Friday, January 8th

Friday, January 8^th

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful winter break. Our first week back in the classroom together went well. I am always impressed by the academic, social, and emotional growth that takes place during the second half of our third grade year. Please continue to communicate with me about how I can best support your child.  

I wanted to inform you of some important upcoming dates.

Third graders will be taking the PARCC tests this year.  This is the state standardized test that is replacing the CSAP/TCAP from years past. The tests have been scheduled for the last week of March, right after spring break, and the first week of April. If you are planning a trip, please plan the trip outside of the PARCC testing dates. It would be so helpful to have all the students complete the tests during our scheduled testing weeks. Thank you!  If you have any questions or concerns about PARCC, please let me know.

We have scheduled our second field trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for January 21st.  There is a permission slip in your child’s Friday folder.  I will definitely need parent volunteers, so please check your calendar and let me know if you can help out. You must have the background check clearance through the district for this school year to attend the trip. Please return the permission slip and fee as soon as possible. Thank you.

Other important dates and reminders:

Monday, January 18- No School MLK Jr. Day

Thursday, January 21- Field Trip to the Museum of Nature and Science. Please return permission slips and money as soon as possible.

Saturday, January 23- PTA Trivia Night. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend this fun fundraiser. Adults only please. Check Friday folders, PTA Facebook page, or the school website for more information.

Tuesday, January 26-Spelling Bee. Zach and Graeme will be representing our class at 8:30 in the gym. Please wish them luck when you see them.

Enjoy the weekend.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Aisha Galt

Friday, December 11^th

Dear Parents,

We had a great week!  Students wrote informational writing pieces about paleontologists and studied their personal spelling words during our literacy block.  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. Please try this at home while reading with your child. Hopefully you and your child are enjoying Reading Plus. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about that.

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. 

In social studies, students are working in small groups to become experts about one region of the United States.  They will complete an informational poster about their region and will share their work with the class next week.  We will have our final assessment for this unit of study next Thursday.

We also completed an Hour of Code activity this week!  Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science.  It is designed to give students around the world a positive coding experience to show that anyone can learn the basics.  We used activities on the site https://code.org/learn  Students were engaged and excited about their work. We hope to complete other coding activities later in the school year.

I hope to see you at our winter party on Friday, December 18^th from 1:30 to 2:30.  Please take a moment to sign up to help if you can.  Thank you!

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/60B0B4BAFAB2DA31-mrs1

Have a fantastic weekend. 

Sincerely,

Aisha Galt

Friday, December 4^th

Dear Families,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break with your family. It's hard to believe that in just two short weeks we will be on winter break! This week has flown by and we have accomplished so much. 

Congratulations to our class for winning the Silver Can Award for the school food drive school contest. We did not win the pizza party, but our class brought in the second highest number of food times. Thank you for helping us achieve this goal!!

Language Arts

Reading: Reading groups continue to work on short, non-fiction pieces. We are working on comprehension skills and using the text to confirm our understanding. The kids are getting really good at going back into the text to support their ideas as they read. 

Writing: We started a new writing unit this week, which will carry us most of the way through January. We are working on Informative/Explanatory writing. During this unit we will work on research skills and using text to support our writing. Students will develop a topic by grouping related information and expanding the topic with facts, definitions and details. 

Spelling/Word Work: We have been working on contractions and homophones during our word work. We will continue to explore and practice these two topics through the rest of the month. The last week before winter break your child will have another spelling test and bring home a new word list to work on. 

Math

This week we started Unit 3- Measurement, Time and Graphs. In this unit your child will explore measurement with US Customary units and Metric units, use data to create and read graphs and use number lines to represent time intervals. We hope to complete this unit before we leave for winter break. This week's focus was on measurement; next week we will work on telling time and understanding elapsed time; we will finish up with graphing before the assessment. Please support your child by talking about measurement when cooking and at the store, as well as telling time throughout the day.  Thank you!

Social Studies

Our new Social Studies unit is about the Regions of the United States. Students are learning what a region is and exploring the 5 regions of the US (West, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast and Northeast). They are very excited about this unit and have enjoyed sharing about their travels and family members who live in various regions of the US. 

Mark Your Calendars

Friday, December 18- Holiday concert and all school sing along. Stay tuned for the time. 

Friday, December 18- Winter classroom party 1:30-2:30 - be on the lookout for an email from our room mom about how you can help with the party. 

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Sincerely,

Aisha Galt

Thursday, November 19^th

Dear Parents,

Thank you for sending in food for the Kohl Food Drive. We still have another day to bring in food, and Mr. Lowe has offered to buy pizza for the class with the highest donation of food!

Our field trip is tomorrow. All children will need a sack lunch and drink, comfortable walking shoes and appropriate clothing for the weather conditions. Chaperones, please be at school by 8:35. We will be leaving to walk to the Auditorium at 8:45 and will return around 1:30. Thank you for volunteering to walk with us. 

I am sending home a Scholastic book order tomorrow. There are several different order forms attached with many great holiday book bargains. If you would like to do a little early holiday shopping, please have your orders in online by Wednesday, December 2^nd.  Please use our class order code, which is attached to the packet. That way I can get them back to you before we leave for winter break. If you are interested in buying books for your child as a gift, I am happy to hold onto them for you until you can come to school and pick up your order. Just let me know in an email.

Your child will also have their report card in their Friday folder.  Please return the signed report card envelope on Monday, November 30^th.  Thank you!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving break with your families.  I am so thankful to be part of the Kohl community!

Sincerely,

Aisha Galt

Friday, November 6th

Dear Parents,

As we come to the close of our first trimester of third grade, we can look back at how much we have learned over the last few months. Your kids have been working very hard, and I am proud of their efforts and growth so far this year. 

Literacy:

Our students are busy publishing their adapted fairy tales. We will have a publishing celebration on Tuesday.  Students will have an opportunity to share their published work with third graders from other classes and with Mr. Lowe, who is joining us for our celebration.

Earlier this trimester, students wrote many small moment personal narratives and took one of their stories to the publishing stage.  We are consistently working on responding to texts orally and with well written answers that use evidence from the texts to support our thinking.

In spelling we are continuing our work on spelling patterns and our personal spelling lists.  

Math:

Unit 2 has been a lot of practice with all of the multiplication and division facts and how to use them in one and now two step word problems. The class is doing a good job using a step-by-step method to think about what the problem is asking them to do, find the important information, and then writing and solving the equation.  It is imperative that your child studies their multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction facts on a regular basis at home.  The math facts are foundational to continued success in mathematics. 

Social Studies:

Last week we finished up our Life Cycles unit in science, and now we are moving on to the second unit of Social Studies- Regions of the United States. Your child will be studying 5 different regions in the United States, the states that make up each region, and the history, people and cultures of those regions. 

Your child is bringing home a permission slip for our next field trip and an important letter about the Reading Plus program in their Friday folder.  Please return the permission slip early next week.  Students are familiar with Reading Plus and should be comfortable using this resource for their weekly reading log.  I will continue to send the weekly reading log home, but they can now simply write Reading Plus in the nightly comment area when they use this program. I would like to see all students use Reading Plus at least once a week.  I will be able to monitor their work on Reading Plus.  If weekly computer access in not possible for your child, please let me know.   Thank you!

Thank you to Korri Skibinski, our room mother, and to all of the parents who contributed supplies, for creating a wonderful fall party for our class. Students had a lovely time celebrating today! 

Important Dates:

Wednesday, November 11- NO SCHOOL-VETERANS DAY

Friday, November 20-Walking Field Trip to see The Music Man

Friday, November 20- First Trimester report cards go home

Week of November 23-27- NO SCHOOL THANKSGIVING BREAK

Have a wonderful weekend with your families. See you next week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Aisha Galt