A Week At A Glance

Just a little reminder... We are beginning our Secret Santa this week.  Students were given names of their secret friend that they will be doing some secret notes, secret acts or secret treats to have some fun, but also...fill more buckets!  Any questions or concerns, please contact me.  Thanks for your help!

For the next few weeks, we are focusing on multiplication facts fluency.  Students will be given a flashcard games worksheet to choose daily games.  Each student should complete at least one activity a day.  Please initial next to the games being played by your student, and then turn in worksheet on Friday or the last day of the week.  All flashcards stay at home to be used daily.  Students have another set at school to practice fluency there.  This week we are trying to pass off x2s and x5x and then review x1s and x10s.

On Wednesday, December 11, the third grade classes will be walking to Alta High School to watch a performance of Peter Pan.  We'll leave about 8:50 and return to Altara at lunchtime.  All elementary schools within walking distance were invited, so seating is limited to just students and teachers.  We are looking forward to providing this cultural experience for the students.  A permission slip will be coming home in homework folders today.  Please sign and return by Tuesday, December 10.  Thanks!

This week in Reading Street we are reading the expository text, Seeing Stars.  Today we talked about the weekly question, "How can we explain things in nature using investigation?"  Stars look like tiny diamonds, but they are actually giant balls of fire.  You can only see stars at night, because daylight makes them invisible.  It's hard to see them even at night if you live in a well-lit place like a big city.  You can see stars close-up if you look through a telescope.  The map of stars in the sky appears to change because the Earth moves through the sky.  In long-ago times, people "connected the dots" in the sky to form constellations, such as Orion.

This week our comprehension skill is digging into Graphic Sources.  Maps, charts, diagrams, illustrations, and photos are examples of graphic sources.  They help us understand information as we read a text.

We will also be learning about subject-verb agreement for our conventions.  The subject of a sentence tells who or what performs the main action.  The verb tells what the main action is.  The subject and verb must agree.  A singular subject gets a singular verb.  A plural subject gets a plural verb.