Weekly Update

Dear Families,

We have such strange weather these days! Just when Spring arrived and we hoped for warmer and brighter days, the snow came back with cold temperatures and precipitation again. Please remember to send your child to school with weather appropriate clothing as the students have outdoor recess every day (unless it is cold and raining). The fields are muddy too, so please make sure your child also has good outdoor shoes. Thank you!

The students were busy this week finishing up their Response to Literature pieces and we started fluency work in reading. Please look for additional MP3s to be posted on the wiki as they get recorded. Your child will periodically take home short plays, scripts, or shorter passages. Please listen to your child as he/she reads these aloud at home. Repeated practice of reading the same texts improve not only reading fluency and prosody, but also confidence!

3rd graders started their new math unit on fractions this week. They learned that fractions are equal parts of a whole. This concept can be challenging sometimes, but using a ruler and a number line helps us visualize our fractions. Please visit the classroom digital portfolio for postings of lessons as we learn these new and exciting concepts. Thank you.

We are almost out of pencils and erasers in our classroom again. It is challenging sometimes with students sharing many classrooms and transitioning between classrooms throughout the school. Sometimes pencils get left behind and cannot be found again. We are asking for students to bring in their own pencils and erasers. Ideally, your child should have a small pencil case for his/her own pencils and erasers, but a zip lock bag with a name on it would be great too. Your child will be responsible for his/her pencils only. Once again, thank you all for your generosity donating pencils to our classroom. Of course they are still gladly accepted as some students will need “emergency pencils”. Thank you for your understanding.

The students studied Christopher Columbus this week. Please ask your child to share some of the very interesting details of how he evolved from a weaver to a sailor. Please ask your child to explain his determined character, as he waited for years before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella finally accepted his offer to explore for Spain. Also ask your child to sing you our special song about 1492 which helps us remember interesting facts about this very important explorer. The students will finish up their quick study of explorers next week. They will learn to identify many routes taken on maps and identify the main reasons explores left their own native countries in the 1400s, the 1500s, the 1600s, and the 1700s. We will study Jamestown next. Please do not forget to visit many educational games on the wiki relating to our current unit on Explorers and Colonial America.

News and Reminders:
• Please sign up for parent-teacher conferences the week of April 12th if you did not already.
• Please note that next Tuesday, March 30th is a half-day with dismissal at 11:30am. Teachers are scheduled for in-service.

Have a great weekend!
Regards,

Maria McCormack