School Family Update April 1st

Math
Last week students reviewed skills and took their unit 5 assessment. The assessment was created by the county and is 23 pages!!! So....it's going to take some time. I am assessing in small groups so I can see how students are solving the problems, and I can read it aloud.  You may have noticed lots of adding and subtracting worksheets going home. This provides them extra practice to solidy their skills. It also helps us see if students are confusing signs or off by one sometimes or frequently. When students complete the worksheet, they have an opportunity to choose a math game. Some math games are:
- Best friends of ten memory or go fish
- War: Students solve the equation on the flashcard and whoever has the larger number wins.
- Finding the missing number and writing the equation on white boards.
I will continue to work on the Unit 5 assessment with students. It will be completed by the end of the week and you will receive a copy in the signed papers after spring break. While I am assessing, students will be at centers. They will go to to each day and rotate to ten throughout the week. A very similar set up to our literacy centers. The 10 math centers for this week are: Activboard, war, slide & count, best friends of ten, adding & coloring worksheet, +/- bookmarks, bingo, domino addition, subtraction cup game, and story problems.

Social Studies
We started our personal finance unit last week. Students learned the vocabulary needs and wants. Needs are things people have to have to live: food, water, clothing, and shelter. They illustrated six needs and six wants. They enjoyed the wants side! Students learned the importance of spending money on needs before wants. Third graders are also learning about economics and made items to sell. On Thursday, we went to this store and students got to make choices on how they wanted to spend their eaglets. A big toy, a few little toys, or a combination. Any leftover money was put back in their pocket and saved for next week.
This week, we will continue our finance unit. The vocabulary terms we will discuss are saving, spending, sharing/donating. They will create a mini book that they will share with the class on Friday and take home.

Reading
Students brainstormed words that began with the letter q. We noticed that pattern that most q words contain qu, except qtip! At creation center, students painted with qtips. They were very creative. At ABC, students filled in the missing sight word from sentences. Students also reviewed sight words using apps on the ipad. We read leveled readers in small groups and worked on phonics skills.

This week is the letter u. On Friday, we will watch Ms. Jones' class perform a Q and U wedding. Students will visit literacy centers and review reading skills in small groups. I am noticing a lot of growth in students' reading abilities. I will reassess everybody's reading levels with the Fountas and Pinnell series in April. I am noticing a lot of students trying to skip words they dont' know in our leveled readers. Please review how important it is to try tricky words. Students can sound it out, look at the picture, look for chunks, get their mouth ready, reread, and think about what makes sense.

Writing
Students completed their final draft of their letters about not littering. A copy of this rubric will come home in signed papers next week. The expectation for persuasive writing is stating an opinion sentence first and two reasons to support the opinion. Students should stretch words and get most sounds in the word. Students should be using capitalization and punctuation.
This week students also started illustrating their All About Me books. We will be illustrating our books all week and will be ready to share them with you at our Author's Party the Monday after Spring Break at 8am.