Dear Parents & Students,
I hope everyone had a relaxing spring break and is ready to
go into the home stretch - the year is winding down fast! The Water Festival
field trip was great and a good time was had by all. We rotated through many
different stations run by different companies and learned a lot. Did you see
our picture on the front page of the Register? Very exciting! It is hard to
believe that we are in the down stretch of our third grade year, but we are.
Here are a few highlights from Room 6.
In math, we are beginning our fraction unit. We will be completing many
hands on activities with this unit, as we learn about mixed numbers,
equivalent fractions and more.
All Rti groups are finishing stories in the Animal Habitats theme. Our
next theme is Voyagers. The stories in this theme are all about people who
make journeys to different lands. During this theme we will be discussing
the many relatives we all have who have made travels to different lands. We
will tie this in to Social Studies and discuss the many reasons that many of
us have moved/traveled to Orange County to live.
We will be rotating classes for science starting in May. Students will
go to Mrs. Meyer for a unit on Crayfish. This is a popular unit with
students as they learn about the parts of a crayfish, their habitat and
characteristics and how they live. At the end of this unit, students will be
allowed to adopt a crayfish (with parent permission of course!). We are also
learning about the Rancho period of Orange County. We will discuss the
orange groves that were in our area and learn about the importance of orange
crate labels and how they are now an art form. Students will make their own
rancho name, brand and orange crate label. Our field trip to the Citrus Park
will fit in perfectly with this unit of study!
In the computer lab students used various websites to review main idea
and do some review for the upcoming STAR test. During May, we will be word
processing and creating a special project (sorry, can't give you any more
details than that!)
We received letters back from our pen pals and wrote back to them.
Students are enjoying learning about what life is like as a third grader in
New Jersey.
As you have seen, students have been working on current events. The
first two assignments had a Scholastic News article attached to it, and
students had to decide what the "who, what, where, when and why" of the
article were. The next two assignments will involve them in finding their
own article to read, and in writing a summary. The purpose of this activity
was to ease them into reading a non-fiction article the correct way, and
being able to determine important information. You may want to help your
child chose an appropriate article when this assignment comes home. I will
provide them with websites that have articles appropriate for children.
STAR testing is right around the corner. We will spend time each day in
class reviewing. In addition, students will get some review homework. For
the next two weeks, instead of spelling lists, students will have vocabulary
tests. On Monday they will get a list of vocabulary words they may encounter
on the test and need to review from during the year - on Friday instead of a
spelling test they will have a vocabulary test on the words. These are all
review words, not new ones.
I have updated the calendar with the end of the year activities and
events that are coming up. Please review them -many new and exciting things
to come. There are some events you will want to set aside time for so be
sure to check it out!
Debbie Palmer