Week of February 25th, 2017 -18

Reminders for the Week



READING


This week, we start our new unit, Reading to Learn. 

Students will begin by exploring features of informational text. They will identify specific parts and then make predictions about how a book might go, so they get ready to delve into topics that interest them. As they begin reading on different topics, students will practice pausing and summarizing to help them remember the important things in a text.

WRITING
This week, is the start of our new unit, Informational Writing. 
As we start our unit, students will aim to teach others about topics they are already experts on. After choosing a topic, students will rehearse various ways to structure and organize their writing, such as boxes and bullets and compare and contrast. Writers will use the idea of a Table of Contents to think about different ways to divide their topic into sub-topics. 

MATH

This week, third grade mathematicians will continue to build on their knowledge of locating fractions on a number line. Students will begin to place whole numbers on a number line and label points at and between whole numbers with fractions or the fractional equivalent. For example, students will create a number line with endpoints 2 and 4, and will label label the whole number endpoint marked 2 with an equivalent fraction such as 4/2.

They will also begin to compare fractions and whole numbers on a number line, and reason about their distance from zero to better understand the value of these numbers.

Key vocabulary:

-equivalent — equal to

-end points

SOCIAL STUDIES

Group research projects continue this week as each group looks to answer the inquiry questions they created together. Each class will have a refresher lesson on note taking strategies before continuing their research.

The groups have created 4 questions in relation to their country. Each person will research 2 of those questions, using a variety of sources such as books and the ES Library Visual Tab. After each research session students will meet with group partners to reflect on big ideas about the topic and their research.