Third Grade News

Room 108

Rooted in Faith, Growing in Knowledge

October 10, 2008

Dear Parents,

The highlight of the week was our Wednesday adventure!  We had a very successful field trip to the Spring Valley Nature Center and Working Farm.  A special thank you to Mrs. Goldman, Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. Herr, Mr. Kowalski and Mrs. May for chaperoning.  Thank you also to Mrs. Orr and Mrs. Randa for organizing the educational trip!

OUR OBJECTIVES FOR THE WEEK

RELIGION – We started our week continuing our discussion of the Holy Trinity.  We also talked about questions that the third graders have about their Catholic religion.  The children learned that there are many sources to help them answer their questions.  One important source is the parish priests.  Students wrote a short letter to Fr. Dave, Fr. Ken or Fr. Joe asking their important questions.  We are hoping for a quick response!

We ended the week with the Living Rosary.  To better understand praying the Rosary, we made an edible rosary on Thursday.  The children created the Rosary using mini marshmallows, Skittles and Twizzlers.  We finished the lesson praying one decade of the Rosary.  Thank you to Mrs. Ostrowski for organizing and planning the great lesson!

WRITING WORKSHOP – Our next writing trait, using The 6 Traits of Writing +1, is Organization.  The students used their favorite expanded Halloween sentence and created an introduction paragraph.  We compared the introduction of the story to receiving a beautifully wrapped gift.  The introduction should fill the reader with the excitement and wonder.  The introduction should make the reader want to read more!       

READING – We completed the short story “Camping on the WILDSIDE.”  We finished the week answering comprehension questions and comparing the story to “The Waterfall.”  We also reviewed sentence structure and discussed that sentences need a subject and predicate.

Our Reading Clubs only met on Friday because of the Wednesday field trip.  We continue to explore the story characters, new vocabulary and write short chapter summaries.  Please read and discuss the chapters with your children.  The chapter books are enjoyable and entertaining.  They allow for great discussions!

MATH – The class did a great job on Unit 1.  Thank you for returning the Home Link Folders.  We have started Unit 2 and are working with fact families.  I have also noticed that the children could use some extra practice with addition and subtraction facts.  We sent the flash cards home at the beginning of the year and extra practice each day would be very helpful.

SCIENCE – I was excited to see how well the students did on their first science test of the year.  We will continue with matter and explore physical change and chemical change.  We started Thursday with a classroom experiment testing for evaporation and condensation.  We moved to the science lab and experimented with the three states of matter that change by heating and cooling .

SOCIAL STUDIES – Landforms, maps and elections, the month of October is very busy.  Thanks to the moms that helped pour, stir and mold the Landform physical maps on Monday.  The next step is to create a Landform dictionary so the students can use it to help label their maps as well as use it as a study guide for preparing for the Landform test.

As a school, we will be holding a mock presidential election.  The students will be campaigning, casting electoral votes and casting popular votes for the next President of the United States.  More details to follow!

IMPORTANT DATES

If you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to contact me by e-mail or home telephone.

Polega@sjc.pvt.k12.il.us

708 – 246 - 0219

Thanks,

Maryanne Polega