Newsletter for November 11, 2011

What We Learned This Week

This week's newsletter will be brief. I will be following up on our conferences. I truly appreciate your partnership and enjoyed getting to sit down with all of you. I appreciate your patience while I research and respond to your student's needs.

Word Study: This week's words are: chain, chick, their, what, third, wheel, with, than, chair, church, when, and wheat. Additional words you may want to use with at home spelling activities (see earlier post http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2011/09/parent-information-highlights.html) include: each, much, chat, this, thick, both, when, whip, charm, coach, which, those, Thursday, mouth, what's, whale, search, pinch, chatter, smooth, youth, thimble, wheelchair, and whistle. This week's patterns fall into three general categories of words with ch, th, and wh. Two weeks ago we focused on double consonant patterns with a silent letter; last week's pattern focused on blends where both consonants could be heard; this week's patterns are blends and combine to make a new sound (called digraphs). Digraphs make a different sound than either of the letters in the digraph do singly.

Math: We continued with linear measure this week and I introduced area. We'll be working on area and perimeter and I hope to assess this unit prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. Many students have mastered (but will likely need revisiting to stay fresh) their addition and subtraction facts. I'm posting the multiplication facts for your use at home until we introduce them in our homework, after winter break. Like our addition facts, these are all tied to a strategy and leave only a handful of facts that must simply be memorized

Ones

Doubles

Doubles Plus One (3's)

Double Doubles (4's)

Fives

Fives Plus One (6's)

Nines

Tens

Square Products

Important Dates and Reminders

A friendly reminder to begin collecting items for the Ohio Wildlife Center's visit in February. Here's a link to our earlier post. Thank you! http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2011/10/ohio-wildlife-center-wish-list.html.

Ukulele Orchestra meets on B and D days, this Monday and Wednesday.

I will be out on Friday for a Math Coach Meeting.

November 23rd - 25th: No School - Thanksgiving holiday.

December 2nd: Author visit with nature writer James Bruchac (http://www.jamesbruchac.com/pages/intro.php).

December 7th: Early dismissal.

December 19th - January 2nd: Winter holiday, no school for students.