Week of September 19th

I believe this with every fiber of my being! 

Laurel and Myra made my Friday morning much brighter :) Thank you, sweet girls!

Easton and his family went to San Francisco and sent me this picture. He already knows some of my favorite places :) I will be glad to have him back at school on Monday!  

We met with our first grade buddies for the first time this week. It is always fun to watch the third graders be the "big" buddies for the first time. They did wonderful!

This week in reading, we dive into week two of our new Wonder series!  We will read, reread (close read), and practice our reading strategies (comprehension, summarizing, making connections, visualizations) with the stories "The Dream Catcher"  and "Yoon and the Jade Bracelet." This week's stories focus on family traditions, which should lead to some interesting discussions! The vocabulary words we will focus on are: courage, disappointment, precious, pride, remind, symbols, and traditions. We will be doing Week 2's spelling words, which are words with short vowels e, o, and u. Our pretest will be on Monday and then our post test will be on Friday. You can access the week's words on Spelling City (your child has his/her login information in their planner). In language we will be working sentences and sentence fragments. We will also discuss commands and exclamations.  

In math, we will take our Chapter 1 assessment (rounding, estimating sums and differences, and addition properties). Then we will begin Chapter 2: Represent and Interpret Data. This week we will work on using and making picture graphs and bar graphs.  Remember your child can access Xtra Math or Front Row anytime from home for some extra practice! Also, this week we tried our new supplemental math program called ST Math (spacial temporal math). Students are LOVING this new program, which is exciting to see! Ask them about the ST Math penguin, JiJi! :)

In science, we will build and test our gliders. This is always one of the students' favorite activities of the year, because they actually have permission to throw an object across the room! :) There were so many kiddos gone last week that we didn't get to this....

In social studies, we will use some issues of Scholastic News to work on our reading strategies while learning about some interesting current events. 

We are almost done with our first read aloud, "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane." Ask your child to tell you about Edward's adventures and what he learns throughout his journey! It is one of my all-time favorite stories!

Lastly, several students forgot to return their reading logs on Friday. Please make sure your child is reading at least twenty minutes a night (preferably WITH someone) and then returning their logs on Friday. Thanks for support ensuring that your child is making reading a priority. 

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!  Remember that this Thursday (the 22nd) is an Early Out/Noon Dismissal. Also,  Saturday Live is on the 24th from 10:00-4:00 at Pioneer Park. 

Code Word = Edward Tulane