September 3, 2008

Is it September already?  My students have settled in extremely well to third grade. We have been working hard on listening, following directions, and responsibility. I have seen a huge improvement in all three areas!  Thanks for reinforcing all these skills at home.

MATH~

We just finished our chapter on place value.  Most of the class did extremely well on the Chapter 1 test.  The only errors were careless mistakes not gaps in understanding concepts.  Last week we began Chapter 2 which requires students to compare, order, and estimate numbers.  We will work on rounding numbers to the nearest ten, hundred, and thousand this week.  Please look over you child's homework and have them go back and correct any errors they may have made.  I try to give 1 or 2 timed tests a week.  Once your child masters an area twice they will no longer have "practice packets" for that area sent home!  I hope this motivates some reluctant  mathematicians :)

LANGUAGE ARTS~

We are working on writing complete sentences using some of the same words that are in the question to begin the answer.  We used the Wordly Wise story questions this week to practice this skill.

I teach grammar skills in isolation and then my students practice these skills in the Daily Language Review  and Mountain Language.

Please make sure your child is reading atleast 20 minutes a night. I will send home an AR report tomorrow so you have an idea of how many AR points your child has, what their percentage correct is on the answers, and the average reading level of books they have been reading. They will need 8 AR points at the end of this nine weeks.

SOCIAL STUDIES~

My class will start going to Mrs. Himmelberg next week for Social Studies.  they will be studying map and globe skills.  This unit covers cardinal directions, intermediate directions, lines of latitude and lingitude, hemispheres, and continents.

UPCOMING EVENTS~

Sept.   5~  Spirit Day

Sept.   8~  High Touch High Tech   "Fun'omena"

Sept.   11- Wear red, white, & blue

Sept.   16-Early Release

Sept.   17 - 26  Cogat and ITBS testing