Hello! What a beautiful Friday and weekend we have coming up!
I feel like it has been a long time since our last newsletter…
Important Dates
April 18 - Wax Museum written speech, Venn diagram, resources, and presentation due – no
costumes or props yet
April 19 – 3rd grade Music Performance – 6:00
April 21 – Wax Museum and Open House – 6:30 to 7:30
WAX MUSEUM and OPEN HOUSE INFORMATION:
For the Wax Museum on Thursday please send your child with any costumes and props to school
on Thursday morning. We will get ready to present to the rest of the school right after lunch
and then do the Wax Museum in the afternoon. Before going home, your child will store any
costumes or props in the MPR so they don’t have to go home on the bus. Please send your child
on his or her own into the MPR around 6:15 that evening to come get ready, and then wait for
your child with the other parents in the cafeteria. We will start lining up in the cafeteria
around 6:25. Your child will be in the Wax Museum from 6:30 until 7:00. After that, we will
head back upstairs as a class to our room where they have some things to show off to you! My
room will be open from 7:00 – 7:30.
Mathematicians: After a long break from math, we have revisited fractions this past week.
While I feel everyone has a much better grasp of fractions now, extra discussions and
scenarios at home would be of great benefit to your student. This does not have to be anything
elaborate. For example today, I announced, “I have given F and Ps (our spring reading
assessment to 8 of you. About what fraction of the class is that?” This turned into a good
some creative problem solving and a good discussion. We also had a good discussion about prime
numbers today. Ask your child what is the only even prime number and why.
Writers: We have been working extremely hard on getting our personal narratives published.
Everyone is to the point where they are illustrating now. I cannot wait for them to be able to
share all of their amazing writing.
Readers: Due to F and Ps needing to be completed and needing to finish our published writing,
we took a break from formal reading lessons this week. However, your student still got in
plenty of free reading (reading any book of choice) and worked on the goal of identifying and
decoding unknown words. There are four strategies we use to decode unknown words:
morphemes, context, schema, and illustrations. Remind your child to employ these strategies at
home as well. We also continued our read-aloud, Ninth Ward.
Wordsmiths: a new WTW pattern began this week. Please ask your child what his or hers is
and ask for an explanation of what the headers mean.
New words: distribute, anxiety, mandatory, evacuation
Scientists: We have begun our space inquiry project! We spent the last week skimming over
some space books in order to generate interest in and questions about various space topics.
Then yesterday your children narrowed their thoughts and ideas and came up with a thick
question to research. They will be researching this project over the next several weeks,
culminating in a presentation for the class. For the most part, this work will all be done here at
school.
Enjoy the weekend!!
Kathryn Flemming