Mr. Cribbs' Third Grade St. Charles Elementary School 801 West Walnut Street St. Charles, Michigan 48655 (989) 865-9210 March 16, 2015 Newsletter? Volume 27 Visit us at www.mrcribbsclass.weebly.com Active Listening Reading Workshop "Lifeskill of the Week" This past week, we continued our study of award winning African-American picture books. Most of this week's books were biographies of jazz musicians and one regarding MLK Jr. Ask your child what he or she recalls from the stories we read this past week. Each week our school is discussing and practicing a new lifeskill. Students will be nominated for demonstrating the "Life Skill of the Week." These are ideas we should all practice. Students are nominated for school certificates and prizes. Encourage your child to show their lifeskills at home and school. March is Reading Month This past week our school had an assembly to kick-off the reading contest between boys and girls. Students are encouraged to return their reading minutes each day to be calculated for end of the day results. Each Friday our school will have special dress days. During the week, children can enter contests by guessing characters of Dr. Seuss stories. Word Study/Spelling Each week our class will be studying word patterns and vocabulary. These words will make up our spelling lists for each week. Your child will be responsible for weekly spelling sentences (due each Thursday) followed by a test of these words. This week's words are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. New Class Reading Challenge For the next three weeks students will track their reading and achievement on comprehension tests of different genres for our next reading club. Students are responsible for tracking their progress by writing the titles of 12 books and the corresponding AR scores. Time to read these books is given each day and students may read free-choice books at home. Our class is striving for 100% of students reaching this goal. Calling All ISP's 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 12. clear 13. cheer 14. steer himself afternoon everything grandmother homework outside 7. bedroom 12. popcorn 8. butterfly 13. everyone 9. grandfather 14. anyone 10. everybody 11. backyard "Does Your Child Know...?" "Does your child know...?" is a new feature in our class newsletter. Each week, several questions will appear in our newsletter to ask your child to demonstrate his or her understanding. Does your child know how to identify a noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, and/or adverb? Our class is still looking for students interested in exploring a topic of interest on their own and presenting it to our class. Some requirements apply, but students can research their topic with little guidance and give our class and education through an Independent Study Project. Does your child know 5 or more strategies to solve a multiplication/division problem? Does your child know how to correctly identify a point, line, ray, line segment, right, acute, obtuse, and straight angle? Does your child know how to read with expression? Building Reading Comprehension c P Preview book illustrations c P Make predictions-characters, setting, problem/solution c P Ask yourself questions-I wonder? 7. deer 8. stereo 9. fair 10. stairs 11. fear Next week's words are: Third Grade Writing The past few weeks our class has practiced writing short paragraphs with an emphasis on word choice, organization, and conventions. This week our class will extend these ideas to include multiple paragraphs to form an essay. Students will be expected to transfer our use of vivid vocabulary and concentrate on proper sentence conventions (caps & periods) to complete an organized essay. America very pair hair near year c P Read words surrounding an unknown word c P Infer-make reasonable statements from what you've read c P Make connections-text to self, to world, or to other texts