Dear Parents/Guardians,

Hope you had a great weekend. I don't remember mine, it went so fast! Just a reminder, there will be no school on Friday, October 23, 2009 due to Staff Development. 

I should have the bottom portion of all mid-terms by now. This tells me you have received your child's Progress Report. If you'd like to arrange for a conference, please write a note in your child's assignment book, or email me at pjjack@cps.edu .

I will be working on my blog to keep you as informed as possible. I am working on creating an event calender. This calender will allow me to update information as it happens!!!! Hopefully!!!!!!!!

We will be working on the following this week in class:

LANGUAGE ARTS:

We will begin reading the next selection, "The Treehouse." The comprehension skill will focus on comparing and contrasting things. We will also practice writing brief summaries.

We will take a test on Ramona, The Pest on Friday. This will give the children enough time to review. All that is necessary is for the children to review chapters 3-8. We really enjoyed reading this book together and learned a lot.

Spelling: Short "i" spelling pattern

pick  risk  film  grip  brick  give  stitch finish trick  live  window  visit  lift  with  into

Homework: Write a sentence for each (15) spelling words.

Grammar: Verbs

We will learn more about verbs.

Writing:

We are working on sustaining our writing for at least thirty minutes or more. We  will start with fifteen minutes and work to increase our writing focus. As you know, third grade is a benchmark year and writing is a part of the ISAT testing format. Third graders should be working on adding more details to their writing. They should also be paying attention to spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and focus. A lot huh!!!! Any writing that your child does at home or in school should be reviewed by you to support our work in class.

One writing assignment this week will be to write a Dear Ms. Jack letter in which the student tells why they liked/disliked Ramona The Pest. They should include a few details from the book to support their answer as well as make a connection/s to their lives that remind them of the story. They will also make a recommendation to someone else about the book.

MATH:

We will review for Unit One test on Wednesday. On Tuesday we will be taking the first Chicago Benchmark Assessment. This is not an assessment that will determine a child's grade. It is a way for the school to know where the student's strength's and areas of weakness are. We will begin Unit Two on Monday. This unit will focus on multiplication as well as division. We will be working on gaining speed with basic subtraction facts as well as multiplication and division. I find that the children have more trouble with remembering their subtraction facts as opposed to the multiplication facts. We will learn all of them!!!!!!!

I will send home copies of basic subtraction facts. I always tell the children to think about what number you must add to the bottom number in order to get the top number. For example: What number do  you add to nine in order to get seventeen?

Homework: Home Link 1.13, 2.1, 2.2. Review for Unit One Test. Any additional homework will be included in the assignment books for that day.

Science:

This week we will learn about surface tension as well as learn how water moves at different speeds depending on how far down it has to travel.

 

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