Week 1, August 26 - Newsletter

The Buzz in Ms. B’s Class

Issue #1: August 26, 2012

Welcome back to school!!  I am so excited to begin this year.  It is going to be a great year in third grade and I can’t wait to get started! 

Reminders:

-       Please sign and return the papers sent home by Friday, August 30^th. 

-       We will be practicing rules, routines, and procedures throughout the week.  Feel free to ask your child what these are.  The more familiar they are, the better.  And you will have a good understanding of the procedures in our classroom and school through your child’s knowledge!

-       Your child will walk to our classroom by himself/herself each day.  If students (3-6) arrive earlier than 7:45, they will go to the gym.  If after 7:45, they will come straight to the classroom. (K-2 children go to the cafeteria for those students with younger siblings)

-       Please practice the spelling pattern each night with your child.

        What is my child learning this week?

Spelling: short a and short i: land, stick, plan, trip, stand, act, thing, last, lift, band, grand, swim, stamp, list, sand

Fry’s Phrases (these help with fluency – practice reading these daily)

-       The first day of school

-       My family

-       Add it up.

Fry’s Phrases are used to practice fluency.  They will not be on the spelling test.  Please read these with your child often to increase fluency.

English/Reading:

-       We are focusing on comprehension skills in both literary (fiction) and informational (nonfiction/expository) texts.  We will be asking questions throughout our reading, inferring meanings of vocabulary words, and how to read with a “fresh perspective” (no background knowledge needed).

-       We will learn the difference between personal schema reading (reading for fun or enjoyment) and evidence-based reading (comprehension purposes; be able to answer questions).  Much of what we read in school is evidence-based reading.  We do not need to tap into background knowledge when reading to “prove.”  We will have plenty of opportunities for personal schema reading as well!

Math:

-       We are reviewing addition.  We will be creating addition word problems and solving one another’s problems.

-       We are also learning our problem solving strategy known as UPSL (understand, plan, solve, look back). 

-       We will be reviewing key words and adding them to our Math Wall.

Social Studies:

-       We are learning why rules and laws are important in our school and community.

-       We will be creating rules that are needed to be good citizens.

Science:

-       We are discussing what a scientist is and what are a scientist’s characteristics.

-       We will review safety procedures.

-       We will set up our science notebooks that we will use throughout the year!

Have a wonderful week!

Ms. Butts