Just when we thought we were getting ready to dive into a New Year, BOOM, “Snow-me-let-down of 2017” hit! ( I really wish I could take credit for that name, but I cannot...)
I hope you all noticed that your child’s report card came home on Friday. If you haven’t touched their backpacks since they came into the house on Friday, please do so! Praise them for their hard work and make goals together as we head into the 2nd half of 3rd grade. Sign the envelope and send it back tomorrow.
Before all of the craziness we did talk to the kids about what the rest of year was going to look like. They each made individual goals and we have enjoyed reading them. They know they will be working hard towards becoming more independent learners and writers. We will be talking a lot about what we must do to be prepared for 4th grade.
Here is a sneak peek into what we will be doing this coming nine weeks. There is a lot to cover so stick through until the end!
Reading:
We will continue to work on individual reading skills through our Daily 5 reading. Last nine weeks the students worked in Book Clubs and read a novel as a small group. This 9 weeks we will be reading a novel as a class. Our novel will be The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks. We will be focusing in on character traits, motivations, feelings and work on explaining how the characters actions contribute to sequencing in a story. We will also continue to work on comparing/contrasting different reading passages throughout the semester.
Writing:
This 9 weeks we will continue to work on informative and narrative writing. In our narrative writing we will begin to introduce the use of dialogue and how to properly close a writing piece, rather than just with a “The End” ;)
Grammar:
We are going to dig a little deeper with adjectives and adverbs, conjunctions, using commas in addresses and speaking as well using quotation marks correctly in dialogue.
Social Studies:
We will be also be digging deeper with the three branches of government and their responsibilities. We will also learn about the lives and obstacles of Mary McCleod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Science:
This 9 weeks in science will be begin to explore some life science. To include the five habitats in the regions of Georgia, the plants and animals that live there and what they need in order to survive as well as the effects of pollution on plants and animals in their habitats.
Math:
We will be working on our problem solving skills in multiplication and division as we learn to solve for the unknown. They love when we tell them this is high school math because it is ALGEBRA! They are such smarty pants! We will be using line plots to introduce fractions and understanding what a fraction is and the quantity it represents. We will also take our new knowledge of fractions and transfer into geometry and begin introducing the idea of equivalency in fractions.
We will also be introducing a new online math tool to them this coming week. It is called Conceptua. Ford was fortunate to be picked as part of the beginning stages of a roll out for the county. We went to a training last week and we are so excited to use it in the classroom and utilize it as another resource. We might start pulling away from “Multiplication Station” within the classroom and allow the kids to use this program. They will be allowed to use it at home and will help them increase their math fluency.
WOW! We have a lot to do in a short amount of time. Please expect some homework to come home this 9 weeks. If we feel there is a skill we need them to practice we will ask them to do it at home.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns about your kiddo, what’s going on in the classroom or assignments, please do not hesitate to contact us!
We are happy that we all have had this time to rest up as we have lots of work ahead of us!!!