thank you for sending in baby pictures. If you haven’t yet sent your child’s baby picture or aren’t sure why we need one, we are comparing how we looked as babies to how we look now. If a baby picture isn’t available, a picture from last year is fine too. We are learning that all living things change.
For social studies, we continue to add to school
routines and practice our classroom and school rules. We are learning to
express our needs and thoughts in kindly honest ways. If you haven’t seen the
handprint wreath that the
Oh, Dr. Kimble’s library day was changed this week. From now on, we will go to LIBRARY on TUESDAY, so please try to remember to send books back on Tuesday.
Also, Ms. Phillips is requesting that a parent volunteer from each class help with physical education’s swimming two days per week for the next five weeks. It would assist Ms. Phillips so much to be able to challenge and support each of the third graders regardless of their skill level in the pool. If you can help, please be in touch with Ms. Phillips at dphillips.ghs@gmail.com
Pam Kimble and Ditty