Third Grade Quarter 1 News
We are off to a great year! In an effort to keep you informed with all the
exciting lessons and activities going on in class, we will be sending home a
quarterly newsletter with highlights in each subject area, and important
dates and reminders.
Important Dates
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Back To School Night Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Butler’s Orchard Field Trip Friday September 30, 2011
Parent Teacher conferences the week of November 11- Reminders will
be sent home prior to conferences and conferences are 15 minutes.
Math
Third Grade Math- We will focus on place value and representing numbers
in a variety of ways. Additionally we will review addition and subtraction with
regrouping, rounding, patterns, and graphing and interpreting data. Unit 2
focuses on measurement. Students will convert inches, feet and yards;
measure in inches, centimeters and millimeters; and find the estimated
and exact area and perimeter.
Fourth Grade Math-We will focus on place value and representing numbers
in a variety of ways to the millions. In addition, we will explore geometry and
data analysis, including line plots and graphs. Students are expected to have
memorized their multiplication up to the 10s table, so they should continue
to practice these nightly. Unit 2 focuses on numeric expressions,
multiplication, and division.
Reading
This marking period we will focus on the genre of realistic fiction in reading
groups. We will identify story elements, character traits, mood, and sensory
details. In addition to realistic fiction we will read non-fiction texts
including Time for Kids and National Geographic Explorer. We will identify
text features and how they help a reader, identify the main idea and
supporting details in the text. Since children progress at different rates
and reading ability varies, we will have flexible reading groups within the
homeroom class throughout the school year.
Writing
In writing we are focusing on writing for personal expression. We will focus
on the ideas, word choice, and conventions within the six traits of writing.
Our first writing piece will be about a summer memory. At the end of the
month we will begin to write a creative writing piece based on the book, The
Secret Knowledge of Grown-ups. Our final piece will be a creative adventure
story. We will focus on using sensory details, a variety of juicy words, and
sentence fluency. We will work to build suspense, include plenty of action,
and create an extended story ending. We will also begin paragraph writing
toward the end of the marking period.
Intern
We are very fortunate to have an University of Maryland intern again this
year, Miss Cho, who will be working with Ms. Finn. In the fall she will be
here on Mondays and Wednesdays. She will be here for a full week in
October and November. In mid January, Miss Cho will return and will be at
Westbrook every day until May.
Science
Our first unit is plant growth. We will learn about the parts of a plant, parts
of plants we eat, how seeds travel, and we will plant our very own plants. We
will also learn about the importance of bees and pollination, and the
completion of the plant life cycle.
Social Studies
In social studies our first unit is economics. We will explore natural, capital,
and human resources; as well as geographic characteristics (physical and
human) of our community.
We are very excited to get to know you and your child over the course of
the year.
Miss Bergen, Miss Finn, Miss O’Connell, and Mrs. Tsakos