Our Classroom News
Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Rabe
Week of October 26-30
Important Notes and Dates:
Planners and Homework Folders:
Report Cards
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Report cards were sent home Friday.
Please sign the envelope and return ASAP
Thursday, October 29th: Our Carillon Park Field Trip
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Please dress for the weather and wear comfortable shoes. (We will be walking around
outside.)
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Please bring a packed lunch in a bag to throw away during our field trip. Please be sure
your child’s name is on the lunch. Thanks! 
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If you haven’t already, please return permission form and $5.
Friday, October 30th Halloween Parade at 2:00 pm followed by our classroom parties
October 26-November 6th - Scholastic Book Fair
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Our classes get to go on Tuesday during our library time.
The book fair will be open during conferences as well.
November 5 and 6th Parent-Teacher Conferences
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Conference confirmation slips will be sent home this week.
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If you haven’t given us your conference time request forms, please do so ASAP so we
can schedule your conference.
November 2-5: Dads and Donuts
HERE’S A LOOK AT WHAT WE ARE LEARNING:
READING:
Story: This week we will be reading Sarah, Plain and Tall. As homework this week your child
will be expected to reread the chapter we are working on in class at home. There will be a
reading log that all parents must sign in order for your child to receive homework credit. The
students will be learning important vocabulary, reading comprehension skills, as well as writing
in a journal. The journal writing will be from the perspective of Caleb or Anna. The students
will pretend that they are Caleb or Anna and write in a diary daily. It is possible that some of
the written work may come home if your child is unable to complete it in class. All of the work
in for reading comprehension, vocabulary and journal will be for a formal grade. Anna is the
narrator of the book and she is writing from her perspective as a child who has lost her
mother when she gave birth to her baby brother Caleb. Our focus for the chapter book will
be on plot. Where is the setting of the story? Who are the main characters? What
happened first, next, after, last? What was the problem and the solution in the story? As
your child is rereading the chapters at home please ask your child to orally retell the plot to
you to check for understanding. We will have a summative assessment when we are finished
with the chapter book. We will not be reading in our Journey’s book while we are reading the
chapter book.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Realistic Fiction is a fiction story that could really happen in real life, but the characters and
pictures are not real.
LANGUAGE ARTS: We will be wrapping up our unit on nouns. Students have learned about
nouns, common and proper, abstract nouns, pronouns, regular and irregular plural nouns.
Students will be taking a summative assessment over all types of nouns.
Spelling Assessment: This week your child will have a spelling assessment over his/her words
in his/her agenda. The five highlighted words in the agenda will be ones your child should
have memorized because they are the third grade CORE, No Excuse words. Your child will be
bringing home a copy as well for you to look over his/her spelling pattern words. I will be
entering spelling assessments into Progress Book this quarter. Please work with your child
nightly to help him/her learn the spelling pattern. Core words will need to be memorized.
These are the highlighted words in your child’s agenda. All students have a copy of the 3rd
grade No Excuse Core Words in their Writer’s File Folder. Please encourage your child when
writing at home to complete homework or writing for pleasure that your child is practicing
spelling skills they are learning as well Core Words. Students need to capitalize all sentences
and all sentences must end with some kind of punctuation. Please have your child read his/her
writing at home. When read aloud when students naturally take a breath, that signals to them
“Oh I need some kind of punctuation”
Phonics Skills: Each student is now grouped according to his/her Jan Richardson Spelling
Inventory test. What does this mean to you? Your child will have spelling words that match
his/her phonics skill he/she needs more practice within. Please review your child’s agenda for
his/her spelling words. Your child will be taking an assessment next week over his/her spelling
pattern words. Please help your child practice his/her words daily
Grammar Skill: Pronouns
An pronoun is a noun that replaces a noun.
I.E. My mom and dad went to the grocery store.
They went to the grocery store. The pronoun they replaces the nouns mom and dad.
Scoot Pad: There will not be any Scoot Pad assigned this week due to our field trip and
Halloween party.
SOCIAL STUDIES:
Students will review the 3 branches of our government and American Symbols this week. The
students continue learning about local government laws and rules. My Social Studies
classroom will have pay days and taxation laws. The students are learning to accept
responsibility for good behaviors and breaking the “law/rules” in our classroom results in a
fine. Both Mrs. Rabe and my class have had the opportunity to use their fun money to eat
lunch with me in my room last week, pay to bring a stuffed animal to school, and various other
fun things they can spend their money on in class. Students will learn what a citizen is and
what three things make a good citizen. Students will demonstrate how Jimmy Carter and
several other important people have been good citizens and students will write about how
they can be a good citizen. Students will be writing about laws/rules at home, school, and our
community this week.
MATH:
Graphing: We will be reading and creating bar graphs and picture graphs this week.
Looking ahead: Some students are already working on learning multiplication facts. I am
happy to say that we will be starting our official study in a just few weeks.  Multiplication is
always a third grade favorite!
SCIENCE:
Wright Brothers: In preparation for our trip to Carillon Park we will be learning about The
Wright Brothers, some of Dayton’s most famous inventors. When we go to the park we will
learn more about Dayton’s rich invention history. Did you know that the self-starter, the
airplane, and the pop-tab were all invented in Dayton?
We will finish up our study of matter by next week. We are investigating and learning about
states of matter, the water cycle, and physical and chemical changes in matter.