In Religion, the students have been learning about the miracles and parables of Jesus; we will begin to prepare for the Living Stations of the Cross which the third grade class will present just before Easter.  We will let you know the date so that you may plan to attend if you wish.

We finished our unit on multiplication in math and have now moved on to basic division (0 to 5).  After we finish basic division (just after Spring Break) we will return to multiplication.

In English, since we used so many of our grammar skills while writing our Poetry books, we will be doing some review work and testing over various concepts.  We will then be moving on with more writing of paragraphs and friendly letters.  To aid us in this PLEASE be sure that your child knows his/her full address (#, street, city, zip code) when they return from Spring Break.

In Reading we have just completed reading our class novel, Old Yeller. We watched the movie and did a comparison of the two genres, and done some intensive testing (comprehension/vocabulary) over the text.  We will be moving on to a book titled Henry Huggins: Try Our Large Economy Size by Beverly Cleary right after Spring Break.

The students have taken another Lexile test and overall the scores just keep going up!  Please encourage your child to keep reading; they should have read their next RC book by the week after the break, and the test should be taken by March 26.

In spelling we have covered the /j/ sound, plurals ending w/ -ies, homophones (words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and mean different things), and days of the week/time words.  After the break we will review these lessons and then focus on words ending with –ld/-ft and the /ar/ sound spelled –air/-are/-ear.

In Science we will be finishing our unit on Physics and we will review after Spring Break, and then move on to a unit on Meteorology.  In Social Studies, we have been discussing more about communities and their resources and after the break we will move on to a unit about communities of the past and present

As always, PLEASE continue to have your child practice their times tables nightly. Have them log on to Math Score as frequently as possible and also, SpellingCity.com for some spelling re-freshment and fun.

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This past month we learned a great deal about the lives of many new saints and got to revisit with some old ones, too.  This month we will concentrate on the life of Mary, the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus and the Celebration of Advent.

In English we have been reviewing many previously learned concepts (nouns/verbs), learning to diagram sentences and putting all these grammar tools to use daily.  This month we will concentrate on a lot of creative writing in anticipation of writing our individual books during the month of January.  We finished our third class novel, Molly’s Pilgrim, in reading and have worked on a lot of different concepts regarding comprehension (inference, compare/contrast, vocabulary).  We started our next class novel this month, Stone Fox, and we also will be reading mystery books, in lieu of a Reading Counts book.  We will be doing a book report for our mystery books, too.

In Math, we finished our unit on Addition, and have now started with Subtraction.  The students are really progressing with their addition and subtraction by using Math Score, so please have them keep using this as often as possible at home.

We completed our unit through the Solar System with our study of Astronomy and have begun our study of Chemistry, and we are learning what elements, compounds and atoms are.

We have been discussing Celebrations in Social Studies and will continue with this study up to the holiday break.

On Monday, December 14 we will be going to the Williamsburg Nursing Center in DeSoto to spread Christmas cheer along with the Kindergartners.  This is a wonderful opportunity for your child to practice the corporal works of mercy.  Thanks to all of our generous parents for donating the money (from the left over Halloween monies and for those who sent in items) for our gift donations.

Special thanks to Michelle Mills and Barbara Richardson, for organizing our gift donations.  We are sure the residents will be thrilled with the bounty.  Thank you, also to M G for the donation of the plastic handled bags that the goodies will go in; the students created a special holiday “card” to go on them that will surely cheer up each resident.  So again, many thanks to all and have a safe and blessed holiday!

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In English we have begun learning how to diagram sentences.  This will be an on-going process.  We are also reviewing the use of apostrophes and we will be working on some creative writing in anticipation of the holidays and writing our individual books in the Spring.  We finished our second and third class novels, Bunnicula, and Molly’s Pilgrim, and we will be doing some comprehension tasks for Molly’s Pilgrim. We will soon begin reading Stone Fox, a novel by John Reynolds Gardiner.  We are well on our way to reading the required 30 novels for the school year.  Be sure to help your child keep up with their Reading Counts books, too.  Remember that we have requested that the students NOT read the Goosebumps series books for the Reading Counts/AR quizzes.

In Math we are continuing with addition and after the Christmas holidays we will begin multiplication.  We have also started giving the students daily timed tests, in both addition and subtraction.  The students have 1 minute to complete as many problems as possible out of 20, (soon to be 30 problems), as accurately as possible.  We will not grade these, but rather chart them to gauge the students’ progress.  We are also going to the Tech Lab each Tuesday to work on Math Score on the computers; we have seen a lot of improvement already.

In Science we completed presenting our Solar System projects and…  WOW!  We were impressed!  We will now finish the Astronomy unit and then move on to our Chemistry unit.
In Social Studies we have finished our overview of geography, including the regions of the United States.  We are now beginning a study of celebrations that we recognize in America (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, etc…).  The students will be working on a project about one of these celebrations in early December.  More information will follow concerning this project.

In Religion we are discussing the lives of the saints in anticipation of our Saints game on Nov. 20th.  3B did an outstanding job with the Mass on Nov. 6th and 3A will be leading the Mass on Nov. 20th.  We will be going to a nursing home in Duncanville in December to sing and visit.  Look for more information to come home concerning this work of mercy field trip.

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The school year began with a flurry of activity, but we’ve settled into our routines quite nicely. We continue to be blessed with a wonderful group of kids and terrific, supportive parents again this year. We began some new topics this month including prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns in English. In Reading we have been using some Readers’ Theater books to develop a sense of reading in communion with others. We will be performing these stories (w/ props) in class for one another. In Spelling we have been reviewing the short and long vowel sounds. In Math we have almost finished our unit on place value (important for addition, subtraction and stepping stones for multiplication and division). In Science we have been studying the Solar System and have almost finished our study of the Sun, Earth and the Moon. In Social Studies we have been reviewing atlas skills and the continents and oceans of the Earth. In Religion we have been reviewing that our God is a loving God, that He cares for us like a loving parent, and that people who follow and do God’s good works are called Saints.

Coming up in the next month we will be learning about Mary, the rosary and more about the saints in preparation for our annual Saints Game. In Social Studies we will be studying the United States, the capitals and important facts about each state; this will lead us to a project about the states. We will finish the month with a study of Native Americans. In Science we will continue to explore the solar system in Astronomy with a study of the planets. We will be having a test next week over the first portion of the Astronomy unit. Moving on in Math, we will begin a unit on addition! We have also begun using a computer program called Math Score! The students love this approach to learning math. We will be sending home information so the kids can use this at home, too. In Spelling we will be reviewing what we have learned so far, and moving on to the /oi, ou, and aw/o/ sounds. In Reading we will be finishing our story Charlotte’s Web, and will be reading Bunnicula in honor of Halloween. We have also begun using the SRA Reading Kit (ask your child; they’re enjoying it, too). In English we will continue using our Daily Grammar books to reinforce our grammar skills. We will be learning how to make plurals with words ending in /f/ (wife, wives), work more on verbs and continue to sing our preposition, helping verb and pronouns song.

We will be Lexile testing again this week (9/24) and will be having our Sight Words quizzes on Sept. 24, Oct. 8 and 22nd. Our next Reading Counts test taking date will be October 2.

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