Dear Parents and Guardians,

We are fast approaching winter break and everyone is in the can't wait mode! The children are excited, but we will continue to focus on the curriculum.

This week we will work on the following:

LANGUAGE ARTS:

We will take the comprehension test on the selection, <em>Teammates. </em>We will begin to focus on nonfiction text. We will read <em>Urban Roost</em> in OpenCourt. This nonfiction selection explores the different habitats of birds living in the cities.

We continue to read mysteries and play detectives. Mysteries are good ways for students to practice comprehension skills such as predicting, summarizing, visualizing and questioning.

I will send home the accerlerated point goal contract I gave the children last week. This contract says the children will try to reach a point goal based on the STAR Diagnostic Assessment given at the beginning of the year. As I mentioned in last week's newsletter, if the point goal is too high, we can change it. The point is to encourage the children to read books on a regular basis, and then to take the AR test on the computer for which they receive points based on the reading level of the book read. I hope you find the link to the accelerated reading list helpful. It was posted at the end of last week's newsletter.

WRITING:

The focus will be on expository writing. Expository writing deals with explaining how to do things such as the steps needed to clean a fish tank. Expository writing deals with factual information and therefore reading nonfiction material at this time will provide opportunities to practice writing expository text. I will ask the children to write on specific topics for homework. Please encourage your child to write their assignment, proofread for errors, and then share their writing with youl. Emphasize should be on writing a topic sentence that tells what the paragraph or paper is about, adding supporting details that support the topic sentence and the closing that sums up the paper. Many of the children want to write as little as possible, however in third grade they are being asked to provide more details in their writing.  Please sign any writing assignments the children do for homework. Hopefully, this will encourage the children to do their best! Expository writing will be on the ISAT test to be given sometime in March.

GRAMMAR:

Writing paragraphs and main Ideas and supporting details will be covered in our Language Arts Today Books.

MATH:

We will continue to practice multiplication facts. I will give speed test. The goal is for each student to complete 100 basic multiplication facts in 5 minutes are less. I hope you were able to copy the practice  test I sent home. The more the children practice, the faster they will get. I will also ask the children to write their tables for homework. Generally, I tell the children if they know for example all their three tables, (3 x1-3 x12), they shouldn't write their three's for homework. They should go on to write their four tables or whatever tables they don't know. Flash cards are also very helpful in learning these facts. These can be made with index cards or they can be purchased at a dollar store.

We will continue to explore perimeters and area in Unit Three.

HOMEWORK:

Home Link 3.6, Home Link 3.7, Home Link 3.8, Home Link 3.9

SOCIAL STUDIES:

We will write responses in our Student Response journals related to Activity Three in Map Essentials. This activity focused on cardinal directions, (North, South, East and West), and intermediate directions, (Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest). Finding the answers in nonfiction text is a skill that is new to third graders but a skill that will be used from this grade on.

SCIENCE:

We will learn about condensation in our water unit.

ART:

We will make mask and will then write the steps that were taken to make the mask.

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