Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful holiday break. I know I enjoyed spending time with family and friends, going for hikes at Cougar Mountain with my dog, and watching the Seahawks win a few games to give them home field advantage for the playoffs! 2015 is going to be a great year. I am excited for all of the learning experiences we have coming up!

READING:  Our class did such an awesome job with the Mouse and the Motorcycle whole class literature circle. It was the perfect way to prepare kids for the book clubs they will be participating in after winter break! When kids come back, we will be placing a big focus on ‘accountable book talk’ during literature circles. My goal is to help students take responsibility for their reading, participate in meaningful conversations around just right books, and independently focus on CAFÉ skills and goal setting while reading. The class is really excited to begin reading chapter books in the small group setting, while continuing to explore new genres of chapter books independently. Kids will continue to focus on reading skills in our Journeys textbooks as a whole class, and will practice comprehension, accurate reading, fluency, and expanding vocabulary throughout a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts.

WRITING: Have you seen our 5 paragraph ‘How to Eat a Candy Cane’ writing pieces in the hallway? They turned out fabulous! After break, students will continue to work on paragraph writing. A few skills that kids should take away are how to write an opening sentence, closing sentence, and details focused on one specific topic. Kids should also be using appropriate punctuation and indentations. After writing a whole class ‘how to be successful in third grade’, students will write their own five paragraph ‘how to’ on a topic of their choice, and publish! Stay tuned for more information on our writing prompts and activities in the second trimester.

MATH: In Unit 4, students will be looking at place value and place value drawings to add and subtract whole numbers. We will explore different methods to add and subtract and identify the relationship between addition and subtraction. Students will also be rounding numbers to the nearest 10 or hundred and solving word problems related to addition, subtraction, rounding, and estimating. This unit will involve ‘math groups’ where students will be a part of a smaller group for the teacher lesson. Independently, students will have opportunities for math computer activities including fluency practice and dreambox, participate in individual practice, complete math writing activities designed to help students to explain their thinking, and play partner math games related to the days lessons. This structure will be very similar to our Daily 5 routines we have done so well with in reading! I am excited to expose students to a variety of math activities during the math block, and also to have more opportunities for smaller group teaching on specific skills.

SOCIAL STUDIES: In Unit 4 students will have the opportunity to learn about Immigration and different ways and reasons people decide to move from one country to another! Students will also recognize ways that our community is diverse, learn about different students around the world, and focus on the language, clothing, holidays, traditions, and way of life in different countries! We will summarize this unit by having students research their own heritage and complete a heritage project! This is a great way to celebrate the diversity here at Somerset. Stay tuned for more details to come about this at home research project!

SCIENCE: Next up: Measurement! Once again the third grade teachers will be participating in a STEM training involving a new and exciting added piece to our science curriculum that we get to teach our students! We will begin the new science unit in the next few weeks.

Upcoming Dates:

January 19^th: MLK Day. NO SCHOOL

January 23^rd: Pizza and Bingo Night

January 26^th: Professional Day. NO SCHOOL