Week of September 20th

 ❤ Thank you to everyone that showed up to Back to School Night. 

❤ We know that this year is going to be great!

❤ We understand busy schedules. If you couldn't make BTSN, please check out the presentation for your teacher

Knuth BTSN Presentation

Persenaire BTSN Presentation

Yoder BTSN Presentation

💙 Testing in 3rd Grade💛

Tests will be happening throughout the year of third grade. We know students can be worried about these tests at first.  In third grade, we do not typically assign homework, so this is where studying for tests becomes even more important. We make a point of creating the study guides to match the test as closely as possible. Students will be able to retake, or fix, their tests if needed, but we want to emphasize the importance of using the study guide, Kahoots, or Blookets to prepare. Please keep us up to date as to how we can assist your family if you are having concerns.

💙 IXL Practice 💛

As we complete standards through our math program, we will update you on skills that students can practice at home through IXL

Graphing Skills: 3rd Grade U.5, U.6, U.7, U.8, U.12, U.13

💙 Volunteering💛

We are so excited that parties and volunteer opportunities have returned. If you would like to help here is important information from the PTO

Word Study

Next week's word study is introducing how to properly add -ing to VCe and VVC words. Please remember that there are spelling words to practice each week. The amount of words varies each week between 3 - 5 words. 

This week's words will be:

speaking, writing, escaping, dreaming, smiling

💙 What We Learned This Week 💛

💙Language Arts: We are continuing to work on developing our Daily 5 Rotations., including with the addition of Core 5. This week, we focused on the difference between a fact and an opinion. We used the book "Cats vs. Dogs" to help us with determining what was a fact and what was an opinion. We also continued to work on choosing good-fit books for Read-to-Self. 

💛Writing: We continue to work on printing letters correctly so that we can move into cursive handwriting later. We have continued working on our writing unit of personal narratives. This week, students focused on a time they went on a family vacation. The goal has been to pick a small moment rather than describing the whole trip. They created a Memory Map and a Graphic Organizer to organize their thoughts and ideas. At the end of the week, we worked on creating a rough draft. 

💙Math: We continue to work on creating a scaled picture graph and bar graph based on data given, as well as answering questions based on the graph. This is leading us into working with equal groups which begins our thinking around multiplication. The "cooldowns" will continue to be posted on Seesaw for your viewing! 

💛Social Studies:  We will be pausing Social Studies as we will be alternating between Social Studies and Science. The next chapter includes learning more about Michigan!

💙Science:  We have completed lesson 2 of our first science unit--The Power of Flowers. Students should fully understand how plants give us fruit as well as what is a science vegetable and what is a science fruit. (A science fruit has seeds whereas a science vegetable does not have seeds.)

3rd Grade Necessities...

• bring a snack and water bottle each day. *The office has a limited amount of snacks for emergency purposes.

• make your student's lunch choice for the week

• set aside reading time at least 5 days a week--this is a habit that is easy to ignore but reaps more benefits than you can imagine--start early and don't give in. Students will be completing book reports when they are finished with their independent reading books. Students should complete a book every 1 - 2 weeks based on the length of the book. 

• Check your child's blue take-home folder daily. Look for papers being returned for home, notes from school, homework assignments, etc.

• read the blog each Friday.

Week of September 13th

    

❤ A home-school partnership is key. We will post a blog every Friday, post-work on SeeSaw, send messages through SeeSaw, and email or call when needed. Please reach out to us as well as we are here to ensure a successful year for both your child AND you!

Back-To-School Night

Please plan to attend our 3rd-grade portion of the night from 6:45 - 7:30 PM. Please report to your child's room when you arrive at Clarke. We will be sharing important information about the year including our philosophy, routines, procedures, and curriculum highlights. If you are able to, please come! 

Mrs. Knuth: Room 110

Miss Yoder: Room 111

Mr. Persenaire: Room 113

3rd Grade Necessities...

• bring a snack and water bottle each day. *The office has a limited amount of snacks for emergency purposes.

• make your student's lunch choice for the week

• set aside reading time at least 5 days a week--this is a habit that is easy to ignore but reaps more benefits than you can imagine--start early and don't give in. Students will be completing book reports when they are finished with their independent reading books. Students should complete a book every 1 - 2 weeks based on the length of the book. 

• Check your child's blue take-home folder daily. Look for papers being returned for home, notes from school, homework assignments, etc.

• read the blog each Friday.

Word Study

Next week word's study is introducing how to properly add -ing to words. Please remember that there are spelling words to practice each week. The amount of words varies each week between 3 - 5 words. This week's words will be:

stopping, working, standing, grinning, planning

TOYS

We are having many students bring toys from home. This is causing issues both in the classroom and at recess. Toys are not allowed at school and should remain at home. If your student is going somewhere after school and needs a particular toy, please remind them that it must stay in their backpack for the duration of the school day.

HELP NEEDED

Please be sure that your child has a working pair of headphones at school. 

Headphones are used every day at school

Thank you for helping with this important supply!

💙 Third Grade Schedule 💛

Enter Building: 8:20 a.m.

Tardy Bell: 8:30 a.m.

Recess: & Snack 10:10 - 10:30

Lunch: 11:40 a.m.

Lunch Recess: 12:05

Return to Class: 12: 30

Recess: 2:00

Special: 3:05 - 3:45 p.m.

Dismissal: 3:50 p.m.

💙 IXL Practice 💛

As we complete standards through our math program, we will update you on skills that students can practice at home through IXL

Graphing Skills: 3rd Grade U.5, U.6, U.7, U.8, U.12, U.13

The tardy bell rings at 8:30. We have been lenient about students arriving late, especially with late buses, congestion in the parking lot, and construction in the car. Please do your best to make sure your student arrives at school on time. We will begin marking students who arrive late tardy if they are not on a bus. 

💙Home-School Partnership💛

Our partnership with you is extremely important to us and to a successful year for your child. If you have questions or concerns, please feel comfortable reaching out to us. We will strive to answer all emails or SeeSaw messages as quickly as our schedules allow. Emails that arrive in the evening or over the weekend will be returned the following school day.

💙 What We Learned This Week 💛

💙 Language Arts: We are continuing to work on developing our Daily 5 Rotations., including with the addition of Core 5. This week, we focused on character traits and identifying the moral of the story through reading the tale "Tortoise and the Hare." We also continued to work on choosing good-fit books for Read-to-Self. 

💛Writing: We continue to work on printing letters correctly so that we can move into cursive handwriting later. We also introduced our first writing genre, which is personal narratives. Students wrote about their First Day of 3rd Grade, where they created a Memory Map and a Graphic Organizer to organize their thoughts and ideas. At the end of the week, we worked on creating a rough draft. 

💙 Math: We continue to work on creating a scaled picture graph and bar graph based on data given, as well as answering questions based on the graph. We are doing our "cool downs" in SeeSaw, so families can easily see how their students are understanding and progressing through each lesson. 

💛Social Studies:  We will take our first Social Studies test on Monday for Unit 1 titled "Meet Michigan", which was about the symbols and other important information about Michigan. Students really enjoyed getting to learn about the state that they live in! Each student should have a completed study guide to study from. There is also a copy with the answers on Seesaw. 

💙Science:  We have completed lesson 1 of our first science unit--The Power of Flowers. Students should fully understand how bees help a flower produce seeds. (A flower provides nectar for the bee while the bee provides pollen from another flower in order to produce seeds).

                          

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

❤ We are ready to begin a new year with a fabulous new group of 3rd graders 

❤ A home-school partnership is key. We will post a blog every Friday, post work on SeeSaw, send messages through SeeSaw, and email or call when needed. Please reach out to us as well as we are here to ensure a successful year for both your child AND you!

❤We know that the supply list asks for a 5-subject notebook but we would prefer not to use those this year. If you haven't purchased, please don't. If you have purchased and can return it, please do. We would like to provide specific notebooks for students.

💙This year we welcome Mr. Steve Persenaire to our Clarke 3rd Grade Team! Mr. Persenaire comes to us from Lincoln Elementary where he has taught for 3 years. He also taught in Lawrence for 4 years. We are looking forward to working with Mr. Persenaire as he will be a valuable part of our team!

💛We also welcome Ms. Rachel Williams who will be doing her student teaching in Mrs. Knuth's classroom.

SEESAW:

We will be sending out an invitation for you to sign up for SeeSaw. Please make sure you get signed up right away in order to receive notifications of when your student posts their work to their journal and to receive any messages from the teacher. This is a great way to stay current on what your student is learning and how your student is progressing. Feel free to leave positive comments for your student as they are very motivating for young learners.

Knuth - Seesaw Invite

Persenaire - Seesaw Link

Yoder - Seesaw Invite

3rd Grade Necessities...

• bring a snack and water bottle each day.

• make your student's lunch choice for the week

• set aside reading time at least 5 days a week--this is a habit that is easy to ignore but reaps more benefits than you can imagine--start early and don't give in. Students will be completing book reports when they are finished with their independent reading books. Students should complete a book every 1 - 2 weeks based on the length of the book. 

• Check your child's blue take-home folder daily. Look for papers being returned for home, notes from school, homework assignments, etc.

• read the blog each Friday.

Picture Day is Tuesday!

SMILE!

The picture schedule is as follows:

Knuth -- 8:30 am

Persenaire -- 9:50 am

Yoder -- 10:00 am

HELP NEEDED

Please be sure that your child has a working pair of headphones at school. 

Headphones are used every day at school

Thank you for helping with this important supply!

Back-To-School Night

Please plan to attend our 3rd-grade portion of the night from 6:45 - 7:30

💙 Third Grade Schedule 💛

Enter Building: 8:20 a.m.

Tardy Bell: 8:30 a.m.

Recess: & Snack 10:10 - 10:30

Lunch: 11:40 a.m.

Lunch Recess: 12:05

Return to Class: 12: 30

Recess: 2:00

Special: 3:05 - 3:45 p.m.

Dismissal: 3:50 p.m.

💙Home-School Partnership💛

Our partnership with you is extremely important to us and to a successful year for your child. If you have questions or concerns, please feel comfortable reaching out to us. We will strive to answer all emails or SeeSaw messages as quickly as our schedules allow. Emails that arrive in the evening or over the weekend will be returned the following school day.

💙 What We Learned This Week 💛

💙 Language Arts: We are easing our way into our language arts program. 
We have selected our independent reading books that should go back and forth between school each day. We have also read the story Dog Vs. Cat and are currently working on activities surrounding this book. 

💛Writing: We have been working on printing letters correctly so that we can move into cursive handwriting later. We have also completed writing about our favorite things and 10 great things about ourselves. You can enjoy those at our back-to-school night as they are hanging in the hallway. 

💙 Math: We are very excited to announce that we are utilizing a new math program this year to teach our math standards. We are really enjoying this new program as it has very clear-cut goals each day that builds nicely on each other each day. There is a "cool down" after each lesson so we can check for understanding. Soon, we will be putting these "cool downs" in SeeSaw so families can easily see how their students are understanding and progressing through each lesson. This week we have worked on bar graphs, picture graphs, and scaled picture graphs.

💛Social Studies:  We kicked off our social studies this year by introducing our students to what we will study throughout the year. Third graders often do not understand what Social Studies really means. Hopefully, your student shared this document with you. Today and next week, we will get to know Michigan. including its state symbols and its legends. The first social studies test will be next week on Thursday. 

💙Science:  We have completed lesson 1 of our first science unit--The Power of Flowers. Students should fully understand how bees help a flower produce seeds. (A flower provides nectar for the bee while the bee provides pollen from another flower in order to produce seeds).