We are welcoming the cool down (week 4)

Please make sure your child is always dressed for the weather. As a parent myself, I know it is hard to always have a chance to catch the weather report, but with the feeling of fall in the air, it is important your child brings a jacket or coat to school everyday. We will let them know if they don't need them in the afternoon, but morning recesses are a bit chilly. Plus, I think it is a good way for the children to dress in layers. I have a feeling that is going to be a MUST for our new room, no matter the season. :)

Happy September birthdays to Colin, Keenan, and Alyssa!

Here is a description of our week: 

Math- We took a step back and continued talking about single digit addition and subtraction facts, as well as strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems, and how to solve story problems. We will continue working through these skills in our McGraw-Hill and Investigations books. Next week we are going to work in the Investigations book and discuss place value and ways to make a 100. This will even include a few new games! :) Hopefully, these lessons will lend themselves nicely to 2-digit, then 3-digit addition and subtraction. A big concept is regrouping. I know this will need a lot of practice for some students, but it will come in time. These are skill we will work on all year.

Reading- Our story this week was Animal Fact/ Animal Fable Seymour Simon. This story invites the reader to guess whether common notions, such as “ crickets can tell the temperature with their chirps” are true or false. The author goes on to discuss the fact or fable behind these beliefs. This week we explored the differences between fact and opinion. 

 

Text Talk- This week we read The 3 Questions (Based on a story by Leo Tolstoy) by Jon J. Muth. In the book, Nikolai asks his friends; What is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do? Nikolai knows that he wants to be the best person he can be, but often he is unsure if he is doing the right thing. After not receiving a decent answer from his friends he goes to ask Leo, the wise turtle. When he arrives, the turtle is struggling to dig in his garden, and Nikolai rushes to help him. As he finishes work, a violent storm rolls in. Nikolai runs for Leo's cottage, but on his way, he hears cries for help from an injured panda. Nikolai brings her in from the cold, and then rushes back outside to rescue her baby too.  Vocabulary words we discussed this week are advance, priority, drenched, uncertain, insecure, and injure. 

Writing- (these lessons will be different if your child goes to Mrs. Gatrost at this time) 

This week we discussed writing complete sentences using, who (noun), description (adjective) what (action-verb), when, and where. For example, Mrs. Yuska danced on Saturday in her living room. :)We worked on looking at pictures then simply trying to describe a who, what, where, when, and why. Monday we took a look and described the following two pictures: 

Tuesday we wrote super sentences about bears. Wednesday we wrote super sentences about robots. Today we did a review of different types of nouns and which nouns would need to be capitalized and which nouns would stay lower case. Tomorrow, students will draw their own picture and write a sentence. If we have time we will start to dive into using good descriptive words, and making an OK sentence into a better sentence (this will be our focus all of next week also.) Next Wednesday, expect a sheet to come home, which looks like this: 

Students will have written a sentence inside and will bring it home to share it with two people. Please have two people sign the back to lines then send it back to school. :)

Science-  Everyday, your child will be measuring and writing observations they see about the growth and changes in their plants. This week they discussed the seed leaves (smooth leaves at the bottom) and true leaves (the rigid leaves they grow further up on the stem).

Today we talked about how a seed is like a suitcase (ask your child to explain!) :). We even cut open different fruits to see how the seeds were carefully packaged inside, then had a tasting party. The kids love it (some more than others!) :) 

Pomegranate

Orange

Apple

White peach

Next Monday, I am sending home two sheets a lot with the spelling list. I am not planning on sending these home each week, so please put them in a safe place. The white sheet will give you some ideas to have your child practice their spelling words at home. The bright pink sheet is scrabble tiles for one of the activities. If you were not sure, yes, we are still teaching words their way and looking at patterns and sorting at home. But with parent requests, all of third grade is sending words home in a list like form. Here is what you can expect: 

Have a great Friday! 

Mrs. Jodie Yuska