The Week in Review

October 17-21

Congratulations, Eagles!

The trophy is back where it belongs. Nice work, friends!

#11 and #12 walked the most laps in grade 3...an impressive 23 laps!

Despite the excitement of winning the trophy for the class with the most laps walked in grades 2 and 3, we managed to squeeze in some academics as well.

READING- We read a biography, Roberto Clemente Pride of the Pitsburgh Pirates.  We practiced a new reading comprehension skill, cause-and-effect and applied it to the story.
How you can help at home-continue to encourage your child to read every night for a minimum of 20 minutes. We are getting ready to take our next STAR reading test. Students who demonstrate six weeks of growth will be exempt from keeping a reading log.


Common Core State Standards

WRITING-Using the WriteSmart platform on thinkcentral.com, we wrote 5-7 sentences paragraphs
analyzing characters from anchor texts we read in unit one of our Journeys curriculum. We focused on three writing skills. 1.)We practiced turning a question into a statement that can be used as a topic sentence for our paragraphs. 2.)We practiced using the CER (claim, evidence, and reasoning) format for our paragraphs. The topic served as our claims. Quotes from the texts served as evidence to support our claims. We used reasoning to explain why we thought our evidence was relevant and how it supported the claim. 3.)Finally, we discussed the difference between writing in a scholarly voice and writing in a friendly voice.  Submitting papers on WriteSmart is still fairly new for third graders. Check out this paper by Student #1:

In Destiny's Gift, Destiny made her community stronger.On page 97 "When Destiny told Mama and Daddy about Mrs. Wade’ s store. Destiny cried so hard, she didn’t think she'd ever stop" This shows that Destiny she wanted to keep Ms.Wade's bookstore open and that means she is helping her community."I helped Mrs. Wade at her table, and we sold boxes and boxes of books."This shows that Destiny wanted to sell books for Ms.Wade to keep the store open and that helps her community.This shows how Destiny made her community stronger.

How to help at home: Take advantage of your children's interest in WriteSmart by encouraging them to access WriteSmart from home. Encourage them to spend time using the different tools. Familiarize yourself with the platform so that you can support your child's learning.



Common Core State Standards

    MATH- We continued working on multiplication facts for 0s,1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, and 9s. We applied our knowledge of multiplication and division facts to help us solve word problems.
How you can help at home. We will be taking our unit test next week. Take time to quiz your child on his or her basic multiplication facts.

Common Core State Standards

SCIENCE-We began Investigation 1 of our science unit, Motion and Matter. We defined forcesi as pushes and pulls. We discovered how magnets can push or pull depending on how the magnet is oriented. We practiced balancing a magnetic force with gravity to make a paperclip float in mid air.

We used the CER format to record our work in our science journals.

Next Generation Science Standards, 

Students, what is something new and exciting that you learned this week? Comment below.