Third Grade News

September 10, 2010

Dear Parents,

Greetings for a lovely weekend.

Field trip: Our first field trip is next Tuesday, September 14th. We are going to the Jr. Center for Art and Science and taking a class on Henri Matisse. After our class we will have a picnic lunch by the lake and then return to Corpus Christi. We will leave CC by 10:10 and return by 12:30. Students may wear free dress. Please remember to cancel any hot lunches for the day. Below are the drivers. We do not need everyone to stay, so if you prefer to drop off and pick up, please let me know. Drivers: de Melo (6), Dunne (5), Kapp (4), Ratto (6), Rubin (5), Loukianoff (5) and Edgar.

Student Council Representatives: Next week the students will be selecting their class representatives for student council. We will elect one 3rd grade boy and one 3rd grade girl. Student council is held every Tuesday from 3:00 – 3:45. Elected representatives must be able to attend all the Tuesday meetings. I have spoken with the students about the responsibilities of being on student council. If your child is interested in running for the Class Representative, they must prepare a speech to be delivered to the class by Wednesday, September 15th.

ITBS Testing: ITBS testing will be from September 20 – 27th. Please do not schedule any appointments during testing, as there will be no make up tests given. I will send out the testing schedule next week and will also post it on my website.

Highlights of the Week:
Language Arts: We continue to focus on how to summarize a story. They are currently making up skits to their own version of The Three Little Pigs. This should be very interesting!

Additionally, we began our writing focus. Students will learn how to use the writing process (prewrite, draft, revise, proofreading and publishing) in addition to learning how to assess their own work through the six traits (ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, voice, conventions). Our first trait focus will be Ideas.

Math: Students should be able to read and write numbers to 100,000. Next week we will work with number line to round numbers.

Science: Our science table has become quite interesting lately with the new addition of bones found while hiking! Next week we begin our hands on exploration of matter and energy.

Social Studies: Learning how to use a compass, students identified cardinal and intermediate directions. They are currently working on a mapping project to practice and develop mapping skills.

Religion: We had discussions of faith – where we feel it, how we know it to be true.

Enjoy your weekend.
Best,
Jessica Murray