Welcome back!!  I hope you got to spend some quality time with the family.  We have exactly 51 days left of school (not counting weekends).   It seems like a lot but it will go by quicker than you think, and there is still so much more to accomplish in third grade! For now, here is a look at the month of April.

 

READING   We finished up our nonfiction unit and will start up reading fiction again.  Students will read and analyze characters and determine themes, central messages, lessons, or morals to fictional stories. Students will also be engaged in book clubs.

 

SOCIAL STUDIES We will be continuing our California Native American Tribe research on the Kumeyaay. Students will be working in groups as they do this research on our Kumeyaay Moodle page.

 

MATH This week we will start Unit 5 “Multiply by Multiplies of Ten and Problem Solving” where students will multiply a whole number by multiples of ten by using base ten models, known facts, patterns, and the commutative and associative properties, as well as solve multi-step problems containing all operations by using various strategies.

TIMED MATH FACTS – Students have been doing timed math facts almost daily since the beginning of the year.  Most of the students have completed their addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts up to 12. For this reason, we will only spend about 4 more weeks on these facts.  Those who have not completed these math facts have the next few weeks to study extra hard to complete them.  After that,  we will only be reviewing these facts once every two weeks.  Those who have not completed their math facts by the end of the year will need to practice them on their own.  It is very important that they have these math facts down by the time they go to fourth grade.  The fourth grade teachers expect this.

 

BIOGRAPHY REPORTS – During this week, your child will pick a person in history to do their biography report on which will be done at home for homework.  I will be sending home a packet about this project to include directions, a rubric, due dates for each section of notes, and note taking paper.  They have had plenty of practice taking notes when doing their nonfiction summaries. Their biography research report will be due Friday, April 28.  Your child will be also bringing home a book or two about their person of choice.  Along with these books, your child is to search for more information about their person on the internet.  During the week of May 1 – 5, the students will be dressing up as their person and presenting their reports as if they were their person.  For open house sometime in the middle of May, you will all have the opportunity to visit our class’s “Live Wax Museum” where you will get to learn about people from the past who have made an impact on our lives.  More to come on that later.