Hi everyone, and welcome to my blog! I like to use this instead of sending home a hard copy of Friday News in an attempt to save paper. It was great to meet many of you on Backpack Night! If you did not have the opportunity to come to Backpack Night, please let me know if you would like to come in sometime. I would be more than happy to schedule something with you. If not, we can still meet at conferences! That being said, if you have not yet signed up for conferences, please contact the office to set that up.
I am very excited to get to know all of the students in my class as well as their parents! If you ever have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to e-mail me at: bcalcott@orionschools.us or by calling C.R. Hanna.
Friday Folders
Like previous years, your child will be bringing home a Friday Folder each Friday. It will contain notes and graded work. It will also contain your child's spelling list for the following week and their reading record. We will not be sending a reading record home until next Friday. This week there are a few notes in there. One of them is an order from for C.R. Hanna Spirit Gear. If you are interested in placing an order, please fill the form out and send it in with cash or a check by Friday, August 31st. You will also find a green note in the Friday Folder that will explain how we teach reading in 3rd grade. It also tells you who your child will have as a reading teacher. We have also included a note about the the changes that are being made to our math program because of the Common Core Standards that are being implemented. Please take a look at that note as well.
The Week Ahead
English: We have started a new unit about sentences. This will include subjects, predicates, types of sentences, etc.
Math: We will be learn to use the cummutative property of addition, identify the properties of a rectangle, identify and measure the length and width of a rectangle, use logical reasoning to solve a problem, make an organized list to solve a problem, cover designs with pattern blocks, and act out addition story problems.
Reading: My reading class will be reading a story called, Officer Buckle and Gloria. The students will take their book home on Monday and will be expected to read the entire story. We will be learning to use some special reading strategies called check for understanding, cross check words, and expand vocabulary. We will learn how to spell words with the short a and short e sound. We will also discuss the ways to read a book.
Science: We just started a unit about plants. We will discuss their needs and how they grow.
Social Studies:We started a unit about communities. We will learn how to read a map, how to get along in a community, and how to act like a responsible citizen.
Even though it was the first week of school, we have already been very busy! For a math lesson about bar graphs and collecting data, the students got into small groups and surveyed the class. They then turned their data into bar graphs. Some of the topics that the groups chose were: favorite wild animal, favorite candy, and favorite movie. It was fun for the students to see what their classmates preferred. We also started a science experiment with plants. We put two plants in a cupboard with water, two in the sun without water, and two in the sun with water. We are going to be recording observations over the next two weeks and then drawing conclusions.
I am looking forward to an exciting year. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Please do not hesitate to e-mail me with any questions or concerns!
