Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope you had a wonderful spring break. I am having my floors refinished and therefore my break was spent running away from the dust and fumes. I did however enjoy my time off.

We are headed toward the end of the year. This is the last marking period and we will be going full steam ahead to cover as much as we can. We are preparing for the third grade "Chicago" play to be performed in May. I will keep you informed about the play.

This week we will be working on the following:

LANGUAGE ARTS:

We have finished <em>Scraps of Time.</em> We took a test on the book before we left. We also had delicious strawberry milk shakes made with fresh strawberries. This was the favorite treat of the two main characters in the story. The children said this was one of the best books they have ever read. I hope you will continue to read and discuss this story with your child.

We will be reading a story in our OpenCourt readers entitled <em>Through Grandpa's Eyes</em>. This realistic fiction story shares the experiences of a grandfather, who happens to be blind, with his grandson. When we have completed reading this story, we will conduct an experiment called the "Blindfold" experiment. This experiment will be conducted at home. I will send home a detailed procedure sheet when we begin.

We will have spelling words from the story. The words focus on the long a sound. The words are:

<em>flame  blaze  spade  fail  mail  stain  play  away  plate  raise  clay  rain  awake  face  chain</em>

We will also review long and short vowels, compound words and homophones.

<em>SCRAPS OF TIME</em> MEMORY BOXES:

Based on the story <em>Scraps of Time </em>we will make memory boxes or diaromas. I discussed this in my last newsletter. The children along with you were to look for things that hold a special meaning to you or them. This visual memory box will be made at home as a parent/child art project. Please look around the house and give your child something you would like them to remember and something they would like to share with their child/ren. I have asked that they have collected items by the end of this week so the boxes can be worked on over this weekend. The boxes will be due on Friday, April 24th. The children have been told they can use a shoe box or any size box they feel will be substantial enough to hold their memories.  The boxes can be made using various scraps of materials, thus the name<em> Scraps of Time</em> , to decorate the boxes. The boxes should be decorated outside and inside and should reflect the overall feeling or story the children want to convey. I will send an outline of this project home by Wednesday of this week.

MATH:

We will be working in Everyday Math journal 2. We will also review geometric concepts in Unit 6 of the last journal.

This week we will learn about multiplication and division patterns and continue to practice multiplication facts. We will also be introduced to parentheses in number models. The lessons will include Lessons 7.1- 7.3.

Homework will include but not be limited to:

Math boxesand Home Links from Unit 6,  Math Boxes and Home Links 7.1- 7.3,

SOCIAL STUDIES:

We will learning more about Illinois and Chicago. I will pull various information from sources to support the brief study of our great city.

We will learn where the last ten states are of the U.S. We will also learn about landforms in our Map Essentials book.

SCIENCE:

We will have science and begin our exploration of earth materials this week.

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