December 13, 2019

English Language Arts

Every week your child will read an anchor text as well as a paired text. The anchor text is used to work on fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary skills and strategies. The paired text may be similar in theme and or genre. This text will reinforce vocabulary usage. Student understanding of the anchor text and vocabulary will be assessed on Fridays.

Students will also work on grammar and spelling throughout the week. Assigned spelling words will be assessed on Fridays.


MSTEP Prep

On Friday, third graders will bring home 10 M-STEP vocabulary words to study at home and an extra credit crossword puzzle. If students complete and return the extra credit crossword puzzle, they will earn 1 extra credit point on the quiz. On Fridays, the students will be quizzed on these words. In January, when your child earns 80% or better on Friday’s quiz, he/she will earn a charm for his/her M-STEP charm necklace. Students will be quizzed on Thursday, December 19th.

Week 4 Vocabulary & Crossword

 


Weekly Reading 

All gold Catch a Sunflake books should be returned to school at this time.

Every Friday, your child is assigned reading material for the week. This assignment will be in the form of an electronic article using ReadWorks. Login info is in your child’s planner. Your child is required to read and answer questions that are Common Core based. Similar questions will appear on the M-STEP. The electronic submission is due by the following Thursday. All short answer questions MUST be answered in complete sentences and contain proper punctuation in order to earn credit. If your child doesn’t submit or return the reading homework by Thursday, he/she will miss out on valuable skill practice, and it will be noted as a missing assignment in Parent Connect. It is imperative that students complete the assigned articles and questions on time. After a certain date, the article will no longer be available in the student’s ReadWorks account for late submission.

ReadWorks Article: Should Dogs Work? due 12/19

Encourage your child to use the following steps to complete the assignment:

  1. Read the article noting any unknown words.
  2. Explore vocabulary section or use a dictionary to define the words.
  3. Read through the questions.
  4. Listen to the text aloud using the audio option available stopping to note any possible answers to the questions.
  5. Answer the questions using evidence in the text and note it in the text where possible.
  6. Reread until all other questions are answered.
  7. Double check to make sure all answers are completed and reasonable.

 


Kudos!

Congrats to Alexis C. She mastered all of her addition facts on XtraMath, and is now working hard on subtraction facts. Great job, Alexis. Keep up the great work.

 


Holiday Festivities

On Friday, December 20th, our class will be enjoying a movie. I felt that popcorn and juice pouches would be a special treat as well. If you are able to provide any of the requested items, please sign up below. I am requesting that donated items be sent to school no later than Thursday, December 19th. If you are unable to click on a particular item, the item may no longer be needed. Thanks so much!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4eaaac2ea4f94-movie

 


Mystery Science: Can selection happen without people?

Last week your child learned about how people used selection to change an animal’s traits, such as creating new breeds of dogs. This week we saw how selection isn’t always caused by human beings: sometimes other, non-human factors can cause selection to happen.

In our lesson, we introduced the true story of two lizard species in Florida. (If you’re curious, you can read an adult-level version of the story here: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-evolution-green-brown-lizards-20141101-story.html)

The change in these lizards is an example of “natural selection”— a big idea that your child will revisit over the course of their science education. In our lesson we did not use the term “natural selection,” but this example laid the foundation for later understanding of the concept.

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