Newsletter for October 20, 2017

What We Learned This Week

I truly enjoyed the opportunity to meet with all of my families. Please know that I am always happy to meet as the year progresses and it is never too soon to raise a concern or ask about progress. This is a wonderful class and I appreciate all of your support and work at home.

Word Study
We wrapped up our study of open, closed, and Vowel-Consonant-silent e syllable types. My emphasis has moved from segmenting and marking words in isolation to applying this skill to reading and writing.

We also concluded our study of plural nouns. Students should be able to apply this study to their writing and I will look for evidence in their writing.

I introduced apostrophes with possessive nouns. To help clear up some confusion with commas, I showed students apostrophes are also used for contractions. Possessive apostrophes are one of the easier and most consistent elements in grammar so we will move on quickly.

Reading Workshop
We continued our study of using the question in the answer, using the text for spelling, making predictions based on evidence, and determining facts versus opinions.

Having ended the Wild Robot, we started a realistic fiction classic, My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. 

Writing Workshop
We are still working on opinion pieces. Students should be able to independently, or relying on anchor charts in the classroom, be able to produce a specific and brief title, concise topic sentence, support their opinion with evidence from the text, explain how evidence supports their opinion, and end with a strong conclusion.

For many students, learning this "formula" is challenging, but we are making progress. We can apply these elements to most of the writing we will do this year.  I am also pushing students to produce more writing in shorter time periods.

Math Workshop
I reviewed the associative property and introduced the distributive property for addition and multiplication. The associative property is employed to allow us to manipulate numbers so we can do mental math more easily.

Example: (5 + 2) + 3 = 5 + (2 + 3)

We move the parentheses so we can use a two-more strategy and then doubles as these two operations are easier for most students than the first scenario, which would be two-more and sums to ten strategies. The reminder strategy lies in the name associative. Which numbers associate with which numbers?

We use the distributive property to allow us to do mental math more easily as well.

Example: 6 x 24 = (6 x 4) + (6 x 20)

We are able to break the number 24 into 20 and 4 which allows us to do mental multiplication.

Both of these strategies work for addition and subtraction.

I introduced and we practiced our 7's, 8's and 9's strategy where we borrow from the smaller number to make ten and then add the remaining numeral to it. This strategy can be applied to more basic facts than any other strategy and thus it is very important.

Example: 7 + 5 =  (7 + 3) + 2 = 10 + 2 = 12

I will start introducing multiplication strategies in November.

Science
We had another great walking field trip to Thompson Park. This time, with great cooperation from the weather, students focused on the physical changes they observed in their trees.

Important Dates & Reminders

Please make sure your student if fully charging their iPad each night, especially for next week's AIR test. Please do NOT make any updates to your student's iPad for any reason. It will lock them out and they will not be able to take the test on their device and we are woefully low on the number of backup devices we have access to since the entire district is testing at the same time.

I am not assigning any homework next week as I am asking the students to give me all of their effort on the AIR. That will also give them a little Halloween break as they head off to festivities.

October 2017

24 & 25 3rd Grade State of Ohio Reading Assessment

25 Walking Wednesday

26 Early Dismissal at 11:05

27 Halloween Parties & School Wide Parade starting at 1:30 pm

Party Sign Up Genius

31 Trick-or-Treat 5:30-8 p.m. in UA

November 2017

1 Walking Wednesday

6 End of First Trimester

7 No School for Students:  Faculty In-service Day

8 Walking Wednesday

15 Walking Wednesday

21  Progress Reports go Home

21 Scarlet and Gray School Spirit Day

22-24 Thanksgiving Holiday

December 2017

21 Holiday Parties 2:00 pm

December 22-January 4 Winter Break

January 2018

5 No School for Students:  Teacher Workday/PD Day

8 School Resumes

15 No School for Staff or Students:  Martin Luther King’s Birthday

18 PT Conferences grade 1-5 (students are dismissed at 11:05)

February 2018

5  State of the Schools at UAHS 5-8 p.m.

5-9 Collection Days for “Box Tops for Education”
8 Third Grade Musical
11-14 Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
14 Ohio Wildlife Center

19 No School Staff or Students:  Presidents’ Day

28 Early Release 1:00 (NO LIFT)

March 2018

5 Spring Pictures

9 End of Second Trimester
9 Invention Convention 10-10:30am in the Multipurpose Room/Cafeteria

12-16  Spring Break

19 No School for Students:  Teacher Grading Day

27 Progress Reports go Home

30  Good Friday:  No School for Students or Staff

April 2018

4  Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon at Windermere 11-12 in lounge

May 2018

April 30-May 4  Scholastic Book Fair

4 KidFest, 5-8 p.m.

8  NO School for students or certified staff - Ohio Primary Elections

21  Field Day

28 No School Staff:  Memorial Day

30  Last Day for Students

30 End of third trimester