Morning Parents! We had our 2016-2017 parent meeting this morning. I know mornings are very busy. If you were unable to attend, please take a moment to view the power point that we discussed this morning. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call or email me.
Have a great day!
Good Evening Families!
I hope everyone had a restful weekend. This one sure did go by fast.
Important: Unit 1 math test tomorrow. Your child was sent home with their unit one pretest to study from. We went over it in class on Friday. We had a great time last week creating graphs by using M & M’s as our data. It was delicious!
We will continue to work on theme as we read a variety of myths. We will work on supporting our ideas with evidence from the text. Students will learn to use the CER (Claim, evidence, reasoning) strategy to help them fully support their claim.
In writing we will begin to write our personal narratives. We will focus on using red flag transition words to move our writing along. We will also learn the importance of word choice and use our word collectors and synonym resource sheet to help us use strong word choice. Finally, we will learn how to compose a strong ending to our personal narratives. We will be celebrating our hard work with an authors celebration at the end of the week.
We will begin our week with our unit 1 math test and our unit 2 pretest. We will begin to work on unit 2 which consists of addition and subtraction concepts as well as story problems. We will be doing a plethora of word problems and use the model drawing strategy to help us.
In social studies we will look at the different regions that Michigan is part of. We will also learn about Michigan’s natural resources.
In science we will continue to learn about plant adaptations.
Academic Vocabulary:
Please join us for an informational Parent Meeting on Thursday 10/20 at 8:00-8:30 in Room 32. We will discuss Home Routines, Helpful Websites, Homework, and Positive Reinforcement.
Looking forward to a great week!
Good evening families!
Thank you to all the families that came out on Friday for the Haigh family movie night. The weather couldn’t have been better.
Just a reminder that we have a half day on Friday, October 14th. Dismissal is at 11:45.
This week we will begin to plan and work on our personal narrative writings. We will learn how to focus on a small moment and tell our stories with strong description, an interesting lead, and with the use of transition words.
We will continue to focus on identifying character traits and theme as we explore the genre of myths. Students will be able to compare myths to fables and explain how they are different and how they are the same.
****Please send in a pair of headphones or ear buds for your child to use during listen to reading which takes place during our Daily 5 literacy block (I have a few old pairs in the classroom for students to use as well).
We will be looking at data and graphs in math this week. We will learn how to interpret and represent data on pictographs and bar graphs.We will use our own personal data folders to help us relate graphs to the importance in our everyday lives.
We will continue to explore the geography of Michigan and learn about the Great Lakes. We will also begin to explore the different regions of Michigan.
We will continue our focus on plant structures and functions and learn the different ways plants adapt.
Academic Vocabulary
That is all for tonight! Looking forward to a productive week.
Please see the attached flyer and consider donating supplies. We will be accepting donations until next Friday, October 14th. Thank you for your support.
What a beautiful fall day we had today! I think it was much deserved after all the rain we had. My family and I took advantage of it by enjoying dinner outside. I hope you all were able to spend some family time together this weekend as well.
This week we will continue to work hard at getting into our routine of daily five. We will be focusing on character traits and theme as we read and discover the elements of myths.
We will be setting up our writing binders and begin to to brainstorm topics to write about for our personal narrative unit. We will focus on taking a small moment that was really special to us and using strong leads, word choice, and voice to compose a personal narrative.
In math we will continue to practice elapsed time in different formats and learn how to apply the T-chart strategy to help us solve these problems. Students are really making progress in this area, thank you for your help at home.
We will continue to look at the geography of our beautiful state of Michigan. Students will use desk maps to identify the natural and human characteristics of Michigan.
In science we will identify the structures of plants and discover how they adapt and change in different environments.
Academic vocabulary words:
Please make sure your child is reading each night at home and recording their minutes on their reading log. It is also important that they choose from the list of questions on the front and thoughtfully answer them on the back. Please encourage your child to read chapter books. Sometimes it can be hard for a child to get into chapter books; the key is to find the perfect series and a good fit book that works for them. We have been talking about this in class and will continue throughout the year.
Have a restful night!
We have a wonderful field trip on Tuesday. It’s going to be a full day of hands-on science learning out in nature! The students will be observing plant/animal interactions and the adaptations that help these partnerships work for the benefit of both organisms. We will also be collecting and identifying animals that live in a pond habitat. It’s going to be fun!
A couple of things that are important:
We will be in a wooded area–long pants and appropriate shoes are important. You can apply bug spray AT HOME to prevent mosquito bites (please do not send in a can). Your child should also wear a hat to protect them from the sun and/or apply sunscreen AT HOME. Additionally, we will be eating lunch at the nature center. Picnic tables are outside and there is an area indoors where students can “camp out” with their lunches. Please send a bagged lunch and something to drink with your child. No food will be available to purchase at the nature center.
A huge thank you to the parents who will be chaperoning. You will be receiving a note home on Monday, explaining your duties. Plan to arrive at my classroom (room 33) at 9:00. The office staff will be available to sign you in and issue you a sticker. You will need to drive yourself to the field trip, since seating is limited on the bus. Since we are technically at school, you will not be able to take your student home from the field trip. Students must return to school on the bus. We will be having a follow-up lesson when we arrive back to school.Thanks again for supporting our students!
We will have a wonderful time together, exploring nature and learning about plants and animals that make their homes in Dearborn!
Our first “Outdoor Movie Night” will be Friday, October 7th. This was one of our favorite new events last year with a 55ft wide Movie Screen, a BBQ, and a concession stand for all of our guests. Please vote TONIGHT to have your say in what movie your child/children would like to see.
Please use the link below to vote for the movie you’d like to see on the Haigh School Big Screen!
Good evening Haigh families.I hope you had a great time enjoying family time with the refreshing sunny weather we had.
Important dates:
This Thursday, September 29th we will be attending the Dearborn firehouse for a presentation on fire safety from 12:30-2:30. This field trip is provided to us free from the city of Dearborn. Permission slips will be sent home tomorrow, so please sign and return if you would like your child to attend this trip. Also, this field trip will not require any parent volunteers. However, Next week on Tuesday October 4th we will be attending the University of Michigan Dearborn Nature Center. Parents chaperones are encouraged and must drive their child to the field trip. Permission slips will be sent home this week. The cost is $3.00. If you want to chaperone, please make sure you have an updated background check on file through the district. The process to do this is simple and easy and can be done through the Haigh front office. It usually takes about two weeks to clear and is valid for three years.
This week we will continue to complete our NWEA testing in all areas.
Students took their first spelling and academic vocabulary test on Friday. They did a pretty good job for their first academic vocabulary test. Please look for their test in their owl folder tomorrow to check out their grades.
Our new academic vocabulary words are:
We will continue to work on fables as we review our CAFE strategies this week. We will be looking deeper at the characters in the stories we have read and work on selecting traits to describe our characters based on evidence from the text.
We will focus on elapsed time all week. This is usually a tough concept for students of all ages so your support at home helps tremendously. We will begin our math rotations this week so students can review telling time, addition concepts, and work on elapsed time in small groups. Last week students practiced logging in and taking a pretest for frontrowed.com. This is an excellent website for students to practice math concepts as well as fact fluency practice. Multiplication facts are never to early to begin mastering! Students are able to sign in at home. The class code is: halimp
Thank you for your support. The classroom routines are going smoothly and our daily schedule is working well. This year is looking to be GREAT!
Hi Parents,
We started talking about elapsed time today in class. This is a big concept for third graders and can be very tough. We will be working on this over the next few weeks and I wanted to give you the opportunity to see one of the strategies that we use to teach this skill. Please take a minute to view the video link. It may help you tonight as you help your child with their math homework.
Elapsed time on a time line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUmdJElng1M
Here is a link to some additional games your child can play to help them with telling time.
https://www.homeschoolmath.net/online/clock.php
Thank you for you support!
As we continue NWEA testing, students are going to be coming home and sharing their scores with you. I am attaching a document to this email that should help you get a feel for what the norm score is for this point in the 3rd grade year. When you open the document, scroll to page 3 where you will see the reading, math, language, and science norms for the beginning of the year in 3rd grade.
Please do not panic if your child is scoring lower then they did at the end of the year last year, as they are taking a different test and they are not having the option of having the test read to them. Students will be recording their NWEA scores into their data folders so they can track their progress through the year.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me 🙂