Grade 3

Please remind your child to read at least 15 minutes each night.  Encourage your child to wonder about plot or characters and begin to notice descriptive words.  Thank you again for being such good reading role models for your children.

The third graders have received this week, in social studies class, information regarding their next project- The Biography Report.  As they read about this person’s life, I would like them to answer the following questions:

1. Whom are you reading about?
2. Where did this person spend his/her childhood?
3. What did this person do before he/she became famous?
4. What are this person’s greatest accomplishments?
5. When did this person die? (or what is he/she currently doing?)
6. Share an interesting story about your topic.

I would like the children to answer the questions on a separate piece of paper and, pretending to be the famous person, create a presentation of at least a minute.  Students will dress up and use props to make their presentation come alive.

As noted on the handout, all projects are due April 18th.  The presentations will take place on May 3rd at 2:00 p.m. in the third grade homeroom.  Parents are invited to join us on this day for this spectacular event.

Beginning January 28th, all students need to arrive at school no later than 8:10 am.  The children will be taking the ERBs, a standardized test given to third graders at this time of year.  Thank you in advance for your help with this matter.

This week in math, we will explore subtraction with regrouping.  The children are beginning to work more accurately and confidently to solve problems given in class.  I appreciate your help in studying those pesky math facts.  Flash cards are a great idea to do at home or in the car.  I strongly recommend that practice with these basic tables be done daily.  Your child will be amazed at his/her progress.

The Berkshire Research Projects should be nearly completed at this point.  Dioramas are due November 16th.  This is a good first foray into the area of gathering information and then organizing it to share with classmates.  Thank you for helping your child find a suitable topic, books, and in some instances, for taking your child to visit a Berkshire site.

In language arts we are continuing to work on composition strategies, as well as the grammar-writing connection.  The students will write about what they are thankful for in writing lab this week.  These paragraphs will be sent home next week so that they may be shared at your Thanksgiving celebration.

I enjoyed discussing your wonderful third graders with you at parent conferences.  Please feel free to drop by the homeroom any time you are at school to look at all the fine work your child is completing in class.

In math this week we will begin our unit on multi-digit addition.  Please review the basic math facts at home.  This will increase your child’s confidence and speed, as we continue to work with larger numbers.  While in reading class, we are working to read for detail and to improve our written answers to comprehension questions.  I am looking for capital letters, end marks, and correct spelling.  The children are working very hard and I am pleased with the results.

Our latest character word in writing lab will be “cooperation.”  The children will discuss the meaning of this important word, and their final thoughts on the topic will be displayed in the third grade classroom.  I can see by their actions in class that the students have a good grasp of what this word means, and I am impressed with how they are applying it to their everyday school life.

The various towns that make up Berkshire County are our current topic in Social Studies.  This week the students were given information regarding their first research project of the year- “The Berkshire Research Project.” Students are asked to select and research a person or place associated with Berkshire County.  An instruction sheet complete with questions and checkpoint dates was provided to each student.  If your child has any questions regarding the project, please ask him/her to bring them in to school, as I will save time at the end of each day to discuss how the projects are progressing.