April 4, 2008

Dear Parents,

Hello. It has been a great week! In Reading we worked on comparing and contrasting different texts. The students used venn diagrams to organize their comparisons and then wrote their information into a written response. The children also worked on independent reading and responding in their reader’s notebooks. In Writing the kids have worked hard to take several of their poems to a final copy. They are very interested in poetry now that we have been studying it. In Math we have been working on area of conventional and unconventional shapes. Have your child tell you about “blob solving” and the area of a foot project. They sure did have fun with these this week! In Social Studies we read a chapter about the culture and arts of the Japanese. The students currently are working on a performance assessment to demonstrate their knowledge of this chapter. Again, they are having quite a bit of fun with their project. In Handwriting we worked on capital letters H and K—both very tricky. It is clear we continue to work on very important learning in third grade.

Just a few notes:

1. We have been working as a class on what it means to be “a good listener” and “a good friend” in order to make sure our classroom stays a community that is happy, fun and educational. Please take some time to talk with your child about these topics sometime this weekend. They really are important and it will help to reinforce their importance.

2. I am sending home a book order today. It is due back on Friday, April 11^th.

Have a nice weekend!

Sincerely,

Theresa Johnson