Grade 3 Curriculum Newsletter Dear Parents, Here is a look at some of the key areas of language we learned about this month: Word wall words: prettier, *Practice reading and spelling words you are still learning. Word Wall Idea! Word sort: Choose a way to sort your word wall words. For example, you can sort your words by vowel sounds. Print your sorting rule at the top of your page. Print your word wall words in the right columns. Vowel Sound Vowel Name Other ways to sort word wall words: Type of letter, Number of letters, blends vs. no blends, number of syllables, Spelling Strategies: · · Look around the room for the word · Circle any words the might be misspelled · Ask a friend Phonics and Grammar: We talked about the correct use and meaning of the following types of punctuation: . = a statement (a telling sentence) ? = asking a question " " = someone is talking or using the author's exact words ! = shows strong feelings or a loud voice Commas: In grade 2 we learned that a comma in a sentence means you take a short pause when reading. We also use commas to separate a list of ideas. In grade 3, we learn more uses for a comma in our writing. We use a comma to separate numbers. When the day of the month and the year appear side by side, a comma is used to separate them. For example: July 21, 2008. Use a comma to separate words. When the day of the week and the month appear side by side, a comma is used to separate them: Monday, July 21, 2008. We use a comma to separate a speech tag at the beginning of sentence from the dialogue. John said, "Where is my watch?" We use a comma instead of a period inside the quotation marks when the speech tag is at the end of the sentence. "I will be there soon," said Shasta. Phonics and Grammar: Proper nouns = the special name for a person, place, thing, or holiday. Proper nouns always start with a capital letter. Examples include Michael, Beverly Central, Fruit Loops, Christmas Alphabetical Order is putting words in sequence according to the alphabet. We are learning how to put words in alphabetical order by looking up to the fourth same letter in words to help us. For example: When words all begin with different initial letters we just look at the first letter to order the words: fun, smell, zebra. When words begin with the same letter we must now look at the second letter to determine the alphabetical order of the words. For example: smell, start, sun. We continue to look through words with similar initial letters to put a variety of words into alphabetical order. Adjectives are words to describe a noun. Adjectives can describe the size, shape, colour, texture, smell, or taste of something. Adjectives also describe how we feel and our personality. Examples of adjectives include red, soft, delicious, sour, happy, greedy To compare two things we use comparative adjectives. Short adjectives with one syllable use the "er" ending For example: tall, taller Ms. de Ruiter is taller than all her students! Superlative adjectives are used when we want to say that something is the most. For example: Mr. Cook is the tallest teacher in our school. Using adjectives in our writing helps the reader visualize and understand our message. Adjectives also add detail and interest to our writing. Personal pronouns are words that take the place of nouns include: I, she, we, he, they, you We talked about how important it is to use a noun first in our writing before using a pronoun to help the reader visualize and understand our intended meaning. Making Smart Predictions! Prediction: We have discussed and practiced making smart predictions for a variety of texts we read in the classroom. Predicting means guessing what a text will be about or what we think will happen in a book before or during our reading. When we make smart predictions, we use clues from the text and our background knowledge to help explain and support the predictions we make. Looking at the title, cover, table of contents, chapter titles, and inside pictures are good clues to help us make smart predictions. We then use our prior knowledge to help explain the predictions we made. We made a checklist to help us think about what a smart summary should look like. Our Smart Prediction Checklist… · · · · · · · I will include characters, a problem, a beginning, middle and end I will use enough details to help the reader visualize what is happening I will use enough ideas so the reader understands my message I will use sentence starters to include all parts of the response I will use capitals, punctuation, and the word wall I will read my work to make sure it sounds right I will print neatly Paragraph Writing: We learned how to write a smart paragraph this month. Students must start with a topic. We define a topic as something you are an expert on because you have a lot of ideas about it. We then brainstorm everything we know about the topic. Now we are ready to write our paragraph. A paragraph is like a sandwich. The top bread is our topic sentence. It tells the reader what our paragraph will be about. The meat and toppings in our sandwich are like the details in our paragraph. The more details we use to help the reader visualize and understand the better! The bottom bread of the sandwich is like our closing sentence. A closing sentence can restate the topic, tell our opinion on the topic, or our feelings on the topic. Without all parts of our sandwich or paragraph, it is not complete. Students have been practicing writing paragraphs using the sandwich as a model to help them include all parts to a paragraph. Thank-you for your ho please contact me. Sincerely, C. de Ruiter Grade 2 Curriculum Newsletter Dear Parents, Here is a look at some of the key areas of language we learned about this month: Word wall words: prettier, very, really, your, their, our, will, tell *Practice reading and spelling words you are still learning. Word Wall Idea! Word sort: Choose a way to sort your word wall words. For example, you can sort your words by vowel sounds. Print your sorting rule at the top of your page. Print your word wall words in the right columns. Vowel Sound Vowel Name Other ways to sort word wall words: Type of letter, Number of letters, blends vs. no blends, number of syllables, Spelling Strategies: · · Look around the room for the word · Circle any words the might be misspelled · Ask a friend Phonics and Grammar: We talked about the correct use and meaning of the following types of punctuation: . = a statement (a telling sentence) ? = asking a question " " = someone is talking or using the author's exact words ! = shows strong feelings or a loud voice , = take a short pause when reading or when making a list in a sentence Phonics and Grammar: Proper nouns = the special name for a person, place, thing, or holiday. Proper nouns always start with a capital letter. Examples include Michael, Beverly Central, Fruit Loops, Christmas Alphabetical Order is putting words in sequence according to the alphabet. We are learning how to put words in alphabetical order by looking up to the second same letter in words to help us. For example: When words all begin with different initial letters we just look at the first letter to order the words: fun, smell, zebra. When words begin with the same letter we must now look at the second letter to determine the alphabetical order of the words. For example: smell, start, sun. We continue to look through words with similar initial letters to put a variety of words into alphabetical order. Adjectives are words to describe a noun. Adjectives can describe the size, shape, colour, texture, smell, or taste of something. Adjectives also describe how we feel and our personality. Examples of adjectives include red, soft, delicious, sour, happy, greedy Using adjectives in our writing helps the reader visualize and understand our message. Adjectives also add detail and interest to our writing. Personal pronouns are words that take the place of nouns include: I, she, we, he, they, you We talked about how important it is to use a noun first in our writing before using a pronoun to help the reader visualize and understand our intended meaning. Making Smart Predictions! Prediction: We have discussed and practiced making smart predictions for a variety of texts we read in the classroom. Predicting means thinking about what a text will be about or what we think will happen in a book before or during our reading. When we make smart predictions, we use clues from the text and our background knowledge to help explain and support the predictions we make. Looking at the title, cover, table of contents, chapter titles, and inside pictures are good clues to help us make smart predictions. We then use our prior knowledge to help explain the predictions we made. We made a checklist to help us think about what a smart summary should look like. Our Smart Prediction Checklist… · · · · · · · I will include characters, a problem, a beginning, middle and end I will use enough details to help the reader visualize what is happening I will use enough ideas so the reader understands my message I will use sentence starters to include all parts of the response I will use capitals, punctuation, and the word wall I will read my work to make sure it sounds right I will print neatly Paragraph Writing: We learned how to write a smart paragraph this month. Students must start with a topic. We define a topic as something you are an expert on because you have a lot of ideas about it. We then brainstorm everything we know about the topic. Now we are ready to write our paragraph. A paragraph is like a sandwich. The top bread is our topic sentence. It tells the reader what our paragraph will be about. The meat and toppings in our sandwich are like the details in our paragraph. The more details we use to help the reader visualize and understand the better! The bottom bread of the sandwich is like our closing sentence. A closing sentence can restate the topic, tell our opinion on the topic, or our feelings on the topic. Without all parts of our sandwich or paragraph, it is not complete. Students have been practicing writing paragraphs using the sandwich as a model to help them include all parts to a paragraph. Thank-you for your please contact me. Sincerely, C. de Ruiter December Newsletter From Mrs. Martini’s Desk At the end of each day we look forward to convening on the carpet for our community circle. During this time we share information about ourselves, including our likes and dislikes, our special mementos, our plans for the weekend, or our thoughts and opinions about various topics. Recently we talked about all the things our parents have to remind us to do or to be responsible for on a daily basis. Most of the students could think of at least one thing such as completing homework or brushing their teeth. As we listened to each other share around the circle it soon became clear how many things we need to be reminded about. We watched a funny youtube video featuring a woman singing the “Mom Song”. It is sung to the tune of the William Tell Overture and the lyrics are shown on the bottom. I recommend you search “The Mom song” on youtube and enjoy watching it with your child. Thank you for all you do at home to encourage your child to be responsible and independent. Fabulous Phys. Ed and Health! In Health, we will continue to discuss bullying and how to stick up for ourselves and each other. In Gym, we have spent some of our time practicing for a special performance at the Christmas Concert. In gym, we will be focusing on throwing and catching skills. Sensational Science and Social Studies! The Grade 2’s are currently finishing up their unit on the properties of solids and liquids. We are having fun designing and constructing miniature rafts after investigating the degree of buoyancy for several solids when placed in water. Just before the holiday break we will begin our first Social Studies unit on “Traditions and Celebrations” and we will continue exploring this topic on this topic in January. Merry Christmas Marvelous Math! We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction (Gr. 3’s: 2-digit numbers; Gr. 2’s: 1 and 2-digit numbers to 18) and practicing our mental math strategies such as adding doubles and near doubles, making tens and adding tens, then subtracting if one of the addends is close to ten. We will also begin investigating data management by using graphs and charts to collect and organize data that is relevant and meaningful to us such as what special foods to we like to eat throughout our holiday celebrations. Learning quote of the month: 4 5 6 7 8 9 9 6 : 8 ; < = 6 : > ? @ 8 ? A B ? ; : < ; ? @ 8 C true. There is no one alive who is = 6 : < ; ? @ 8 C = 6 : D E ! 3 " # $ % & ' ( ( ) * + " & , $ - ' . - - " . # " % - ' - + ' ( ' / % ( 0 ' + ' 1 - 2 $