December 9, 2016

Dear Parents,

Today in your child’s Friday folder you will find a permission slip for a field trip that will happen soon after winter break. Our third graders were invited to see, “Singing in the Rain”, by Backstory Theater company at the Broomfield Auditorium. The performance is free, but we are asking for $3 to help cover the cost of the bus in case the weather is bad. If we get good weather, we will walk and you will get your money back. We would love to be able to have all permission slips and money back by next Friday, so that we don’t have to worry about it when we return from break. Thanks for your help with this.

This was another busy week in third grade. We would like to congratulate our Spelling Bee participants, Annie Egy and Kylar Jaramillo. They both did a fantastic job, and we are very proud of them.

We will be finishing up our math unit on Measurement, Time and Graphing next week. I am planning on having the Unit 3 assessment on Thursday. When we return from break we will start Unit 4, Addition and Subtraction of Multidigit Numbers.

In literacy, we are working on reading and writing informational texts. So far, we have read and written about the job of a paleontologist and we are working on learning about winter life in Alaska. After break, we will start working on how to research a favorite topic and write an informational text about that topic.

Don’t forget, our winter class party is Friday MORNING from 9-10. The All-School Sing-along will be from 8:15-9:00.

Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,
Aisha Galt

Friday, December 2nd

Dear Parents,

We had a great week!  Students started writing informational writing pieces about paleontologists during our literacy block and created vocabulary posters.  We are continuing to read in small groups focusing on comprehension and answering questions using evidence from the text. I have all the kids go back and use direct texts to answer questions. This work is also supporting our work with reading and writing informational text.  Please try this at home while reading with your child. Hopefully you and your child are enjoying Reading Plus and i-Ready. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about these programs.  Students should start using their assigned program at least once a week for homework. They should write this time on their reading logs as part of their 100 minutes of weekly at-home reading.  

We are working on telling time to the minute and solving elapsed time problems in math.  Please continue to support your child with telling time.  Elapsed time is a tricky concept and practice is extremely helpful.  Students will continue to complete multiplication and division Math Dash quizzes throughout the school year.  Regular math fact practice should continue to be part of your child’s nightly homework routine. Next week we will begin to create and use graphs to solve problems. 

In science, we started our Matter and Measurement unit.  This is an excellent hands on support to our measurement math unit.

I hope to see you at our winter party on Friday, December 16th from 9:00 to 10:00. Yes, we are trying a morning party this time!  Maybe it will help our students get out some of their winter holiday excitement earlier in the day. More details about our party will be coming from our room mom soon.  The school Sing-A-Long will be in the morning from 8:15 to 9:00.  You are welcome to join us for this activity as well.   

Have a fantastic weekend.

Sincerely,
Aisha Galt