Third Grade


Ms. Kelly Patten	Ms. Susan Zacks	Ms. Patti Bray

Pumpkin Characters
Students in Ms. Bray's class selected a character from a book they read during the month of October. Students decorated a pumpkin to represent that character and gave a character trait with examples from the story to support that character trait.

Math
We will begin the third unit in our math curriculum in early December. In this unit, students will:

develop, use, and explain strategies to multiply and divide, multiplication and division facts.
write a story problem that models a mathematical expression
demonstrate mastery of multiplication facts for 0,1,2,5, and 10.
write a mathematical expression that models a story problem.
model and explain division in a variety of ways, including repeated subtraction, rectangular arrays, and by its inverse relationship to multiplication.
model and explain multiplication in a variety of ways, including rectangular arrays and skip counting.
explain and apply the concept of inverse operation as it relates to multiplication and division.

We would love your support at home! Please help your child learn his/her basic multiplication facts. The ones your child will be tested on are the multiplication facts involving 0, 1, 2, 5, 10. We will be working hard in class and we are confident in each child’s success!

Here are some fun math websites to checkout.

Gamequarium
Funbrain
Apples 4 the Teacher
Fact Monster

Reading
In December, students will be completing reading to inform and reading to perform a task. The students will be following simple oral and written instructions and describing the importance of specific steps in a set of directions. Students will also be able to identify characteristics of procedural texts. We will be making fun and exciting crafts and food!

We are continuing to read informational/non-fiction texts in class. The students are using many strategies when reading these texts (making connections, making inferences, asking questions, visualizing). Please encourage your child to read non-fiction at home and work together on using these strategies together!

Writing
The writing emphasis during this time of the year will continue to be writing to inform. Students are researching animals and are using the internet, articles, and books to find the answers to questions they have about their topic. We are using graphic organizers to help us prepare for writing and we are excited to work on developing paragraphs with a lead sentence, a main idea, and several supporting details. Student writing is evaluated using the following writing traits:

Ideas and Development
Organization
Conventions (language mechanics)
Sentence Fluency

Spelling
We would appreciate parental checking to make sure that the spelling strategies are being completed. The spelling homework is due every other Friday. Thanks!

Science
We have just concluded our Plant Growth & Development unit. Students studied the structure of a seed, planted seeds and observed, recorded and discussed the developmental stages of the Wisconsin Fast Plant. Our study included the relationship between bees and plant growth and development, and was highlighted at the end by our examining dried bees and using them to pollinate flowers! Science is a hands-on discipline, and it was clear that every third grader really enjoyed and got a lot out of the unit!

We will begin the Crime Lab Chemistry and Fingerprinting unit in December.
Students will learn to classify the patterns found in fingerprints. They will also use the techniques in fingerprinting and chromatography to gather evidence. Later in the unit, students will use their skills to solve a crime using paper chromatography techniques.

Social Studies
In Social Studies the students were recently introduced to the Junior Achievement volunteers and have been learning about city zones and maps. In our next unit, students will define characteristics of rural, suburban, and urban. Students will define changes in transportation systems through history and how those changes affected settlement patterns.

At the beginning of each class we have a short discussion about current events that are happening locally, nationally, and internationally. Please encourage your child to pay attention to any interesting news, and try to start current event conversations at home!

Other Important Information
Thanks again for all our helpful classroom volunteers. You make a tremendous difference in the education of all of our children.

We sincerely enjoyed meeting with all of you at conferences. Thank you so much for your continued support. We feel confident about this year and love working with your children!

We wish each of your families a happy, safe, and relaxing winter break. We will be in school on Monday and Tuesday, December 22 and 23. There is no school Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (December 24, 25, 26). We will see your students back at school on January 5th!

Learning Skills and Behaviors
We will be sending home a progress report once a quarter that will outline how your child is currently performing on their learning skills. Those skills include: returning completed homework, completing class work, participating in learning tasks, using feedback to improve learning, cooperating with others, following oral and written directions, and exercising self control.

Field Trips
We had a wonderful time on our field trip to Butler’s Orchard. Thank you to all of the parents who came along on the trip! Stay tuned to find out about the next fun field trip we will take this year!

Birthdays
We honor our December birthdays: Taehong (December 2), Nicole F. (December 7), Kevin (December 14), Fatou (December 15)

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The third grade team would love to receive your email. If you have questions or concerns about your child and would prefer to correspond electronically, please email:

Ms. Kelly Patten

Ms. Susan Zacks

Ms. Patti Bray