Weekly Update

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Go Rams! 

Please add these dates to your calendar:

Thursday, February 7th, Individual & Class Pictures

Monday, February 11th thru Friday, February 15th, Teacher Appreciation Week

Tuesday, February 12th, Papa John's Pizza Night

Thursday, February 14th, Progress Reports go home, Valentine Exchange, Multiplication Ice Cream Party

Monday, February 18th thru Friday, February 22nd,  Winter Break, No School

Monday, February 25th thru Friday, March 1st, Read Across America Week

Tuesday, February 26th, 5:00-8:00 pm, Firehouse Sub Night

Friday, March 1st, 7:00-7:45 am, FBI Breakfast

Friday, March 1st, 6:00 pm, Talent Show

Homework: We will resume regular homework this week. Spelling words will be written in agendas on Monday and should be studied in preparation for Friday's quiz. Reading and math review homework will be sent home on Monday to be returned Friday. Your child should also be reading a minimum of 20 minutes each night. It's amazing what a difference nightly reading makes! Thank you for your support with this habit!

Ice Cream Party: On Thursday, February 14th, all third grade classes will have our multiplication ice cream party to celebrate all the facts we have learned this year! We will continue to have multiplication 2-min timed tests every few days up until the 14th. Some students have already mastered all facts! Way to go! Remember the more facts your child knows, the more toppings he or she can choose. Talk about a delicious incentive! Please stay tuned for a sign up genius to help with supplies for the party. Your child should know which set of facts he or she is on, but if not, just send an email or dojo message and we'll let you know.

Here's a look at our learning this week:

In writing and ELA we a few different things going on. First, each student will be completing a writing piece for the Cobb County Writing Fair. One winner from third grade will be selected to move on to the county level. We won't know any results for several weeks. This piece will be completed entirely by the student with no help from adults. We will also being a new opinion writing this week. We will begin with some research to help us form our opinion and choose fact-based reasons which support our opinions. We will wrap up our unit on comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs this week as well.

In reading, we will work on comparing and contrasting fiction texts. We will look at texts written by the same author and then compare the characters, setting, plot, and theme of the books. We will use some Patricia Polacco books this week to help us with this skill. If your child has been reading books from a series, ask him or her about the similarities and differences between 2 of the books.

In social studies, we will begin our unit on the Age of Exploration. Throughout this unit, we will learn about the reasons for exploration, the accomplishments & obstacles of the explorers, and about the relationship between the American Indians and the explorers. This week we will focus on Christopher Columbus and John Cabot.

In math, we are continuing with fractions. Between snow day and STEM day last week, we didn't get much fraction practice in! This week, we will work on comparing fractions and understanding equivalent fractions. We will also work on understanding that fractions can represent whole numbers. There are several fraction games on our class blog here. There are also some great lessons and videos from Khan Academy here to help with fractions.

Let's have a great week! As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns.