Holiday Celebration

Dear Third Grade Families,

The children were delighted with all of the delicious breakfast foods and crafts that were sent in.  Thank you to families and Room Parents for contributing to our celebration!  We had lots of fun together throughout the day!

 

Remember to read each day throughout the vacation, skip count, and practice the x 2, x 3, and x 4 multiplication facts.  Enjoy a fun and restful holiday with your families!  

Sincerely,
Keelin M. Simpson

Happy Holidays From Room 15

             

Third graders have been busy in Room 15 this December.  We celebrated all of our hard work with some snow mountain time outside!

                

Mathematicians have learned about measuring mass in December.  Students used gram weights on a balance scale to find the mass of objects around the classroom.

The objects in this bag have a mass of 1,000 grams or 1 kilogram!

                       

 Mathematicians earned some Chromebook time for all of their excellent work with measuring!

We spent some time making colorful snowflakes to decorate our classroom today!

Remember to practice the X 2, X 3, and X 4 multiplication facts throughout the vacation.  A  few minutes of practice each day will make a big difference!  Keep skip counting each day, too.  Focus on skip counting by 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's.  

Have a joyful, safe holiday vacation!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Simpson

Room 15 News

 

Third graders are learning about Native Americans that lived in the Northeast Region of the United States.  Students have learned about foods Native Americans ate, the jobs of men and women within tribes, and the homes they lived in. Students are working on creating Google Slideshows to reflect their research and learning.  

Students made wampum necklaces from string, shells, and beads this afternoon.  Native Americans used wampum  as currency, for trade, to tell a story, and as jewelry.

 

 

 

Third grade mathematicians, remember to work towards memorizing the X 2, X 3, and  X 4 facts this weekend.  Practice skip counting; especially by 6's, from 6  - 60.  If you can count forwards by 6's, can you count backwards by 6's?  Challenge yourself! 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Keelin Simpson

It's Time to Learn the X 3 Facts

Dear Third Grade Families,

          An important part of the third grade math program involves memorizing multiplication facts.  Third graders are off to a great start with learning the  facts.  Many students have learned the x 0, x 1, x 2, and x 4 facts already.  Way to go!  

         Practicing multiplication facts at home for five to ten minutes each day is an important part of learning the multiplication facts.  At parent/teacher conference time in November, families brought home skip counting activities and paper board games to help students learn the x 2 (Doubles Facts) and x 4 (Double - Doubles Facts). Please continue to keep up the great practice at home!  A few minutes of practice each day can make a big difference.  

         This week students are challenged to learn the x 3 facts.  Students have learned that the x 3 facts are called Doubles Plus One More Set Facts.  The x 3 facts were given this name because you can use  a Double (x 2 fact ) to solve x 3 fact.  If I know 2 x 8 equals 16, then I know that 3 x 8 is just one more set of 8, and 16 + 8 = 24. 

2 x 8 = 16, so

3 x 8 = 16 + 8 = 24.

3 x 8 = (2 x 8) + (1 x 8)

            Double + One More Set of 8

          Please let me know if you have any questions about the Doubles Plus One More Set multiplication strategy.   It is a different way of learning multiplication facts than the way that many of us learned growing up, but the strategies make sense.  The goal is to use known facts to solve unknown facts.  In this case, we are using our knowledge of Doubles to solve the x 3 facts.

          Please help your child to practice the x 2, x 3, and x 4 facts at home by playing the games that were sent home, building multiplication facts out of blocks or cereal, playing multiplication games online at Mrs. Simpson’s blog, or using flashcards.  The games Multiplication Bump x 3 and Multiples of 3 will be sent home with your child on Monday.  Watch for those games in your child's backpack.  

                                                                   

Sincerely,

Keelin M. Simpson

Mrs. Simpson’s Third Grade Blog

Dear Third Grade Families,

        In order to communicate with you throughout the school year, I will post announcements and updates on our “classroom blog.” Rather than send you a paper newsletter, I will post periodic classroom updates on our blog. This way, you can stay up-to-date with the learning that goes on in room 15!

        You can view the blog at any time through Chamberlin’s webpage, but you must subscribe to the blog in order to receive email updates. There will be some great features, such as sharing pictures, events, and websites. Plus, it’s convenient! The blog posts will be sent directly to your email.

        I hope you join our blog!

Here is how to view the blog and subscribe:

1.    Visit the Chamberlin School webpage: (http://chamberlin.sf.sbschools.net/)

2.   Click on Our Classrooms  (along the side menu on the main page)

3.   Next click on Mrs. Simpson. You will arrive at my blog!

4.   To subscribe, please enter your preferred email address in the box on the right where it says “Subscribe to Mrs. Simpson’s Blog.”

5.   After you have entered your email, click “submit.”

6. An email will be sent to you asking you to confirm your subscription. Your subscription will not go through unless you confirm this email!!

Thank you for joining! J

Third Grade News

Hello, Third Grade Families!

To begin this week, we would like to share a few business items:

1.    Next Friday, December 8th, is an early dismissal day. PLEASE remember to discuss with your child if s/he needs to order a school bag lunch, as orders need to be placed by Tuesday of next week. Your child is bringing home an order form today. The kitchen cannot guarantee student lunches without prior orders.  We appreciate your attention to this!  Students will be dismissed at 12:30 pm on the 8th.  

2.    The last day of school before the winter break will be on Friday, December 22nd.  On that day, we will take some time to celebrate December holidays and traditions.  We will also watch a movie that is a sequel to a readaloud we have been enjoying during literacy.  The book we are reading in called “The Best/Worst School Year Ever”. The movie we will watch has all of the same characters in a school holiday play, and is called “The Best/Worst Christmas Pageant Ever”. We look forward to seeing those wild Herdman kids in a new adventure!

3.    Winter is here! Please send your child with appropriate outerwear to be warm and comfortable for a twenty minute recess period. Please be advised that snowpants, as we tell the children, provide protection from the wet and cold as well as the snow. Please write your child’s name in his/her clothing help that clothing makes it back to its correct home!

4.    Please remember to return SaveAround coupon books.  If you do not plan to purchase the book, it needs to be returned to school. If you are purchasing the book, please return the envelope with a check. Thank you!

5.  We are sending the optional December homework packet for those families who enjoy having some at home work time.  These do not need to be returned to school.  Daily reading and number fact practice are required expectations for homework.

We had a wonderful time at the Flynn performance of Jazzy Ash and the Leaping Lizards this week. It was a lively, interactive presentation of American music, with a focus on New Orleans jazz.  We certainly saw the musical side of many of our students as they joined in the fun! You can find some of their music online and on Youtube.      

In literacy this week, we have been focusing upon how readers approach nonfiction text.  We have learned that we need to build our expectations by asking “what will this mostly be about?”, and thinking of what we might learn.  We then need to recall any prior knowledge we have about the text in order to deepen our understanding. If we have no prior knowledge, we need to prepare ourselves for some unfamiliar vocabulary, and be ready to re-read. We also learned that we can use our hand to help us organize chunks of text, stopping to ask “what is the main idea of this part?’ on our palm, and then using our fingers to think of supporting details. When we use our notebooks, we are calling this process “boxes and bullets”.  Please encourage your child to stop and discuss their nonfiction reading with you at home, using their palm and fingers to highlight the main idea and details.  Today, students will bring home reading logs to record their daily reading. Logs are useful for students to track their progress, and to set new reading goals (number of pages read, genres of books being read, etc.).

Third grade mathematicians have started a unit of study about addition, subtraction, and multi-step problem solving.  We continue to work towards memorizing the multiplication facts each day. Please make sure that your child is practicing the Doubles (x 2 facts) and Double-Doubles (x 4 facts) at home.  Students should continue to practice skip counting by numbers 2 - 9  (count by 3’s to 30, 8’s to 80, 9’s to 90, etc…).    

We are in need of cleaning wipes for our classrooms.  If you have a package to spare, please send them in.  

Sincerely,

Kathy Buley

Keelin Simpson

Sharon Robinson