The Week in Review

 

First, a belated thank you to the wonderful volunteers who made our Halloween party such a success and proved that even a calm, mellow party can be lots of fun. A special thank you goes to Mrs. S who kept the entire group of third grade enthralled in a game of Bingo.

 

 

 

MATH: We continued working on memorizing our multiplication tables this week. We learned a trick to count our nine times facts on our fingers. We also worked on memorizing tens and threes.  We began taking timed tests to improve our recall of the times facts.

How you can help: Spend a few minutes each night listening to your child recite the multiplication tables. Quiz him or her. Go to this link for worksheets you can print at home. Time your child as (s)he races through the worksheet. Keep track as time improves.

WRITING: We used a five paragraph graphic organizer to help us order the paragraphs in our essay.











We practiced the basics for writing an introductory and a concluding paragraph. Specifically, we compared and contrasted the differences between introductory paragraphs written in personal voices to those written in scholary voices.

We also practiced identifying verb tenses; past, present, and future. We reviewed the need to stick with a single tense in a piece of writing.

READING: We read What Do Illustrators Do by Eileen Christelow and examined how the text and graphic features enhanced our understanding of the information.

SCIENCE: We reviewed all the information learned in our Science investigations this quarter focusing our attention on the tools and the metric units used to measure length, mass, capacity, volume, and temperature. We ordered the units according to size. We created a study sheet to help us prepare for the unit test this week.

How you can help: Your child brought home a study sheet. The study sheet is intented to help students study independently. Encourage him or her to spend a few minutes reviewing the study questions and the answers. 

 

 

SOCIAL STUDIES: We are beginning our fall social studies unit focusing on geography. We reviewed our previous knowledge of the globe and its subsequent division into four hemispheres. We discussed the difference between the equator and the prime meridian and started memorizing the names of the continents.

 

How you can help: In the next few weeks we will be learning the names of the continents, the oceans, and the fifty states in our nation. You can help make this more real by sending up to three postcards from various parts of the world with your child. Ideally, these postcards will be from friends and family members who live in or have traveled to various parts of the world. Students bringing postcards to class can share them with their classmates before we locate the site by hemisphere, continent, nation, state, and city. The postcards bring life to the project and students are must more interested in geography when we discuss places that either we or our friends have visited.

 

 

MISC: On a related note, more multicultural paper dolls are finding their way back to our classroom. I am looking forward to seeing more of these coming back to the classroom.