Waters Landing
Elementary
School
Third Grade
May Newsletter
Spring has sprung! Students will have many opportunities to
Ms. Baek, Mr. Bothwell,
Mrs. Mullenholz,
Mrs. Smoot, Mr. Steiner
enjoy the warm weather this month. We’ll start the month off with the
annual Olympic Day on Friday, May 3 (rain date is Monday, May 6). This is a day of physical activities,
games, and challenges designed to show what students have learned in Physical Education class.
Interims will be coming home with students the week of May 13. This is a perfect opportunity to discuss progress with your child and set challenging and achievable goals for the end of the school year.
Dolphinmania is also quickly approaching. This annual WLES family carnival will take place
on Saturday, May 18 from 4 to 7pm. This is a PTA sponsored community building event that offers
fun for the whole family. We hope to see you there!
Lastly, our third grade classrooms would greatly appreciate any donations of tissues boxes,
hand sanitizers, antibacterial liquid soap, and Clorox wipes to keep our classrooms clean. Please feel
free to send these donations with your child to school. Thank you so much in advance!
GO WATERS LANDING DOLPHINS!
Standards Based Grading Reminders
Important Dates
Here is a reminder of our standards based grading rubric:
ES: Exceeds Standard: The student demonstrates an
exceptional understanding of on-grade-level content.
P: Proficient: The student demonstrates proficiency of
the content of processes
I: In Progress: The student is in progress towards
meeting the standard
N: Not Yet: The student is not yet making progress or is
making minimal progress towards meeting the standard.
Students are assessed on two Thinking and Academic
Success Skills (TASS) each quarter. During the fourth
marking period, we will be focusing on the skills of
elaboration (adding details that expand, enrich, or
embellish) and persistence (working diligently and
applying effective strategies to achieve a goal or solve a
problem; continuing in the face of obstacles and
competing pressures).
Date
Friday, May 3
Tuesday, May 7
Event
Olympic Day
Cultural Arts Assembly
Saturday, May 18
Dolphinmania
Thursday, May 23
Volunteer Dinner and
Spring Concert
Monday, May 27
Memorial Day Holiday
(Schools and offices closed)
the month of May, students will be exploring informational texts. We will focus
Reading on topicsForsuch
as sequence of events, cause/effect, key details, main idea, and point of
view. One of the stories we will be reading as a class is an autobiography of the author Eric
Kimmel, whose stories we have been reading over the past month. As always, make sure your
child is reading for at least 20 minutes each night, as this is an important part of the learning
process!
Math
Throughout May, math instruction will focus attention on Measurement and Data, and
Geometry. Students are currently practicing telling and writing time to the nearest minute,
and will soon explore elapsed time. Support your child at home by using analog clocks when
possible and asking questions about how long an activity takes, what time it starts, or when it
will end. Over the next few weeks, we will also investigate liquid volumes and mass for practice with both
measurement and estimation. Finally, we will identify, define, compare, sort, classify, and measure various
geometric shapes.
Social Studies and Science
In Social Studies, students will be able to explain how
producers make choices because of limited natural,
human, and capital resources, and describe steps in the production process that are used to
produce a good. They will also be able to explain the impact of specialization on the production of a
good, how specialized work results in increased production, and describe how changes in
technology have affected the lives of producers. Students will also be able to describe market
situations where buyers and sellers meet to exchange goods and services, and how countries around the world
trade in a global market.
In Science, the students will dig deeper into their understanding of various kinds of natural
resources. They will learn about the life cycle of different resources, materials, and products.
Students will examine the recycling of materials (reduce, reuse, recycle). Students will get the
chance to have some fun while learning about all these different concepts. The children will get to
act as members of the Montgomery County Council and plan how local resources should be used to
meet our needs. They will also get to plan, design, and build a prototype for a dam in Montgomery
County. Finally, the students will learn about the decomposition of organic materials (flowers, leaves, trees, etc…)
and inorganic materials (plastics, metals, glass, etc…), the changes that occur during those processes, and the
impact on our environment. Lots of hands-on activities and projects will be completed to help build student
knowledge in this unit. All in all, May should certainly prove to be a month filled with lots of learning and Science
fun for all the students to enjoy!!!
In May, students will finish drafting their opinion writing piece related to the issue they
Writing
chose to research in April. They will craft a writing piece that includes a claim, reasons to support
their claim, and details that show elaboration. Look for a few of these revised and edited pieces in
our next newsletter! We will end the month by journaling about our experiences in third grade.
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Third Grade