Spelling

Posted on

Spelling: Our third grade team has decided to change up our spelling program a bit to meet the needs of our third graders.  Your child will now receive a new set of 10 words every Monday and be tested on those words (plus five additional words that follow the same pattern) on Friday of each week. The first week of school your child was given a spelling inventory, which helped me determine where he/she is breaking down as a speller. The results showed that most of my third graders struggle with long vowel patterns and more difficult word endings. Therefore, those areas will be our focus for this year. Your child will also be given a monthly spelling activity sheet, of which they are to choose three activities each week to complete for at home practice of their words. A Monday pre-test will determine if your child will receive the regular list or the challenge list.

They will be tested on Friday on the list they were given, plus five additional words with the same spelling pattern. Please let me know if you have any questions concerning this program. Our goal is to make our third graders better spellers, so it is always nice to hear if you see a difference at home too.





Plant Adaptations

Posted on

Here is an excellent video by Study Jams to supplement our discussion about plant adaptations. Take a moment to have your child watch the short video. There is even a quiz to “test yourself.” If your child watches it, please have them leave me a comment about something learned because I give them credit for doing some extra work.

Click on the picture below to go to the link:

Screen Shot 2013-09-26 at 5.56.20 PM


Fact Fluency

Posted on

Today I sent home information regarding a math site ( http://xtramath.org/) that offers additional practice of basic math facts. This is a free site that allows your child to progressively practice addition, subtraction and once these are mastered multiplication facts.  It is extremely important that we review these daily and increase accuracy/speed in the process.  I would love it if they could become more rote with basic addition & subtraction facts. It would be GREAT if your child could get on this site for a quick review three times per week. I will be receiving a progress report weekly.



Plant Parts

Posted on

Our first unit in science is a great review. In second grade, the students were responsible for identifying the parts of a plant. We will be talking about the parts of a plant and the function of each part. Flashcards were sent home today and I will assess the students on Thursday. The next portion of science will focus on plant adaptations (in which we will focus on for approximately 1-2 weeks). 

Here are the flashcards if you did not see them in the nightly folder: http://www.easynotecards.com/notecard_set/6267. This site also has a quiz & matching game as a review. For more plant part review, feel free to visit the Great Plant Escape website at http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gpe/case1/c1m1a.html.



Math Family Letter

Posted on

In our first two units in math, your child will be practicing basic multiplication and division. Flashcards will be coming home on Monday (more cards will be added as we introduce specific facts) that should be studied at least 5 minutes at home 5 times weekly. Please keep these in the nightly folder. There will be homework every Tuesday & Thursday (with the first assignment sent home today).

We will be thinking about multiplication in 3 ways:

  • Repeated groups: Multiplication can be used to find the total in repeated groups of the same size.
  • Arrays: Multiplication can be used to find the total number of items in an array (an arrangement of objects into rows and columns).

lQL0rdjgcAeqNQoLb_7Xe3a7jNJKQzkEJKOzLgwpFxGRE2PK015PlEy561R9Lf7Ru-ltD12TFFcbiu32UElACdPwK3o=w1115-h499

k3GZq2zHC0snmhvZxOuhRxLXw8EEMi1HLGp298_VT6jVN9aTvbNkG7ExS1LQBiYrLxpw7x2rUmwJ9vZ5H91kgAkoIQA=w1115-h499