Week 21 and 22

This week the Third Grade began their Dance enrichment with Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX). We had a great time as Maira, our teaching artist walked us through some movements in dances from different cultures. This enrichment will take place every Monday from now on. Please encourage your child to wear clothing that would allow them to move easily on these day. Avoid tight clothes like jeans and stockings. Students will go barefoot for safety reasons, so girls should avoid wearing tights on Monday since they would removed for Dance.

Here's what to look forward to for the rest of this week and the next week:

• We will have our Math test on Thursday. This will bring an end to our work with Chapter eight but we will continue working with fractions in Chapter 9. In the next chapter, our focus will be in comparing fractions by looking more closely at the way a denominator affects the size of a piece and how a numerator can change the quantity of a fraction. 
• On Friday, we will have Family Friday. By now, our class parents have reached out to you regarding the class craft for the Winter Auction. We will work on a collage with flag from around the world. Please look out for a notice regarding this in your child's folder tomorrow.
• We will have our second session of BAX Dance on Monday, Feb. 6.
• We will be heading to the Armory on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

Have an excellent week and weekend!

Week 20

We are almost through our first month of 2017. How time flies! In these weeks we have started some exciting new units.

Fractions have been introduced in Math and children as learning the challenging concept of parts to whole. While many children can name examples of fractions, they have a more challenging time defining the what the fraction is and understanding what the numbers represent. We will work with many models and concrete examples of fractions so that we can build a better understanding of this math.

We also have begun our work on China in Social Studies. This unit allows us to apply the concept of culture to learning about a specific country. We started our learning with the our trip to Chen Dance Center, where we explored the unique language that is based on characters and not an alphabet. We will continue our learning by exploring the resources and contributions of this country. We've almost finish assembling out salt dough maps and will dive deeper into researching about the famous landmarks of vast land.

Opinion writing is a favorite unit amongst our children as they get to share all their strongest opinions! We will teach children how to clearly support their thinking and to organize this into a written essay.

Here's what else will happen next week:

• We are visiting the Armory on Tuesday. Please encourage your child to wear sneakers for running.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Week 19:

Thanks for coming in for Family Friday this week. It was a packed house but we had a great time showing off our Shelters from our Culture Unit and our published Information Books. We hope we were able to share our knowledge and you left with a some new fun facts.

Here's what to expect for next week:

• School will be closed on Monday for Martin Luther King's Birthday. 
• We are headed to Chen Dance Center on Tuesday. Children will be back in time for lunch. Please make sure your child is prepared for walking. 

Have a beautiful weekend!

Week 18: Welcome Back

Happy New Year! We returned from a relaxing and fun recess ready to start 2017. Many kids came back and were resolved to continue their good progress and have even more success in this upcoming year!

Here's what to expect for the next week:

• We are starting our annual school Readathon. Your child received the Read-a-thon packet with the record sheets and the sponsor sheets before the Winter Recess and were strongly advised to keep it in the homework folder. Students also received instruction for the bookmark contest. 
• In reading, children will use their prior learning in fiction and nonfiction to help them read with their book clubs. This exciting unit is often a lot of fun but requires children to take charge of their reading life. They will read the same text as their group and set goal for how many pages they read together. On designated days, they will meet to discuss their reading and talk about ideas they are making as they read. Students will select books from the mystery genre in the first three weeks then later select books in the biography genre in the following weeks. 
• We are heading to the Armory on Tuesday. Please make sure your child wears running shoes for this session. 
• Children will show off their Culture Shelters on Family Friday. We will also make snowflakes as part of a school wide project. 
• The unit 6 Math test will be given on Friday.