Happy New Year!

Welcome back!  We've had a great first week of 2017.  It was wonderful to greet happy faces on Monday.  We were also happy to welcome a new third grader to our class, it's terrific to have a new third grade friend!  The week got off to a very productive start and we're cruising right along with a variety of new units and events.

Literacy
We launched new units in both reading and writing this week.  Both focus on the genre of informational text.
In reading we've started a unit called: Reading to Learn~Grasping Main Ideas and Text Structures.
Key ideas of this Unit

• Previewing text
• Studying text features
• Understanding the difference between narrative and expository text
• Organizing and summarizing new learning
• Expanding vocabulary
• Identifying main ideas and supporting details
• Summarizing 
• Reading multiple texts on the same topic
• Comparing and contrasting
• Growing individual ideas about a text based upon what has been read

Our writing unit will blend very well with our reading unit, it is titled: The Art of Information Writing
Key ideas of this Unit

• Writing to teach
• Exploring text structures of narrative and expository writing
• Categorizing and Grouping information into topics and subtopics
• Researching facts and staying away from plagiarism
• Working collaboratively to create writing that will teach others
• Improving accuracy in pargraphing, spelling and punctuating written work correctly.

Discovery

Students are doing a great job observing and learning about weather.  This week we've focused on learning about clouds, their names and what they look like in the sky.  We've been collecting and recording weather data through observational journals and reading many books on weather.  Please ask your child to tell you about this work.  It's wonderful to live in such an exciting place where the weather changes many, many times, often within one day!


Next Week's Sharing
Next week's topic is to share SOMETHING NEW.  This does not mean a material item, rather a new experience, goal or activity.  Some examples:

• Trying new foods
• Reading a new series of books.
• Trying a new fitness activity (skating, skiing, snowshoeing)
• Playing a new board game.
• Learning how to cook or trying a new recipe.
• Training a pet.
• Etc.

Updates

• New book orders are included in Friday Folders, they are due Wednesday, January 18th.
• Winter Wellness sign up forms are also in folders.  Please get them filled out and back to us asap!
• No school for students on Monday, January 16th.  This is a teacher inservice day!

As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions!

Have a great weekend!

Christine & Kathy