Good Evening Parents,

Today your child received their M-STEP schedule for the month of April-May. In third grade we only take the ELA and math portions of the M-STEP. In order to make sure we are prepared for the test, you will start seeing us completing some practice portions of the test in class and you may see some coming home.

To complete this test, your child will be using the computer (which can cause some issues). To better prepare your child, the MDE has created the website below to help familiarize your child with the testing program. I highly encourage you to sit down with your child and go through some of these practice problems. The repeated exposure will help your child feel less stressed out come the end of April.

https://wbte.drcedirect.com/MI/portals/mi

Individual students are still doing very well on the Battle of the Books competition questions.  If you are participating in Battle of the Books, you have until 8:00pm on Thursday, March 28 to complete quiz questions.  ANY QUESTIONS SUBMITTED AFTER 8:00PM ON MARCH 28 WILL NOT BE COUNTED!  Good luck to all our competitors!  Our team competition will be held on Friday, March 29 at 2:00 in the auditorium.  Below is a list of the individual scores for each student participating in the individual competition.

THIRD GRADE

Jack Teefey                        50

Nora Elling                           30

Zachary Schook                 26

Aaliyah Khatri                    24

FOURTH GRADE

Elena Bazzi                          49

Alora Bazzi                          36

Abbas Osman                    29

Israel Ali                               29

Kate Mattison                   21

Zeinab Haidar                    17

Madison Minor                 17

FIFTH GRADE

Sireen Bazzi                        43

Juliana Ayoub                    23

Reem Bazzi                         23

Adam Hossein                   16

Good Afternoon Parents!

Last Wednesday your child participated in a DTE Energy Safety Assembly. We learned how to safely avoid dangerous situations and other ways to be safe around electricity. In order to help out our classroom they asked if parents could fill out a quick survey about being safe around energy. Feel free to visit the website below to see what we talked about!

energysafekids.org/dte/

Please complete the survey below to help us earn $50 as a class! You can print off the survey link below, or you can take the quiz online using the link in the printed sheet.

DTE Energy Quiz

Happy Monday!

Today was a very productive day in room 208! This morning your child received their Module 4 Mid-Module Assessment. Please review over your child’s score with the rubric listed below. It will show you how each question should have been graded. In addition, if you are still confused on how the Eureka math is being graded please see the post from last week about the rubric or reach out to me.

Module 4 Mid-Module Rubric

In addition, today in class your child learned about the Soo Locks. The Soo Locks in Michigan help boats get from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. This is crucial considering Lake Superior is about 20 feet taller in height than Lake Huron. We showed the YouTube video below. Many students enjoyed the clip and wanted me to share it out with you!

Happy Monday Everyone!

It’s starting to look a lot like spring! While the weather is slowly starting to warm up, our class is getting close to wrapping up the card marking. Please keep a close eye on upcoming events for test dates and study guides.

Today your child brought home their Mid-Module Assessment for Module 4. While this seems rather soon for another mid-module, module 4 is actually a very short unit since we are only discussing area and multiplication. Please make sure to review with your child any mistakes that they made. On the end-of-module assessment, students may see questions that are very similar.

Listed below is what we will be covering this week.

Reading- Wrapping up making inferences, nonfiction text features, and discovering the main idea of a text.

Writing- Creating great leads/hooks and using transition words to help signify moving to the next paragraph or thought.

Math- Arithmetic properties using area models and application of area using side lengths of a figure.

Social Studies- Soo Locks in Michigan and how they helped solve transportation issues for the mining industry, manufacturing in Michigan, and discussing the growth of the automobile industry.

Science- 

In science this week we learned about how people create new breeds of animals by selecting
certain traits and only having those animals have babies. Your child learned in particular how the earliest dogs were medium-sized and wolf-like, but using selective breeding, we managed to get the many different dog breeds, from small dogs to big dogs, spotted dogs to plain dogs.

What makes selection possible is the fact that no two individuals are ever exactly alike–there are always small differences, and yet parents do pass on most of their traits to their offspring. You can help reinforce this learning at home by helping your child to notice these small differences in physical traits between siblings, cousins, and other family members, as well as to contemplate which traits have been passed on from one generation to the next.

Spelling- see spelling city

Leader in Me- Habit 4: Think Win-Win is the first habit of interdependence-the ability to work well with others. Working well with others includes respecting others and their ideas.

Upcoming Events 

Wednesday-Team Sports

Thursday- Bring math study guide to class and choir

Friday- Leadership Day, ELG tutoring, and Sock Hop from 6pm-8pm

Next Monday- Module 4 Math Test

Today your child brought home their Module 3 End-of-Module Assessment. Starting with Module 3’s mid-module assessment, we have decided as a building to grade every math test with a rubric. Listed below is the rubric that was used to grade your child’s test.

Module 3 End-of-Module Rubric

You will notice that each question is graded on a 4 point scale. At the top of their test on the first page, your child received their grade as either a 1-4 (just like on their report card). Listed below is what this grade means.

1- Exceeding. Student understands all of the information. Excellent effort!

2- Proficient. Student understands most of the information. May need to ask questions. Good effort.

3- Approaching Proficient. Student understands some of the information. They may need to ask more questions to gather understanding. May not have put their best effort in.

4-Below proficient. Student does not understand the information. They need more assistance.

If your child scored a 3-4, we will be having retakes on Wednesday next week in the morning at 8:00. Please reach out to me if you are interested in having your child retake the assessment.

Happy Monday!

This week is jammed packed with many fun reading month activities as well as guest readers coming by to read to our class. Please make sure to go back and take a look at the reading month calendar for more descriptive details about what is going on this week.

Today we passed back our Module 3 end-of-module assessment. Please make sure to review this with your child and sign the test. I will be posting a more detailed post later today about what the grades truly mean. As always, if you have questions feel free to reach out to me.

Listed below are our events and content that we will be covering this week:

Reading- Using illustrations to help infer and predict what is going on within our story. Why is “Infer and Support with Evidence” such a helpful strategy?  Remember that writers want to keep you interested in reading their books, so they do not tell you everything. Instead they want readers like you to infer and support those inferences
with the evidence from their writing and pictures. So, whenever you read,you have the opportunity to infer and use evidence to support your thinking. Use this strategy whenever you can with your child.

Writing- Developing short responses based upon text and continuing developing our personal narratives.

Math- Multiplication and Area measurement: concepts of area measurement

Social Studies- Iron and Copper mining industry in Michigan and putting our natural resources to work in Michigan

Science- Continuing our fossil discovery with science

Leader in Me- Discussing ways that we can “sprinkle” kindness on others within school. Reading the book the Jelly Doughnut Difference and discussing ways to put deposits into others emotional bank account

Upcoming Events 

Tuesday- State Pride Day (wear Michigan apparel tomorrow), Spring Pictures (only if you want them),  ELG tutoring, and PTA skate night .

Wednesday- Wacky Socks Wednesday, Smencil Sale during lunch/after-school, DTE safety assembly, guest readers, and team sports.

Thursday- Stuffed animal day, school concert assembly, and ELG tutoring.

Friday- Wear green for St.Patrick’s Day, Popcorn Friday, guest readers, and Key Club assembly (3rd grade only)

Just a friendly reminder that today is wear black for reading month! We are wearing black because we are going to “black out” all media usage!