Still love the black and gold!

ACADEMICS (Jan. 31 - Feb. 4)

READING

Our story this week is The Terrible Eek, a Japanese folktale retold by Patricia Compton. A wild chain of events occurs as a result of a thief misunderstanding something he thought he heard.

Skills include: sequence of events, forming generalizations, reading a chart, and suffixes.

ENGLISH

This week, we are beginning our verb chapter, which includes past, present and future tense verbs, as well as linking and helping verbs. Our letters to our pen pals have been mailed and we are anxiously awaiting their replies!

MATH

We are finishing our money unit and are moving on to regrouping in subtraction.

Our ROCKET MATH for subtraction program is in full swing and we have a little more than three weeks left for this operation. Students who do not pass to the next level are to take their sheets home and study them for homework, as they will be taking the same exact one-minute timed test until they reach their individualized goal. This is a graded activity and students are STRONGLY encouraged to study on a daily basis, so they continue to move through the program in a timely fashion.

CONGRATULATIONS to Jessica for completing Rocket Math subtraction first and to Paige for finishing second! Great job, girls!!!

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are wrapping up our work on map scales, and there will be an assessment on this topic this week.

ACADEMICS (Jan. 24 - 28)

READING

Our story this week is the tall tale Pecos Bill. Pecos falls out of the family's wagon as they are moving west, and ends up being raised by coyotes. Later on, he meets his long-lost brother Carl, and the adventure continues. Skills include story elements, reading a map, and making inferences.

ENGLISH

We are wrapping up our noun chapter, finishing up with combining sentences, topic sentences, and abbreviations We'll also be reviewing common, proper, plural, and possessive nouns in preparation for our unit test on Friday.

MATH

Counting coin combinations and making change using bills and quarters, dimes , nickels, and pennies will continue to be our focus. Regrouping in subtraction will be next up on our agenda.

ACADEMICS (Jan. 18 - 21)

We will be taking our third 4Sight Test in reading and math on Wednesdsay and Thursday of this week.

When not testing we'll be working on the following:

READING - watercolor houses to finish up The Little Painter of Sabana Grande, multiple-

meaning words, making inferences

ENGLISH - combining sentences, abbreviations, topic sentences/main idea

MATH - money sums using quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies, ROCKET MATH

SOCIAL STUDIES - Martin Luther King, Jr., "pop" map quiz

SCIENCE - begin Earth's Water unit

AND...last but certainly not least...

we'll be writing our first letters to our new pen pals from Kansas!

ACADEMICS (Jan. 10 - 14)

READING

Our story this week is The Little Painter of Sabana Grande, by Patricia Maloney Markun. The main character, Fernando, loves art and wants to paint for the first time. Unfortunately he lives in a remote village in Panama, where he is unable to buy paint. He learns how to make paint from his teacher using natural resources. Then he realizes that he has no paper to paint on! After much persuasion, his parents allow him to paint on the outside of their adobe house. Now all of his neighbors want a painted house like the Espino family.

RECORDER REMINDER

Third graders will be learning how to play the recorder during the second half of the school year. Order forms for students who need to purchase a recorder need to be returned by Friday, Jan. 7th.

ACADEMICS (Jan. 3 - 7)

READING

Our story this week is A New Coat for Anna, by Harriet Zeifert, and is based on a true story. It takes place in Europe and centers around a mother acquiring a coat for her daughter during hard times in post - World War II. Anna's mother trades the few valuable possessions she has left for for a farmer's wool and the services of a spinner, weaver, and tailor in order to make the new coat.

Skills this week include: making inferences, main idea, and multiple meaning words.

ENGLISH

We studied singular posssessive nouns before Christmas, and will now be moving on to plural possessive nouns. Wish us luck---this is when things get a little tricky!

MATH

Double and triple digit addition with and without regrouping is next on our agenda. We'll then work on adding three addends using these skills.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our work on urban, suburban, and rural communities continues. There will be a test on Friday on this topic, and a study guide will be coming home on Tuesday, Jan. 4th. Vocabulary words were reviewed and their definitions were sent home on Monday.