Sept. 24 - 28

Greetings,

I hope that you all enjoyed the weekend. We were busy this week in grade 3! Kids have been super engaged in our Geography unit as they follow directions to find hidden treasures, read maps to get information, and also draw their own landform maps!

Students continue to work on their typing skills in school and it would be really helpful if they practiced at home as well. As mentioned in previous emails, we use an online program typing.com. We use our blogs to share information with all of you and it requires the students to type, so extra practice would be helpful. These should only be in 10-15 minute increments, keeping it fun!

Coming up:

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences

Parent/Student/Teacher conferences are coming up quickly. You will be receiving your conference times this week, a letter will come home in your child’s backpack. Please note that these are conferences that your child needs to attend as we will all be discussing how things are going in the classroom and setting goals together.

Photos

Individual and class photos are this week. In 3MM, we will have individual photos on Monday, September 24th. Students can wear smart casual clothing on this day. Our group photo will be on Wednesday, September 26th. Students need to wear their full uniform (not PE uniform) on this day.

This week starts on a day 2.

What’s happening this week in the classroom?

Reading In reading this week we continue to work on using contextual clues to read through difficult words.  We are working on retelling the main story events in order and then “growing ideas” by adding on to our own thinking about what we have read. Students will continue practicing using their reading strategies to ensure understanding along with making predictions that include evidence from the text.

Writing Many students will begin writing a new piece with more independence. This allows us to review the many tools they have to help, such as the narrative writing checklist and anchor charts made in class. Revision continues throughout with another look at “showing, not telling” as a way to be more descriptive in writing.  We will continue to use mentor texts to help us get ideas and develop as writers.

Math We will be looking at liquid volume and weight as we finish up this math unit. Elapsed time is a skill that students need to practice, so look for opportunities to practice this at home (“If we need to be at soccer at 10:00 and it takes 17 minutes to drive there, what time should we leave home?”).

Social Studies This week we will continue looking at the specific uses of different kinds of maps (focusing on landform, resource, climate, and population). We are looking at how the place influences the people and their lifestyle.

September 18

Good Morning Parents,

I hope you are enjoying another long weekend! This past week students celebrated Hari Raya and Merdeka Day at school on Friday. In writing, students worked hard on their descriptive language and participated in a writing celebration with all of grade three. Check out photos from the week here.

PE Swimming begins next week. Please check to see which day on the 8 day cycle your child has PE swimming. Our next Free Dress Day will be next Friday, the 21st of September. If your child wants to participate, don't forget the 5 RM donation. Students will have library on Thursday.

This week we begin on Day 6.

Reading: We will continue to work on making connections based on our prior knowledge, making predictions based on evidence from the book, and asking questions before, during and after we read. We will look at problem solving strategies when words or passages are tricky and how we need to really work hard to make real meaning from what we read.

Writing: Many third graders are working toward revising and editing their first “small moment” personal narrative. We are looking at how dialogue is punctuated and closely examining some mentor texts to strengthen our work. We are beginning to use paragraphing when time moves forward, a new speaker talks, or when a new subtopic starts.

Math: While we continue to work on elapsed time we are also introducing units of mass and liquid volume. Next week students will learn about mass and the importance of a standard unit when finding out how heavy something is. In this unit, we will be using the metric system: grams and liters.

Social Studies: We are beginning to look at different types of maps and how we use them.

Have a great week ahead! Thanks in advance for reminding your child to return home learning on Friday

September 12-14

Good morning parents,

I hope you are all enjoying your long weekend.

Map testing went well this past week; students were focussed and demonstrated lots of perseverance. 

A friendly reminder, there is no school on Monday the 10th or Tuesday the 11th. 

Friday September 14th will be our Hari Raya Culture Day and  Merdeka celebration. See the attachments below from Ms. Nalini about the day.

Your child has been doing typing.com at school most days for the past couple of weeks. This is part of an intense typing "boot camp" to help them become faster typers. You child is encouraged to continue this practice at home, they can log in with their panther user name and password, then it will save their progress. It works best if they just do it in 10-15 minute periods.

This week will begin on a Wednesday, day 3 .

Reading

Students will learn that readers give themselves comprehension check as they read, asking themselves questions to make sure they understand what is going on in books. They will follow the steps:

1. Give yourself a comprehension check about each chapter.
2. Ask yourself or write a post-it about:

1. Who was in that part?
2. What was happening?
3. How does this part connect to the rest of the story?

Writing

Students will learn that writers don’t wait to edit (adding punctuation and capitals); they take a minute as they write to make sure their writing is as clear as possible for their readers. Students will also learn how to write a lead for a story by using detail, action, sounds, or dialogue that introduce the characters and setting.

Math

Students will begin to explore weight and the need for standardized units. Students will then transition from nonstandard to standard unit of measurement and use grams to measure weight.

Looking for more ways to help your child practice math facts? Try these games!

Want to look at telling time with your child? Maybe these videos can help.

Here is the vocabulary they will encounter:

a.m.	analog clock	decompose	capacity	digital clock	elapsed time	gram
hour	hour	interval	kilogram	liquid	liter	mass
minute	p.m.	solid	volume

Social Studies

Students will continue to learn how to use map keys, a compass rose, and a scale to interpret and gain information from various maps.

When you ask your child, “how was school today?”, does your child often answer with one-word answers such as, “good”? If so, consider these 15 questions to replace “How was school today?” (Edutopia) 

Week of Sept. 12th-21st. Please complete 3 activities and bring to share on Friday, Sept. 21st.

Math: School starts at 8:00 and finishes at 2:45. Bjorn says we are at school for 6 hours and Dola says we are at school for 6 hours and 45 minutes. Who is correct? Prove it with words, pictures, and/or numbers.	Language arts: Write a personal narrative story about a recent small moment you have had with a person or animal that is important to you.	Language arts: Watch 10 minutes of your favorite TV show with your mom or dad, but turn the sound off and practice storytelling to each other what is happening.  Make sure you include: dialogue, details, actions and inner thinking.
Math: Practice your fact fluency (addition or subtraction numbers 1-20) Flashcards, online, games, worksheets, cards. Or play the clock game (go to the home learning section of the class blog to click on the link).	Social Studies: Create a map of your neighbourhood, or condo area. Don’t forget to include a title, compass rose, map key and symbols.	Other: Play a board game with your family.

Remember: Reading for at least 20 minutes is just what we do. It is expected each night.

Sept. 3-7

Week of August 28th-30th

Good morning parents,

I hope you all had a great weekend. Last week we began to draft our first personal narratives. Students also set writing goals in areas they wanted to improve on! They continued to show that reading is thinking by asking questions while they read and making connections to other books or their own life.

This week will begin on a Day 6. Our class will have Library on Monday and Friday this week!

The MAP test (Measure of Academic Progress) will be on Tuesday and Thursday morning this week for grade three. Please make sure your child gets a good night's rest and arrives at school on time. We will be starting the test first thing in the morning on those two days.

Reading

Students will begin to set clear reading goals such as the amount of pages read during independent reading time and track their progress towards these goals. Students will also continue to build up their reading stamina , as well as talk about and reflect on what they are reading.

Writing

Students will learn about the importance of writing about small moments and continue to develop a bank of writing ideas of small moments to draw from during this unit. Students will also begin to learn that writers use descriptive details of movement, sounds, actions, etc. to show the story rather than tell it.

Math

Students will continue to practice time to the nearest minute as well as solve elapsed time word problems. One strategy is to use a number line with the start and end time.

Social Studies

Students will learn how to use map keys and the compass rose to interpret and gain information from various maps.

A note from the PE team: Please remember to bring a hat and water bottle on PE days.  The new artificial turf field is ready to use and PE classes will be going outside this week.  Hats are required when going outside.

thanks,

Tim Pettus

Good morning 3MM parents,

I hope you all had a relaxing weekend. Last week was a very busy week, building up our reading and writing stamina and setting up our classroom agreements. It is great to see our community coming together. The class blog is up and running and it will be updated frequently throughout the year. Please bookmark it. On the blog you can also view class photos...which will be updated as I take photos.

I hope to see you at Open House Tuesday evening at 6:30!

This week will begin on a day 2.

There is no school on Friday, August 31st. It is a national holiday.

Reading

We will begin our first reading unit: Building a Reader’s life. Students will learn to choose books that are "just right" for them and to monitor as they read, so they can spend their time reading lots of books with accuracy and comprehension

Writing

We will begin our first writing unit: Crafting True Stories. This week students will learn how to find ideas for stories. Students can think of an important person or place and list the moments that happened. Then students choose one of these moments and begin drafting their story. Students will also set clear goals and track their progress towards their goals.

Math

We will begin our first math unit on Measurement.

In this unit students will:

• Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes.
• Solve elapsed time, including word problems, by using a number line diagram.
• Reason about the units of mass and volume.

Social Studies

Students will begin to learn about what makes a map and what tools help us to read a map such as a compass rose, map key, symbols (landforms), etc. If you have any maps at home that you would not mind the class looking at, please send them to school with your child to share.

Please take a minute to look at our ES Parent Learning Connection. Here you will find information and resources of our units in Mathematics and Literacy.

Interesting article from the New York Times on children and reading.