November 2-5

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Thank you so much to all of you who were able to donate items for our Monster Mash on Friday!  Team Howard had a blast!  We played a lot of fun games and had some delicious snacks to eat.  It was a day for the memory books!

I also wanted to remind everyone that students are allowed to bring water bottles to school with them.  We fill them up in the morning and at snack time.  It helps us stay hydrated throughout the day.  So if you have a water bottle at home, please feel free to send it in to school with your child.

Friendly Reminder:  Please do not send in any snacks that contain peanuts or tree nuts as we do have life threatening allergies in the classroom.  Pretzels, cheese and crackers, low sugar cereals, fresh fruit and/or veggies, and yogurts all make great, healthy snacks to help keep your child energized.  I appreciate your help in keeping our classroom safe for all students.

Spelling Tests:  Apologies for not getting your child's spelling test back today.  With all of the festivities on Friday, we didn't get a chance to take our spelling test.  You'll get their spelling test back tomorrow, instead.  Thank you for your patience!

Class Wishlist:  We are a class that LOVES to engineer things... often!  That usually includes using a lot of tape.  If you would like to donate some tape to our classroom, it would be greatly appreciated!

THIS WEEK IN:

Phonics:  We are working with the long and short "o" sound.  Our focus words are:  box, fox, lock, pot, dog, cone, hope, rose, poke, and rope.  

Spelling:  We are working on unit 4 words.  The words are:  out, them, she, many, and then.  This week's spelling test will be the last one before our summative spelling test and the first four units.  Any words that are missed on the summative test will be added to your child's individual spelling review list for next week.  Each student will practice a total of 10 words.  If they missed fewer than 10 words or received 100%, they will be able to pick words from the third grade priority word list to practice.  

Vocabulary:  Our focus words are:  settled, wrinkled, practiced, cuddle, favorite, and patient.  We'll define these words, build connections to them, and then search for them in the short story called "My New Home" by Miguel Vasquez.

Comprehension:  This week we will practice making and confirming predictions.  A prediction is a reasonable guess about what will happen in a story.  We use the pictures, words, and our schema to help us make predictions.  When we confirm a prediction, we read on in the story to find out whether the prediction was correct or not.  We'll practice this skill while we read My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits.

Grammar:  This week, we will practice combining sentences that have the same predicate using the word "and."  For example, we could take "Nina came from Mexico" and "Marcos came from Mexico" and combine them to say "Nina and Marcos came from Mexico."

Scholastic News:  To continue our study on bats, we'll read an article titled "Bats in Blankets" that is all about special hospitals that help bats when they are in trouble.  Then, we'll use a diagram of a flying fox to answer questions.

Read Aloud:  We finished Chocolate Fever and our now learning all about Flat Stanley!  Today, we learned that he was flattened by a bulletin board.  We are so excited to learn more about his flat adventures.

Writing:  This week, we'll introduce the parts of a friendly letter.  This is a precursor to our Flat Stanley projects that we will be beginning shortly.  Here are the parts below:

We'll read Messages in the Mailbox: How to Write a Letter by Loreen Leedy to help us get started.  The book tells us all about the parts of a letter, different reasons for writing a letter, who we might write letters to, and also gives us some examples.  Then, Team Howard will have some practice writing a letter of their very own.  They'll be asked to write a short letter to me telling me something about themselves that I don't already know.  I'm excited to see what they say!

We'll also read The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.  This story is a collection of friendly letters from the crayons explaining why they quit.  Some feel like they are bored, some feel like they are used too often or too little.  Then, the team will get the chance to take on the point of view of one of the crayons and also write a friendly letter explaining their point of view.

Math:  This week, we will be spending a lot of time working on our individual goals with the use of menus.  Students will have some voice and choice in how they practice their goals.  Their choices are:  worksheets, activities, games, or IXL.  They'll use their checklists to see what they still need to work on and what they already know.  For students who have already mastered the standard, they will be completing various challenge activities.

We also spent some time today practicing different strategies for being able to add or subtract 1 or 2 from a number in a snap.  Then, we put those skills to the test after we learning how to play +/- 1 or 2 bingo!  We also had some mixed review practice on Xtra Math today to keep our skills fresh.

Science:  This week, I have a feeling Pete and Penelope are going to be writing us another letter.  A little birdie (probably a parrot) told me that they have made a troubling discovery on one of the islands they have found.  The island is not looking the same and they want to know why.  I'll be challenging Team Howard in a few investigations next week, but first we'll do some research.  We'll be reading a book called Cracking Up:  A Story About Erosion and watching fun videos like the one below:

From these resources, students should gather that Earth's surface changes slowly and quickly.  Rain, wind, ice, and sun all cause slow changes to Earth's surface.  Floods, earthquakes, and volcanoes all cause quick changes to Earth's surface.


That's it for this week!  Have a fantastic week!