Reminders for the Week
After School Activities (ASA) - SIGN UP Starts THIS Monday August 21 - August 27
The Signup link will be located on the NEW ASA Website, available on your dashboard. Click on the labeled blue icon (see arrow). Sign up will be open for one week (including the weekend). Schedules will be sent to parents Tuesday September 5 at the end of the day.
Student planners - The student planners are for your child to record important events, homework, and reminders. Check-in with your learner to make sure they're using their planner effectively. It's also a great resource to know what's going on at school. Please ensure your student brings their planner to school in their homework folder each day.
Please click here for more information about Back to School Night. BTSN Letter
Don't forget to sign up for Parent Information Day - Sunday, August 27th.
READING
Our first unit of the Reading Workshop is all about making reading the best experience it can be andan intrinsic part of our lives. We pull out all stops in an effort to help all our students become avid readers. Our goal is for students to grow a love of reading, to know themselves as readers who care about reading, and above all, they will begin to develop a sense of personal agency about their reading lives. We hope they will take more responsibility for becoming the kind of readers who not only make sense of books, but who also let books “change their lives”.
We will spend the first few weeks of school getting to know ourselves as readers, our mantra being, “Readers don’t just read books, readers also build reading lives.” During this time students will choose books that are within reach of their reading skills, learn to work with reading partners and set goals to increase their reading volume. They will also learn about the importance of building a positive relationship with reading and books they choose.
This is the first year your child will use a Reading Log. Please check and sign their Reading Logs this first month - thanks. As research shows, the only way to become a better reader...IS TO READ, READ, READ.
WRITING
Our first unit of the Writing Workshop is all about narrative writing called “Crafting True Stories”. Students will begin by getting used to the routines and expectations of the Writing Workshop. They will set goals to help build volume and stamina, or to help them pay attention to conventions. Students will learn to collect their ideas (“plant seeds”) in their writing notebook and eventually select one idea to develop fully. We will teach them that writers often draft quickly, retelling each moment of the story as they go. They will learn to revise their work using their favorite books and authors as examples. Towards the end of the unit, students will learn that when writers finish one piece, they begin the next one right away (“Once you think you’re done, you’ve only just begun!”). We will help them look back at previous writing to help them with future writing. The revising checklist will help each student see where they are currently (“Not Yet, Starting To, YES!”) and what goals they can set for themselves. We hope to see them all blossom as writers.
Third graders this week we will also have On Demand Writing Assessments. They are asked to show what they know the writing of narrative, persuasive, and informational pieces. For persuasive and informational writing they will have the opportunity to plan a topic and vocabulary the evening before. Look for the On Demand topic and vocabulary papers that will go home the evening before, so students can prepare.
MATH
We will continue to use the resource Eureka Math with our students this year. Eureka Math consists of 7 different Modules in grade 3 with individual lessons that tie to Common Core State Standards. With this program, our goal is to have students gain a deeper understanding and love of math by developing a comprehension of concepts, fluency and flexible thinking, as well as accuracy and efficiency in problem solving.
We will begin this week with understanding “equal groups of...” as the concept of multiplication. Then we will examine how multiplication relates to the array model. From there, students will interpret the meaning of factors, which involves the size of the group or the number of groups.
With this foundation, students will delve into the concept behind division. We want students to move towards an understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division. Throughout their learning and practice, students will continue to use a variety of factors to interpret problems by writing division equations.
Each evening, students are assigned homework to gain further practice in skills they're learning in class. Each individual student is held accountable to complete as much of the homework as they completed of the problem set—if a student did not complete the entire problem set in class, we don’t expect them to complete the entirety of the homework. Their homework can be found in their yellow Math journal.
Important vocabulary terms are: array, factors, rows, groups of, number bonds, equations, expressions, product, quotient, and unknown factor.
SCIENCE
Our new unit called, “Soil: More than Just Dirt” is taking off this week. Third grade students will investigate to find the best combination of soil ingredients to help the school's fields and a herb garden grow healthy plants. Through experiments, students will learn that most soil is a combination of sand, silt, clay, potting soil and humus. Soil can be identified by its properties such as granularity, particle size, how much water it can retain, and pore space. They will determine ways to change soil to suit its need for growing.
OTHER INFORMATION
Guidance News
Dear CAC Families,
Welcome to the new school year! I hope you had an enjoyable and restful summer with your families.
I am excited to be teaching the Grades 3-5 Guidance classes again this year. Guidance is a weekly, social and emotional class period that takes place within the regular classroom. The goal of the guidance program is to build your child’s self-esteem and social skills by giving him/her strategies for solving personal and social problems. Lessons during Guidance focus on community building, learning skills, empathy, friendship, emotion management and problem-solving.
We will begin with community building and learning skills. During these units students will be encouraged to:
- recognize and appreciate personal characteristics and contributions to the class and school community;
- discover the unique characteristics in others and how those differences enrich the class and school community;
- focus attention and learn specific ways to be good listener;
- communicate assertively in order to get personal, academic and social needs met.
Please contact me if you have any suggestions or questions about the guidance curriculum. Be on the look out for Guidance updates in the classroom blogs.
Warm Regards,
Carey Harris
Guidance Counselor Gr. 3-5
charris@g-cacegypt.org
From the Grade 2 Teachers
Don't forget to come by your Grade 2 teacher room on Wednesday 23rd during lunch or lunch recess. They will give you feedback about your summer packets and you can share with them how cool your vacation was. Bring your packets to your teacher and we will review them before Wednesday. We are really excited to see what you've done over the summer!!!
Service Learning Speaker
Jordan Hattar is a 25 year-old humanitarian and director of Help4Refugees.org. He has been speaking to students all over the world on the Syrian Crisis. Jordan Hattar Originally from Templeton, CA. Since he graduated from high school his efforts were dedicated towards living a life of service.Jordan one message for the world: in order to make a positive difference in this world you don’t need a specific skill, just a heart. "Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure." Jordan will be speaking to the 3rd through 5th grade, August 28 @ 12: 50 - 1:50 in the ES Hall.
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