Thir d Gr a d e Pe ter s on E le me nta r y S c hool

Third Grade Update

Issue 5 January 2013

A Note from the Third Grade Teachers

Happy New Year! We hope you and your family enjoyed a healthy, relaxing, and peaceful Winter Break. Were excited to welcome back our students and wrap up the 2nd Quarter. We have much in store this month as far as learning and adventure. Please take a look at each subject area for our specific areas of focus. This month we will also be conducting our winter benchmark assessments in the areas of oral reading fluency, math computation, and math concepts & applications. Look for the Historical Graphs (similar to those shared at conferences last November) to come home in early February.
As we meet with small groups of students for Guided Reading, students will have the opportunity to practice and reinforce the literacy skills and concepts from our weeks lessons at each of the five literacy stations (Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Listen to Reading). This month our anchor stories, focused skills and strategies will be:

Little Grunt and the Big EggFantasy - Skills: Word Relationships and Inferencing

The Stories Julian TellsRealistic Fiction - Skill: Sequencing

Throughout the month we will also be working on our written reading responses. We will be reviewing the components of a reading response including: Turn the Question Around, evidence, and interpretation. We will be working with prompts from various texts we will be reading in both large and small groups.

Important Dates

January 7th1st day back! January 11thEnd of Quarter January 14thNo School January 17thLab Rats InSchool Field Trip January 21stNo School
As we work on our written reading responses, we will continue to bring our pieces through the writing process. We will edit and revise our responses checking for not only the components of a reading response, but also making sure we are incorporating complete sentences, proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Late this month we will begin our study of expository writing as we write to inform others of a famous U.S. landmark or symbol.

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T H IRD G RA DE U P DA T E

IS S U E 5

The Family Letter provided at the beginning of each unit outlines specific skills and strategies covered within the unit. Outlined below are the specific skills and strategies we will be focusing on as outlined by the new Illinois Learning Standards (Common Core). Unit 6Topics of study:

The Family Letter provided at the beginning of each unit outlines specific skills and strategies covered within the unit. Outlined below are the specific skills and strategies we will be focusing on as outlined by the new Illinois Learning Standards (Common Core).
This month our study will focus on: Unit 6 Division, Angles, Coordinate Grids

Identify polygons and quadrangles Measure & estimate liquid volumes (g, kg, l) Find perimeters of polygons Partition shapes into parts with equal areas; Represent each as a fraction Continue to use multiplication and division

Strategies for Division Expressing and Interpreting Remainders Using full and half protractors to create and measure different angles Coordinate grids and ordered pairs

* Please practice multiplication facts at home on a daily basis!

* Please practice multiplication facts at home on a daily basis!

Social Studies
This month we will begin our study of the United States Government. The essential questions guiding our government study will be:

How was our government formed and how does our government work? How would you explain the development and change of Washington, D.C.? What are some national symbols and landmarks and what do they mean?

Early this month we will wrap up our study of simple machines. We will be learning about and exploring various on-line resources available for research in the LMC. We will be using these new resources to conduct basic research on the simple machines we have been learning about.

Later this month we will be researching a famous landmark or symbol and creating a Power Point presentation with the facts and information we find. This will coincide with our study of expository writing in Writers Workshop.

On January 17th we will have an in-school field trip. The DuPage Childrens Museum Lab Rats will be visiting to help us further explore each type of simple machine through hands on activities!

Great Websites & Resources

Please check our grade level blog at http://thirdgradepanthers.blogspot.com under additional fun websites for activities to support our learning!