Dear Third Grade Families,

                Welcome to third grade! I am looking forward to an exciting year of fun and learning! 

                Our curriculum is based on the philosophy that children grow and develop at individual rates and that they learn best when they are actively engaged through a careful balance of whole group, small group, and independent learning opportunities. Themes will be developed across subject areas to encompass all modes of learning.

                I feel that cooperation and communication between us is important throughout the school year.  Remember that you are your child’s first and most important teacher.  I hope you will be a partner in your child’s education.  I respect your knowledge of your child’s temperament and personality.  You know them best!  We can work together to make third grade a successful, happy year for your child. 

                As the year progresses, let me know about any changes or information that you feel is important in your child’s life that may be affecting his or her school day.  Please do not hesitate to call if you have questions or concerns, or if you’d like to set up a conference. 

                I hope the information in this letter will help to make a smooth transition back to school!  If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to call or email me. 

                                                                                                                Keelin M. Simpson

                                                                                                               

652-7415

                                                                                                                kmcgrath@sbschools.net

Outdoor Play/ Recess: Part of our daily schedule is 20 minutes of recess outside.  Please make sure to send your child with appropriate clothing for the weather, especially as the weather gets cooler in the fall and winter.  Please write your child’s name in his/her outdoor gear (coats, hats, gloves, snow pants, etc…). Some children choose to leave a pair of sneakers at school during the winter and spring months, wearing their boots to and from school.  There will not be extra winter clothing in the office this year, so please help your child remember everything they need.  If you wish to leave extra winter items in the classroom, feel free. 

Homework: Homework will consist of reading for 20- 30 minutes and regular weekly math activities that review what we have worked on in the classroom. Students will practice spelling words at home, too. Each week I will send home a packet of homework on Monday, and it will be due back on Friday.  I do understand that issues come up and nighttimes are very busy.  Please send a note if you need extra time for homework or have any other concerns about that night’s homework.  Home folders will go home on Mondays with the homework and come back on Fridays with the completed homework.  They will go home on Friday nights with work from the week and notices. Please help your child to remember his/her home folder on Mondays and Fridays. 

Book Orders: Book orders will be sent home monthly throughout the year.  If you choose to order books, please be sure to send a check, written to Scholastic Book Clubs.  No cash please. I will also send home a code that will enable you to place your order from your home computer.

Snack: We will have a 10-15 minute snack time early each morning.  Please make sure to send in a piece of fruit or another healthy snack for your child to enjoy at snack time.   

Birthdays: There are new school guidelines about food that is permitted to be brought into school. See your Family Handbook for more details.  If your child would like to bring something to share at school on his/her birthday, instead of sending in food, consider sending in pencils or stickers for your child to hand out to his/her classmates.

Integrated Arts Times

Monday – 12:15 PM   P.E.

Tuesday – 12:15 PM   ART

Wednesday – 12:15 PM  MUSIC

Thursday – 12:15 PM  P.E.  and   12:45 PM  MUSIC

Friday – 12:15 PM Media Center

Recess and Lunch Times

11:25 – LUNCH

11:50 - RECESS

*** Please be sure to send sneakers with your child on P.E. days, and return library books on Fridays. ***

Third Grade News

Dear Third Grade Families,

Time surely has flown!  I have enjoyed working with this amazing group of students over the past year (or two for many students).  They have grown so much, and I am so proud of them!

We wrapped up the school year with a study of area and perimeter.  We used tiles and linear pieces to build models which enhanced our understanding of these challenging math concepts.

Third grade readers read many different fairy tales and studied fairy tale motifs.  We read several different versions of Cinderella from the classic tale to Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, The Rough Faced Girl, and Cinderella Skeleton.  

I wish you all a wonderful summer, and I hope you will stop by and keep me updated on all of the wonderful things your children are doing in the years to come.  Thank you for sharing your children with me.  It has been my privilege to teach and learn from them this year!

Third Grade News

Dear Third Grade Families,

We had a fabulous week in Room 15!

The SBAC testing is complete.  Yahoo!  Thanks to family members for contributing gum and Life Savers for testing time.

We enjoyed the Fun Run despite the rain.  I was proud of our class for running, walking, and singing along to the music.  Thanks for all who were able to get away from work to cheer the children on!

On Tuesday, May 17,  a Vermont author, Tracey Campbell Pearson, will be visiting Chamberlin School to speak with children about the writing process. If  your child would like to purchase a book and have it signed by the author, please return the form that was sent home today by May 17th. 

I will continue to send home a reading log for homework on Mondays throughout the rest of the school year.  It's so important for the children to read each day to develop a love of reading and increase their skills as readers.  Please encourage your child to complete the reading homework and return his/her reading log each Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Keelin M. Simpson

Third Grade News

Dear Third Grade Families, 

We had a fabulous Friday!  We began the day with a surprise breakfast of bagels and cream cheese and a special math project to celebrate all of our hard work on learning the multiplication facts.  I am very proud of our class for all of the effort and practice time they have devoted to memorizing the facts.  Way to go, third graders!

Chamberlin students filled the Bee Hive again by being safe, responsible, and respectful.  We celebrated with ice cream and extra recess at the end of the day!

Miss Lizzie came to our classroom from the Farm to School program this month.  Our class made pesto from fresh cilantro. We ate it with crackers.  It was delicious!  

Remember that we have SBAC testing in mathematics and language arts during the first two weeks of May. Students will only have reading homework during those weeks so that they can get plenty of sleep at night and have some extra time to play outside after testing during the day at school.  

Thank you to families for all you've sent in this week - bagels, zip lock bags, and cleaning wipes!  We are still in need of gum and Life Savers for students to share during our testing sessions. Your help with this would be appreciated.  Thanks!

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Keelin M. Simpson

Third Grade News

Dear Third Grade Families,

I hope that everyone enjoyed some fun family time during the April vacation.  We surely had some wonderful, sunny weather!  We will be very busy in Room 15 this week and throughout the month of May.  Here's some information about what's happening in Third Grade.

Third graders have been preparing for the SBAC assessments of math and language arts by taking practice tests intended to introduce them to the tools and style of the tests. Students will complete the actual SBAC assessments during the first two weeks of May.  The assessments will be spread out over two weeks so that there is not too much time spent on testing during any one day. 

Some families have asked how they can help prepare their child for the SBAC testing.  The best way for you to help your child to be successful during the testing sessions is to make sure that your student reads and talks about their reading each day, gets a good night’s sleep, and eats a healthy breakfast.  We stress that we simply want students to “do their best”. This means that while we want them to work carefully and give the tests their full attention, we also do not want them to be overly stressed by it. Any conversations you can have to that end are appreciated.  I will be giving students a piece of gum and a couple of Life Savers to have during the testing sessions. If you'd like to contribute packs of gum or Life Savers for the class to share during the testing sessions, please send them in this week.  Thanks!

Homework will be minimal during the SBAC testing window (the first two weeks of May).  Children will be asked to read and return their reading logs. After testing during the day, it's important for students to have plenty of time to run around outside and play.  J

In literacy, we continue to develop our comprehension of complex texts. Our focus has been on understanding how a character changes across a story, and how readers track those changes.  In Because of Winn Dixie, we are seeing that the main character, Opal, continues to act in ways that help to define her character by creating patterns of behavior within the book.  We are also looking at character development in the chapter books we are reading independently, as well as working on other important story elements. 

In writing, we are coming to the end of our unit on persuasive writing. We are increasing our skills at building an argument, taking the important reasons that support our position, and then adding more and more relevant details to each reason. This also has led us to the creation of multi-paragraph pieces of writing.  In doing so, we pay attention to important skills in the mechanics of writing- indenting, proper punctuation, topic and concluding sentences, and spelling.  Students are building their collection of “google docs”, which is where they utilize their growing keyboarding skills to write final drafts on their Chromebooks.

Third grade mathematicians have been exploring the concepts of multiplication and division more deeply, and seeing the relationships between the two.  We have been looking at understanding division as an inverse operation to multiplication, and seeing the relationships in fact families. We have also been working on story problems involving multi-steps, and focusing on using multiplication and division to solve them.  

I am very proud of the students of Room 15 for how hard they have worked on learning the multiplication tables!  Keep reviewing and practicing the facts with your student at home to help him/her become even more fluent.  Play multiplication games on Mrs. Simpson's blog.  Play Multiplication War with a deck of cards at home.  Split the deck in half.  Aces are 1's, Jacks are 10's, Queens are 11's, and Kings are 12's. Remove the Jokers or make them worth a number of your choice (25 for a challenge). Each player flips over a card. The person with the highest number multiplies the cards and states the product. "11 times 8 equals 88."  He keeps the cards in a pile to use when he runs out of cards. The person with no cards left in the end loses the game.  

We have finished our study of  force and motion.  Students have had fun conducting a variety of experiments to learn about force, motion, friction, and gravity.  This week we will be learning about wind and clouds as part of our study of climate and weather.  We have a wonderful class of scientists in Room 15!

We are in need of Clorox cleaning wipes and large and small zip lock plastic bags.  If you have a package to spare, they would be appreciated.  Thank you!  

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Keelin  M. Simpson

Third Grade News

Dear Third Grade Families,

We have had a great month in third grade.  The spring concert was terrific, and I'm happy to see that the children are starting to get rid of their colds and feel healthy again! One day, there were seven students absent due to illness!  We missed our friends!

Third grade scientists are having fun studying weather and climate.  We are working on learning related to the following science standards:

-Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season. -Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions of the world. -Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard.*

We have learned about air and the layers of Earth's atmosphere.  Students have enjoyed taking part in experiments to learn that air has weight and that hot air is lighter than cold air.  Third graders learned that we can measure air temperature with thermometers, and we made a  thermometer.  We are currently learning about wind and its relationship to weather.  Students will work to finish making their anemometers to study wind this week.

Third graders have done an amazing job of learning the multiplication facts.  We are in the home stretch now.  Hooray!  We have learned the x 0, x 1, x 2, x 3, x 4, x 5, x 6, x 7, x 8, and x 10 facts.  WOW! All that is left to learn is a single x 9 fact (9 x 9 = 81)!!!  The x 9 facts are called Tens Minus One Set Facts because you can use a known x 10 fact to help you solve an unknown x 9 fact. Here's how the strategy works.

Tens Minus One Set Facts

What is the product of 9 x 9?

Step 1:  I  know that 10 x 9 equals 90.  However,  I don't need 10 groups of 9.
Step 2:  I only need 9 groups of 9, so I'll subtract one set of  9 from 90.   90 - 9 = 81.  
             9 x 9 = 81.


Another example:                            What is the product of 9 x 8?

Step 1:  I know that 10 groups of 8 = 80.  However, I don't need 10 groups of 8.
Step 2:  I only need 9 groups of 8, so I'll subtract one set of 8 from 80.  80 - 8 = 72.
             9 x 8 = 72

Please continue to encourage your child to practice for five to ten minutes each day.  Review the multiplication facts they know and focus on the x 9 facts this week. You are doing a great job of supporting your students at home.  Keep up the great work!

Third graders have started taking practice tests in mathematics and reading in preparation for the SBAC assessments that they will take in April.  The SBAC assessments are taken on a computer. Students will be given paper and pencil to work out problems and jot notes, but answers to items will be entered into our Chromebooks.  Children took a practice test on Chromebooks last week. They were able to try out the computer tools that will be available to them during the testing (highlighting, flagging a problem to go back to later, striking lines through the items you know are not the answer to make the answer choices you're considering stand out, and selecting a word to be read or defined). Students were allowed to talk to each other and to their teachers to have support with understanding and solving tasks during the practice sessions.  They did a great job!

Dates to Remember

Friday, April 1, is Popcorn Friday.  Students should bring in 50 cents, if they'd like to purchase popcorn for snack.

Family Math Night is on April 4th. Watch for more information to be sent home on this event.

Parent teacher conferences are on April 7th and 8th.  Please sign up at www.PickATime.com.  If you need assistance signing up, please contact Rose at 652-7400, and she will be happy to help you.  If you don't see an available time that will work for your schedule, please contact me to schedule a conference at a different time.

Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Keelin M. Simpson

Third Grade News

Dear Third Grade Families,

We are having a great month of fun and learning in Room 15!  We welcomed a new student into our classroom this week, we earned an extra outside break time by being such amazing students, and Pajama Day and Popcorn Friday were a lot of fun!

Room 15 is full of awesome mathematicians!  Students have done an amazing job of learning the multiplication facts from the Zero Facts through the x 7 Facts. When we look at the multiplication table below, we can see that we have only THREE facts left to learn (8 x  8, 8 x 9, and 9 x 9)!!! We are so excited to be in the home stretch!  

We call the x 8 facts "Double-Double-Doubles" because they can be solved with the strategy below. This strategy involves using a known fact to solve an unknown fact and doubling numbers.

What is the product of 8 x 9?

I know 8 x 9 can mean 8 groups of 9  (9 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 +  9 + 9 ).

Double Once:                             2 x 9 = 9 + 9  = 18        Start with the product of  2 nines.

Double a Second Time:             4 x 9 = 18 + 18  = 36    If 2 nines = 18, then 4 nines = 18 + 18.

Double a Third Time:                8 x 9 = 36 + 36  = 72    If 4 nines = 36, then 8 nines = 36 + 36.

                                                   So...  8 x 9 = 72.             

Third graders have shared that they are practicing with flashcards at home, family members are quizzing them, they are playing the multiplication board games sent home, and they are using multiplication games from my blog, or practicing at www.ixl.com.  Thanks for supporting your student with practice at home.  Five to ten minutes of practice each day makes a big difference. Keep up the great effort, Room 15 families!  You are doing a great job!

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences will be held on Thursday, April 7, and Friday, April 8. These are half days of school for students.  Your child will be bringing home your PickATime pin number on Monday.  It will be stapled to the front of his/her homework packet.  You can schedule your conference at www.pickatime.com. If you need help with the website, please call Rose, 652-7400. She will be happy to help you.  If you cannot attend a conference at any of the listed times, please call or email me, and we can find a different time to meet.  Thanks!   

Reminders

• The Invention Convention is on Monday, March 14, from 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM and 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM.  
• Wednesday, March 16, is a half day of school for students.  There will be early dismissal  at 11:30 AM for staff in-service.  
• The Chamberlin Spring Concert is on Tuesday, March 22nd.  Third graders should arrive at 6:15 PM and go to the music room.   Please do not go to the music room early because there will not be adult supervision before 6:15 PM.  

Have a great weekend!

Keelin M. Simpson

kmcgrath@sbschools.net