November 17, 2008

Dear Parents and Third Graders,

IMPORTANT THINGS FOR YOU TO REMEMBER:

·     Student Council is sponsoring a canned food drive from November 10^th – 21^st

·     Thanks to all who attended Parent-Teacher Conferences.  If you were unable to make your conference, please schedule one for this week so that you can pick up your child’s report card.  Thanks for your co-operation with this.

·      Our Thanksgiving Feast will be held on Tuesday, November 25^th during regular lunch times.  The third graders are guests at the feast, as they have provided a portion of this great lunch since Pre-K. (Your child will be purchasing or packing his/her lunch as usual.  The feast ‘goodies’ will be extras.)

·     There will be NO SCHOOL on November 26 – 28 as we celebrate

   Thanksgiving. School will resume on Monday, December 1^st. 

  READING 

In reading this week we will begin work on the story Tops and Bottoms, an animal fantasy.  An animal fantasy is a story with animal characters that behave like people.  We will be working on

ü      Identifying the author’s purpose to improve our comprehension.

ü      Using author’s purpose to predict.

MATH

          In Math, we will continue our work with addition and subtraction of two- and three- digit numbers as well as money.  We will also work on problem solving which includes drawing pictures and deciding when to use an exact answer or an estimate.

 Math Vocabulary for Chapter 3

regroup – to name a whole number in a different way For example, 24 can be named as 2 tens and 4 ones (the usual way we name that number) or it can be regrouped as 1 ten and 14 ones.

equation – a number sentence that says two expressions are equal

inequality - a number sentence that uses < (less than) or > (greater than).

numerical expression – contains numbers and at least one operation, 3 + 2 is a numerical expression, while 3 + 2 = 5 is an equation

SPELLING

          This week we will be tackling compound words.  A compound word is smaller words joined together.  Keep all the letters when spelling compounds:  home + work = homework.

 SOCIAL  STUDIES

          Since we didn’t get to do this last week, we will be writing friendly letters to Jessica, my granddaughter who is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia.

SCIENCE

          We will begin work on our new science unit entitled, Comparing Solids, Liquids, and Gases.

Science Vocabulary for this unit:

solid – matter that has a definite shape and volume

liquid – matter that has a definite volume, but not a definite shape

gas – matter that has no definite shape or volume

mixture – different types of matter mixed together

solution – a type of mixture that has one type of matter spread evenly through another

Homework for the week of November 17 – 21.