Friday, September 1st, 2017

QUICK REMINDERS:

1. NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4th - LABOR DAY

2. Individual Picture Day-Thursday, September 7th  Don’t forget to turn in your order form, if you would like pictures.

Dear Parents,

We completed our second full week of third grade! Your children worked hard and did a great job keeping up with the new expectations. Here is a recap of our week and a look at what is coming up in our classroom.

Thank you to those of you who have had a chance to pay our $8 third grade fee.  This money is used for project supplies and supplemental reading materials.  If you have not had a chance to turn this money in, please send it to school with your child as soon as possible.  You can also drop it off at the front office.  Thank you!

We are excited to have a Chromebook cart for the third grade this year!  We should have a Chromebook for each third grader in the next month or so, thanks to our generous PTA! Chromebooks greatly improve our access to technology and ability to have all students use computers as learning tool on a regular basis.  Students are encouraged to bring a pair of earbuds or earphones to school.  They will keep them in their desk for the school year. We have earphones available for those who do not bring their own to school.

Literacy:

Next week, we will start Dictado. This sentence dictation activity is one element of our spelling and writing instruction.  The weekly Dictado sentence will contain some words from the BVSD 3rd grade Must Write word list. The list contains 100 words third graders must master by the end of the year. I put a link on my website with all 100 words so you can help your child practice these words at home. https://docs.google.com/a/bvsd.org/file/d/0B539GG5UwPlvSTU3ck45bEgzTlk/edit

Next week, we will continue to review sentence and basic paragraph structure.  We will use these tools to begin writing small moment personal narratives.  Please ask your child to tell you short stories about their day to strengthen their storytelling experiences.

Math:

We started our first math unit on Multiplication and Division. Please review multiplication/division of 5s (0-10) with your child and discuss talk with your child about when you use multiplication in your daily life. For example, at the store you might talk about calculating the cost buying multiples of one item: buying 4 boxes of cereal that each cost $5.

Your child has a study sheet from their math book in their homework folder. This sheet has both multiplication and division facts for 5s, 2s, 10s and 9s. Please help your child practice this for at least 5 minutes per day.

Social Studies:

This week we started our first unit in Social Studies, Our Diverse Community. We worked on understanding how communities are similar and different around the world and the things communities share- people, language, culture, food, holidays or special events. As the unit develops we will also be studying about our local government and how it works.

Homework Ideas:

• Online math fact practice: https://www.factmonster.com/math/flashcards
• Talk about special events in your day/week/life. Use many details that can help your child when they have to write about small moments in their lives.

Enjoy the long weekend!  

Sincerely,

Aisha Galt

Friday, August 25, 2017

Dear Parents,

Thank you so much for coming out on Tuesday night for our Back to School night presentation. It was great to meet so many of you. If you were not able to attend, your child should have brought you my back to school letter and survey.  Please look it over and let me know if you have any questions. Also, please pay your classroom fee of $8 if you have not done so.  This money helps us support many projects that extend our learning in the classroom.  Thank you!

Volunteers: Thank you to those of you who were able to sign up to volunteer for our classroom.

• Room Parent: Chamisa Logemann
• Friday Folders: Mary Beth Burke and Nancy Saha (when needed)
• Reading in the classroom-  M-Th from 11:55-12:25. (Start the week of September 5th if you have completed your background check)

           Monday: Stephanie Schwab

           Tuesday: Megan West

           Wednesday: Sadee Schilling

• Clerical help: Nancy Saha

Homework: If your child has not had a chance to bring in photos/pictures for our Writer’s Notebook project, please help them gather these over the weekend.   Please only send in pictures that are okay to cut and paste onto a notebook- these will decorate the front of his/her Writer's Notebook for the year and provide a starting place for ideas and drafts that will grow into great writing pieces. It also will make their Writer's Notebook very personal and very special to them. We are going to decorate our notebooks on Monday. Thank you!

Birthday Treats: If your child is celebrating a birthday during the school year (or a ½ birthday for summer kids) you are welcome to send in treats for the class. We have 24 kids in our class.

Math: This week we were able to get all the math screeners completed.  This information gives me a snapshot of where your child is in math.  We are now ready to jump into our first math unit, Multiplication and Division 0-5, 9 and 10, on Monday.

Literacy: This week we worked on writing “seeds/small moment ideas” for personal narratives. We are getting those writing muscles warmed up and in shape for a lot of writing this year! Next week we are going to start working on understanding and writing complete sentences.

Next week, we will also be completing a reading assessment using i-Ready with students. We started using this reading assessment a few years ago Kohl, so your child should be familiar with the format. After the testing is complete I will have an assessment report, which shows me how your child is reading, their strengths, and areas to work on. I will share this information with you at Parent Teacher Conferences in October.

Social Studies: As we get ready to begin our first unit on Communities, we have been working to build our classroom community. This week we continued to get to know each other better and to understand the expectations in third grade.

Mark your calendar:

Monday, September 4- NO SCHOOL, Labor Day

I hope you have a safe and relaxing weekend.

Sincerely,

Aisha Galt

Friday, August 18th

Dear Parents,

We had a great first three days together in third grade! We spent a lot of time getting to know one another and familiarizing ourselves with classroom procedures and expectations. It was fun to learn about each other through the sharing of the All About Me bags.  Building community is an important part of these first few weeks of school.  This sharing assignment allows us to realize some of our similarities and differences. I am excited about the months to come in third grade.  It will be a year of new experiences and new adventures in learning.

I strive to create an environment in which students feel safe and secure so that they can take the kinds of risks necessary for deep and sustained learning.  Relationships are the foundation of learning, and it is my intention to establish respectful and collaborative partnerships with parents as well as with students. From day one, I would like to establish open, two-way communication with parents. I invite you to share feedback and any information that would help me provide better support for your child. Thank you for your support!

I will be writing newsletters to update you on what’s happening in our classroom, give reminders about upcoming events, and to share any news we might have.  I plan to email the newsletters as well as post them on my website so you will be able to access them at any time during the year if needed.  www.mrsgalt.blogspot.com

I look forward to meeting all of you at our third grade back to school night. This is an informational meeting for parents only.  We will meet in our classroom  on Tuesday, August 22nd at 5:30.

Reminders:

Snacks:

Students can have snack each day in the morning, and they can have another snack in the afternoon if they would like. I do not provide snack so please be sure to send a healthy snack with your child. Water bottles are encouraged.  Please label bottles with your child’s name.  Thank you!

Important Dates for Your Calendar:

Tuesday, August 22rd-Back to School Night 5:30-6:30

Monday, September 4th - NO SCHOOL- Labor Day

Thursday, September 7th - Picture Day

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. You can contact me by email aisha.galt-theis@bvsd.org or by phone 720-561-8616.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Aisha Galt