Happy Weekend!

Hello you lovely third grade families...I hope you've had a good week...we had a short one, but nonetheless, a good one! I would like to start with the important dates in October...there are a lot!!

OCTOBER
October 8 individual pictures (forms went home this week)
October 13 schools open four hours late (12:30-2:30 magnet) PARENT
October 14 schools open four hours late 912:30-2:30 magnet) TEACHER
October 15 schools dismiss 3 & 1/2 hrs early (11:00 magnet) CONFERENCES
October 16 no school
October 27 Earth Space Science Lab field trip (forms come home later this month!)
October 30 schools dismiss 2 hours early 12:30 for us
October 30 Pumpkin Math day and Fall Festival Parties 8:30-10:30am
October 30 end of term one (where on earth does time go?!)

OK...now that you have all of those important dates...here are some details...

FIELD TRIP to the ESSL
Tuesday, October 27th...I will be able to take parent chaperones, so mark your calendars if you'd like to attend! You must have participated in one of the volunteer trainings, so if you haven't been to one of those yet, make sure to get to one of them in October...there are three volunteer orientations scheduled during the week of conferences!! I do not have the exact time of the field trip yet, but we will be gone most of the morning and for lunch. As I receive the information I will forward it to you!

October 30
We will be participating in activities that have to do with pumpkins all day on this early release Friday! I will need at least four adult volunteers that day...but would love to have as many of you as want to come. Each adult will need to bring a medium sized pumpkin and some other supplies. If you are interested, please send me an email and I will get you the specifics. We will also celebrate our Fall Festival party this day. Parties are from 10-10:45 that day...Mrs. Gallo will be planning this gathering and I'm sure will be reaching out to you for some assistance...this is a fun time for everyone!!

OK..all the nitty gritty is out of the way...let's get down to the reason we're here...academics!!

Language Arts...we are finishing up our Before, During and After Reading Strategies unit...we have one more chapter in our novel Frindle...the students will be writing me a letter on Monday about this novel. I am anxious to read their thoughts and opinions about this book and our favorite character, Nick Allen. We have been writing responses, summarizing, and completing other novel activities...all the while using "After Reading Strategies"...reflecting, rereading, and remembering. We are headed into one of my favorite units in Language Arts...short stories, where we focus on fairy tales, folk tales, and fables. Look for information about a project coming home Monday!

Writing...we are turning our focus to the writing trait "Organization" this month...we reviewed writing pieces together this past week, using an Ideas rubric to discuss and score these pieces...the idea (no pun intended) is that the students will eventually use the Ideas Rubric as a guide when they are writing. The students will be writing a different version of a very popular fairy tale during this unit...one I am sure their creative minds will jump at the chance to write!!

Social Studies...our travel brochures are almost complete! WOW...wait until you see them! The kids have been working really hard on their final drafts and will finish them sometime next week. They will hang in the classroom and you'll be able to view them when you come for your for Parent Teacher conference...the office will be sending home reminder notices next week in case you have forgotten your time or haven't had the opportunity to sign up yet! Next week we will be venturing virtually (say that three times fast) into Frederick County and exploring the important county landmarks!!

Math...we are heavy into multiplication...factors, multiples, properties...estimating, calculating, solving problems...I pretested the whole group and am teaching each student the indicators they need to master...a few kids already know how to do the algorithm when multiplying three digits by one digit...they will have alternate activities when I am teaching the algorithm to the kids. Almost all of the kids understand how to find the answer to 321 x 6...but they do not know the most efficient way...so we will be working on that over the next couple of weeks!

We're also plugging away at handwriting, word study, and many other things...we stay very busy!! I hope you all have a great weekend...enjoy your families...