March 17 Library Visit
March 21 Book Orders Due
March 21 April Lunch Orders Due
March 24 - 28 Spring Break (No School)
April 4 Yearbook Orders Due
Homework Due Thursday, March 20th - More details posted on the Homework Page
1. Read for at least 30 minutes per day.
2. Complete your Reading Response Letter to Laura
3. 3rd Graders complete pages 49, 50 & 51 in Math Practice Book
4th Graders complete pages 48, 49 & 50 in Math Practice Book
Upcoming Out and Abouts
This week will be our last week with Theatre In The Grove. Our masks aren't quite ready for our Folk Tale plays, so we will perform those in the classroom after Spring Break. This week, we will play more theater games and we get to practice being on stage!
Volunteer Opportunities - Sign up on our VolunteerSpot page: http://vols.pt/drMimF
All spots for March breakfast donations and library chaperones are full! Thank you for your support!
Scholastic Book Orders
Orders are due Friday, March 21st and this is the last chance to use the $5 Valentines Day coupons before they expire. You can view this month's selections and submit your order at https://orders.scholastic.com/L79X9. When you place your order online, you'll help earn free books for The Plover's Bookstore! The books will arrive in about 2 weeks.
Math Notes
Last week in 3rd grade math, students worked in partners to figure out the cost of a 24 pound turkey, selling for $1.25 per pound. Many students started by trying to add $1.25 24 times, but quickly realized that strategy was too complicated! After using manipulatives, money, number lines or sketches, groups of students were able to work out that 4 pounds would cost $5, which was a much easier number to add or multiply. Partners made posters to explain their strategies and share with the class. Then, they made a ratio chart for the grocery store that lists the prices of turkeys of various sizes. This week, we will continue to calculate the costs of all the ingredients for our "Big Dinner."
Last week in fourth grade math students continued their study of fractions. Fourth grade mathematicians began solving a Context for Learning problem regarding dividing sandwiches for a field trip. We also began using fraction manipulatives (egg cartons) in order to help students understand fractions more concretely. Over the course of our fraction unit, students will learn: to draw pictures to show fractions, write numbers to name pictures of fractions, identify equivalent fractions, identify which of two fractions is greater, solve problems involving division with remainders, divide 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers, solve story problems about fractions and dividing whole numbers. For more information regarding this unit of study, please visit: http://bridges1.mathlearningcenter.org/media/Parents/UnitIntros/B4Unit3Parents.pdf
Weekly Review
Last week, the Plovers worked hard on their writing projects and started to makes plans for publishing a class anthology of folk tales. Students are each writing their own pourquoi story in addition to the performance they are working on in small groups. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were dedicated to writing workshop so students would have time to share their stories with others and think about important details they could add to their writing. Some students painted the scenery to help them better describe the setting and other students created the characters (some from clay in art and others from paper in the classroom) to help them act out the problem and solution. We also looked for interesting beginnings, also called leads or introductions, in our collection of Folk Tale picture books and talked about ways we could change the author's words to fit our own stories.
The Plovers are on the hunt for some new vocabulary words! This is a fun activity that I learned from another teacher at a literacy workshop last week and I knew the students would be excited to try it out. Every week, I will pick 2-3 new vocabulary words from our classroom read alouds. I will try to focus on choosing words that could be used in everyday conversation (so, these will not be content-specific vocabulary words), but require more complex decoding skills or conceptual understanding than traditional high frequency words. The students' job is to look for these words in their own reading or listen for them in conversation. If they find one of our words, they should record the sentence or bring the book with them to morning meeting. Our first 3 words are: announcement, distant and admit. Try using these words at home this week and see if your Plover notices!
Communication
Please contact me with any questions or concerns. Parents and students can e-mail me at [email protected]. You can also leave a voice message on the class phone, come into the classroom before or after school, or call me before 8PM at home.