Dear Parents/Guardians,

This week we will continue to work on our curriculum, Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science and all the rest.

In addition, we have the Ray School Festival on Thursday, March 26th. At this time I have not planned for our room to be active participants in the festival. I do have prior plans that interfer with our involvement. I do however encourage you and your family to support the Ray School family and come out to a fun-filled night. The monies that are generated through the festival help to fund classroom initiatives.

I was so pleased to see so many children taking advantage of their continually developing writing skills by creating books to submit to the <strong><em>Young Authors</em></strong> competition.  I thank you for supporting your child in this project. As a class we will share our stories and celebrate our accomplishments.

This week we will be working on the following:

LANUAGE ARTS:

We are still reading the realistic novel <em><strong>"Scraps of Time: 1960."</strong></em> I hope the children are sharing this wonderful story set in the 60's in the south with you. They are really into the story of Abby, a grandmother who is relating her experiences in a segregrated community to her grandchildren and other relatives.

I will give a short test to the children based on the story by Wednesday of this week. There will also be a writing activity based on the story.

For our culminating experience based on this story, we will have  book talk about the story in a "sit-in" fashion as was experienced by the characters in the book. We will have strawberry sodas like the favorite treat of the characters as they sat and discussed the peaceful protest movement that was to take place at a drug store in Tennessee in  the sixties.

Math:

We will be moving briskly through the last unit of the first journal. Please continue to support your child in learning the multiplication facts.

This week we will begin Unit 6 in the Everyday Math journal.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

As I mentioned in last week's newsletter the third grade has presented a performance basesd on the history of Chicago for as many years as I have been at Ray!!!!!!!!!!! We will continue this tradition. The third grade class' will work with Ms. Andreas, a.k.a. Mama Andreas, in learning dances that reflect a time period of historical significance to developing Chicago as well as the present.

We will also continue to learn the fifty state locations on a United States map as well as to continue to work in <strong><em>Map Essentials.</em></strong> We will have a test this week on the hemispheres our world is divided into that among many things helps us to find specific locations of areas and regions around the world.

SCIENCE:

We will be learning about earth materials. We will observe, analyze and discuss "mock" rocks. The focus will be on learning about the natural earth materials that make up rocks and add to the natural resources of our envirnoment.

If you have any questions about anything concerning our classroom or your child, please let me know by sending me a note or calling the office. I will return your call as soon as possible.

I thank you as always for being supportive of your child, me and Ray School. We want the best for our children; no questions asked!!!

 

<em><strong>HAVE                  A                 GREAT                   WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</strong></em>