Looking Ahead to Oct. 31 - Nov. 11
Happy Halloween!
I hope everyone has a safe night trick-or-treating. Students earned a Pajama Day for one of their Apex daily challenges. Lucky us - students can roll out of bed, and roll into school, the day after!
Enjoy,
C. Simón
Looking Ahead we have...
Language Arts:
- students continue to work on character traits and inference through the use of various mentor texts
- we continue to spiral review our basic parts of speech, and students will be introduced to abstract nouns, as well
Coming up:
- we will begin an author study on Patricia Polacco: looking at themes, multiple perspectives, and literary devices
Writing
- students continue to work on their Personal Narratives. This week they finish rough drafts about time spent with family.
- students recently completed their Autumn Poems and have been learning to type in a Google Document and adding pictures
Math
- Chapter 5, multiplying by multiples of 10, is a wrap! It's wonderful to see the light in the students' eyes when things 'click' and the math vocabulary that we've been using (some of it since August) becomes part of their explanations without a second thought. Keep practicing those facts! Knowing a variety of strategies is great, but committing those basic multiplication/division facts to memory will make everything else going forward seem a whole lot easier. Students need to know those facts when we study fractions (Chapters 8 and 9) in order to be able to reduce/simplify them and when we do graphing (Chapter 2 and in science) in order to make the scales for their graphs. When we get to Chapter 11, they'll still be using them for area/perimeter.
Chapter 5 will be the last chapter included on the first trimester report card.
- Chapter 6: Division
We begin to dive deeper into division. Students have been exposed already. Whenever we've written our fact families down, students have been able to see how division goes with multiplication - if you know that 3 x 6 = 18, then you know that 18 ÷ 6 = 3. They will be shown 'division in the house' with easier math problems so the basic pattern - Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down - becomes routine. Their math book has some examples, but not enough, considering they are expected to know how to do it on RenStar and for state testing. The 3rd grade math standard is to fluently multiply and divide within 100. Their math homework will have practice in this often.
Social Studies
- students will be learning more about Dia de Los Muertos this week
- we will begin learning map skills and about the geography of California
Science
- Students begin a unit on hurricanes. We will be taking a look at weather and climate around the world as well as right here in California. We've had some interesting weather events happening in the United States, too! Talk about these with your children. I've encourages the students to bring in any articles you may have read together about weather/climate so they can share in the classroom and add to our science board. They'll be keeping a science journal, making some weather tools, and solving a weather problem based on what they've learned.
I hope everyone has a safe night trick-or-treating. Students earned a Pajama Day for one of their Apex daily challenges. Lucky us - students can roll out of bed, and roll into school, the day after!
Enjoy,
C. Simón
Looking Ahead we have...
Language Arts:
- students continue to work on character traits and inference through the use of various mentor texts
- we continue to spiral review our basic parts of speech, and students will be introduced to abstract nouns, as well
Coming up:
- we will begin an author study on Patricia Polacco: looking at themes, multiple perspectives, and literary devices
Writing
- students continue to work on their Personal Narratives. This week they finish rough drafts about time spent with family.
- students recently completed their Autumn Poems and have been learning to type in a Google Document and adding pictures
Math
- Chapter 5, multiplying by multiples of 10, is a wrap! It's wonderful to see the light in the students' eyes when things 'click' and the math vocabulary that we've been using (some of it since August) becomes part of their explanations without a second thought. Keep practicing those facts! Knowing a variety of strategies is great, but committing those basic multiplication/division facts to memory will make everything else going forward seem a whole lot easier. Students need to know those facts when we study fractions (Chapters 8 and 9) in order to be able to reduce/simplify them and when we do graphing (Chapter 2 and in science) in order to make the scales for their graphs. When we get to Chapter 11, they'll still be using them for area/perimeter.
Chapter 5 will be the last chapter included on the first trimester report card.
- Chapter 6: Division
We begin to dive deeper into division. Students have been exposed already. Whenever we've written our fact families down, students have been able to see how division goes with multiplication - if you know that 3 x 6 = 18, then you know that 18 ÷ 6 = 3. They will be shown 'division in the house' with easier math problems so the basic pattern - Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down - becomes routine. Their math book has some examples, but not enough, considering they are expected to know how to do it on RenStar and for state testing. The 3rd grade math standard is to fluently multiply and divide within 100. Their math homework will have practice in this often.
Social Studies
- students will be learning more about Dia de Los Muertos this week
- we will begin learning map skills and about the geography of California
Science
- Students begin a unit on hurricanes. We will be taking a look at weather and climate around the world as well as right here in California. We've had some interesting weather events happening in the United States, too! Talk about these with your children. I've encourages the students to bring in any articles you may have read together about weather/climate so they can share in the classroom and add to our science board. They'll be keeping a science journal, making some weather tools, and solving a weather problem based on what they've learned.
Starry Starry Night
Students have been working on these beautiful pieces for a while. Our Starry Night Pumpkins were inspired by Vincent van Gogh's original Starry Night. We just added some pumpkins in the spirit of autumn. Students began with a direct draw using rulers (2nd grade math standard) and fingers to measure then used oil pastels and watercolors to finish their pieces.
Please click here to see the process.
Please click here to see the final works of art. A few students were absent when we painted. Their work will be added as soon as it's ready!
Please click here to see the process.
Please click here to see the final works of art. A few students were absent when we painted. Their work will be added as soon as it's ready!
Tests and Other Stuff...
October 31 - Halloween (no homework)
November 1 - Pajama Day!
November 2 - Dia de Los Muertos
November 3 - Chapter 5 math test
November 4 - LAST DAY FOR READING COUNTS (trimester 1)
First Spirit Day: Color Day Third Graders should wear green if possible!
November 11 - NO SCHOOL Veterans Day
November 14 - 18 Parent Conferences
November 1 - Pajama Day!
November 2 - Dia de Los Muertos
November 3 - Chapter 5 math test
November 4 - LAST DAY FOR READING COUNTS (trimester 1)
First Spirit Day: Color Day Third Graders should wear green if possible!
November 11 - NO SCHOOL Veterans Day
November 14 - 18 Parent Conferences