Third Grade News

Hello, Third Grade Families!

We hope everyone is having success at using the signupgenius.com to schedule a parent conference. If you are having difficulty, please send an email and we will be happy to help you sign up!  We look forward to meeting with you and sharing your child’s progress in third grade.

We have asked our new member of the third grade team, Sharon Robinson, to tell us a little bit about herself. We are happy to have Sharon as an experienced, qualified teacher contributing her expertise to our third grade community. Ms. Robinson comes to us after teaching at Champlain School and having spent a year teaching in Portugal.  Sharon has been hired to fill the .5 position for Ms. Buley until the end of December. Here is what Sharon has to say:

My name is Sharon Robinson and I am excited to tell you that I will be the long term sub for Ms. Buley in the third grade. I will be working with the students every afternoon and assisting them with their writing, and some science and social studies.  I am already enjoying the opportunity to get to know each of the students and look forward to our studies over the next few months. I hope to meet all of you at the parent conferences coming up in the next few weeks.

Please remember that Friday, November 10th, will be an early dismissal day at Chamberlin for Teacher Inservice. Students will be dismissed at 12:30 on that day.  If you would like your child to have a school bag lunch, they will need to sign up by Tuesday, November 7th.

Third graders have now been introduced to our keyboarding program, “Typing Quest”.  The series of lessons are paced to measure both accuracy and speed, and students are required to achieve prescribed levels of proficiency before moving on to the next level. We also work hard to instill the habit of both hands on the keyboard, and correct placement on the home row.

Math News from Keelin:

During Number Corner, third grade mathematicians have been studying geometry.  Students have learned about the attributes of many shapes such as triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons.  Ask your child to tell you about acute, right, and obtuse angles. Ask- your child to show you the sites on Mrs. Simpson’s blog related to symmetry, angles, and congruent shapes.  

Third grade mathematicians continue to learn strategies for solving multiplication problems.  We are learning to use facts we know to solve facts we don’t know. If I know 10 x 4 = 40, then I can solve     9 x 4 by subtracting one group of 4 from 40.  This week, we have studied doubling.  I can solve 8 x 9 by solving (4x 9) + (4x 9). Students should continue to practice skip counting by numbers two through nine (count by 3’s to 30, 4’s to 40, etc…) at home.  Five minutes of practice each day can make a difference!  

It’s time to begin practicing multiplication facts, too.  Students learned that the x 2 facts are called Doubles. We know that we can solve a number times two by doubling the number (8 x 2 = 8 + 8).  Help your child to learn the Doubles Facts at home by practicing them for a few minutes each day.  

Literacy News from Kathy:

Our third grade readers had some fun this week with seasonal literature. We enjoyed the story Heckedy Peg as a read aloud, and discussed the elements of Halloween that we noticed in our independent reading. How does an author change settings, characters, plot, etc., to turn a story into a Halloween tale? We also read a story called “Pumpkin Faces”, and answered comprehension questions about the text.

We are finishing up our first unit on fiction and “building a reading life”. Students are now reading one more chapter book as an independent assessment task, and we are beginning to prepare for our next unit on nonfiction.  This week we sorted books in our reading library, seeking nonfiction books and making observations about them.  We are noticing differences in the look and organization of fiction vs. nonfiction. We have also started to discuss in what ways an author’s purpose would be different between the two (to inform, educate, share expertise on a topic they would like others to be excited about), and the many types of nonfiction books that we will explore.

Our formal spelling program has begun! Students were introduced to the structure of the program and daily expectations, along with their first list of spelling words.  Third graders will be expected to complete their daily spelling assignments when they arrive at school each morning- this includes sorting the words according to their spelling pattern, writing words in sentences, putting them in alphabetical order, and doing a word shape activity to focus upon the visual aspects of the words.  

After the sadness of Stone Fox, we are enjoying a silly, funny book called The Best/Worst School Year Ever, about a family of very misbehaving children. Whew, good thing we don’t have any Herdman kids at Chamberlin!

We enjoyed a visit from members of the South Burlington Rotary Club on Wednesday. They came to present every third grader with a dictionary, as an annual service project. We are very grateful to them for their generosity!

We continue to work on finishing our personal narratives during writing time.  Because we will be moving on to our next writing unit, some students may find themselves needing to complete their personal narrative as a homework assignment. While students have had adequate time to complete this assignment, some have not done so, and it is important that they understand the need to meet expectations. We hope that you will support your child if they have work to do at home on this assignment.

Science:

Third grade scientists will be joined by educators from VEEP, VT Energy Education Program, in the morning on November 10th. The educators will lead students through hands-on, interactive activities related to our study of magnetism, force, and motion.

Other:

We would appreciate donations of cleaning wipes for our desks. Boxes of tissue are also appreciated.

Also, we would like families to know that students are welcome to bring in ear buds to use with their Chromebooks. In the past, families have purchased ear buds at the Dollar Discount store.  We do have headphones available, but some students prefer using ear buds.  Thanks!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,

Keelin Simpson

Kathy Buley

Sharon Robinson