Sunday, September 3, 2017

Week 4 Sept. 4th-8th

Team Urban,

Another fabulous week with amazing kiddos. Here are a few pictures of students showing their thinking of summarizing chapters read through a Flow Map.  This map helps to sequence and retell events.
 


On Friday, our first assessment log went home with the kiddos. Please take a moment to log into Pearson or AR, look over their scores, discuss areas of challenge and areas of success, sign the log and return it on Tuesday. In third grade we try hard to reinforce ownership of our grades and responsibility for learning. One thing you may be asking is "How can I help?" The answer to this is simple.  Log onto Pearson frequently with your child and review their daily quick check scores.  Also, before a Topic Test, have your child review their Topic Pretest. Prior to Topic 1 Posttest, I had one student look over their Topic Pretest beforehand.  As Topic 2 begins on Tuesday, I hope to have more students take ownership of their learning. 


Hope for Houston: As all of us are aware the need in Houston is great. Knowing this, I registered our class to provide support to a classroom in Houston. As you can imagine so did many other teachers, over 17,000 to be exact. However, we have been matched! I am thrilled that we get the opportunity to assist a third grade class in Houston!!! The name of our school is Monahan Elementary, and our class teacher is Mrs. Celines Rivera. Here is a quote from her email: "My schools student population is composed of 70% low income families. I can't explain the amount of damage because we have been unable to access the building due to the high waters. My kiddos will need all the help they can get."
I am asking you to do what you can. Since shipping costs are so high, we will be collecting change, monetary contributions and gift cards for Walmart, Target, and Amazon. Mrs. Rivera can then purchase school supplies and anything her kiddos need. Feel free to share our mission with other friends and families as well.  As of Friday, Mrs. Rivera does not have a start date of school yet due to the damage, so all donations will be mailed to her home in Houston. At this time, I would like Hope for Houston to be our focus for our service project this year. With all of us doing a little, we can make a huge difference! 

Homework begins this week. Each week your kiddo should be reading for a total of at least 80 minutes. As stated at Back-to-School Night, if you want to bank those minutes over the week, please feel free to do so. I understand that weeknights can become hectic and will be looking for four total entries per week on their Reading Log. The other nightly homework will be math fact practice. Please be on the lookout for a half sheet of paper coming home each night.  Time them for a minute and see where they can meet their goal.  The page should be complete upon return to class the next day.
Additionally, each week a writing prompt will be assigned through Google Classroom. Students will need to log into their google classroom account to find the assignment. The first few weeks will require a shorter response, however, in 2nd trimester students will be expected to type a short response following our RACES reading response guidelines being taught in class.

Volunteers: If you signed up to volunteer, please start coming in on your chosen day and time. Thank you so much for sharing your time with our team.

ELA:
Finish reading The Case of the Gasping Garbage  
Begin reading Thunder Cake
Continue discussing how readers understand the characters' motivations and the effects of their actions and how writers write about characters and show the sequence of events in a story.
Conventions: plural nouns, functions of a verb and irregular verbs.  

Writing: narrative 

Math: 
Begin Topic #2 multiplication facts: use patterns

Dates to Remember 
Monday, September 4 - No School - Labor Day
Thursday, September 7 - Picture Day (CSC)
Saturday, September 23 - ILF Golf Tournament

Have a great week Team Urban!