Dear 3C Parents,

We had a wonderful first week back!  We had very few absences this week (no more winter colds!) and the students were in good spirits.  We had many great discussions regarding fairytales, the solar system, explorers, and time.  I am looking forward to a great rest of the quarter.  See below for an update of what we will be doing in week 2!

Best,

Ms. Caro

General Announcements:

• We will be having the Writing portion of the AZMERIT test on Friday 4/8. We ask that you please ensure your scholars get a good night's rest and a hearty breakfast to make sure they are at their best for this important achievement test.

• We will only have 2 book reports due this quarter as it is so short. Due dates are 4/28 and 5/20.

• Poetry recitation is 5/13; Pocahontas will be the last poem for the year.

• We will not be assigning any homework on April 6th as it is Spring Concert night.

• Please send your student to school with their copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Monday.

Language Arts:
We will have our monthly Spalding assessment on Monday and a 20 word list. We are cancelling our weekly spelling test as we'd like the AZMERIT to be the only test on our plates for Friday. In writing we are exploring more about the ancient world by summarizing stories about the Israelites in Egypt. In grammar we will be reviewing conjunctions and classifying sentences. In TouchPebbles we will be discussing John Muir. Our proverb for the week is: "No man is an island."

Math: 
Students will be finishing up their look at time during the second week of the quarter. They will also spend time on Wednesday creating a "Multiplication Properties" foldable, which will strengthen their math sense and give them some tools for mental math. You might challenge them to use some of these properties with these problems: 8 x 5 x 0 (associative and zero property), 8 x 12 {[8 x 10] + [8 x 2]} (distributive property), or 9 x 1 / 1 x 9 (commutative and identity property).

Science: 
Students have had to make an argument for why the earth orbits the sun even though we do not feel like we are moving. From there, they had to discern why we experience days and why their are seasons. Instead of just accepting what they have been told, they have been challenged to think through why we can make an argument for it. Next week, they will be confronted with three other challenging ideas. First, students will be faced with the challenge that Copernicus's theory of planets orbiting the sun in circular patterns made the planets follow irregular patterns, though better than the theories than came before. Students will be introduced to Kepler, a German mathematician, who thought the planets followed an ellipse pattern and who was proved right. Second, the students will be challenged to consider why the earth doesn't fly off into outer space and why the sun's gravity doesn't pull our planet to a burning end. Third, the students will aim to understand why astronauts don't experience gravity as we do here on earth even though they are under the pull of earth's gravity. The aim is for students to not only know facts, but to understand why.

History:

We are beginning our exciting unit on the 13 colonies.  We are so excited to read about and discuss this important part of our nation’s history. We will be starting with an overview of the 13 colonies and discussing their similarities and differences.  We will then turn our discussion to Jamestown and the beginning of the Virginia colony.  We will be learning about Captain John Smith in more detail and discussing his policy that “He who does not work, will not eat.”  On Friday students will have the opportunity to do a reader’s theater about the Jamestown colony, time permitting with the AZ Merit.  Students will have a short assignment that will allow them to practice their map reading skills.  

The Third Grade Team would like to let you know that during week 4 of the quarter we will be having a class discussion regarding the slave trade.  Slavery will also be mentioned throughout the unit as it pertains to the topic. This information will be presented in a manner that is appropriate for 3^rd graders, but we wanted to make you aware of when we would be talking about this in case there were conversations you would like to continue at home on the topic. We are including a link to a Google Doc that has the information that your students will be reading in class on the subject. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Smtz7jiU4mnXX8gXh3las-lLJgFdPzn_tPfZhemhl1A/edit

Quizzes and Tests:

Monday - Spalding Benchmark Assessment

Friday - AZMERIT Writing Achievement Test