Hello families! Welcome to the third grade newsletter for the month of December.

Important Dates & Reminders

• November 29- December 26: Book Fair in the TLES library
• December 9: ESL night ( 5:30pm-7pm)
• December 20- January 2: Winter break 

Reminders:  Winter is coming! Be sure your child is dressed warmly for school as we will try to take them outside for recess as long as the weather permits. A warm coat, hat, gloves, and/or scarves will be helpful for you children when the temperature does begin to drop.

Language Arts

What We Learned This Past Month:

This month students focused on a nonfiction unit for both reading and writing. In reading, students explore the many styles of nonfiction text, learning to identify and use text features in functional and informational text and  also how to draw upon theories of a text. In writing, students used their own real life knowledge of a subject they felt they were “experts” in to write an informational text. Students choose based on things they felt they had a lot of knowledge of and could teach their peers about.

What We Will Be Learning Next Month: 

Next month we will venture into the world of fairy tales, tradition and fractured. Students will be reading tales and fables with the focus of digging deep into the messages of the text. In writing, students will be creating their own tale or fracturing a previously told tale. They will be using creativity and knowledge of the meaning and messages behind tales to create their own tale centered around their message purpose.

Math

What We Learned This Past Month:

Students explore multiplication and division for the first time this month and last! They focused on facts to 10x10 as well as the strategies and approaches one can use to solve the mathematical problems. Students solved single step multiplication and division problems through their learned strategies. This month also had a brief introduction to fractions. We focused on three fraction models: area, set, and number line. The students worked toward building and representing fractions such as halves, thirds, fourths, and fifths.

What We Will Be Learning Next Month: 

Next month we will focus on another unit of multiplication and division, expanding on the previous knowledge learned earlier in October and November. Students will be focusing on solving and representing multiplication and division facts to 10x10, as well as solving single step word problems. Students will make connections to the real world through their word problems and understand the importance  and ease of using multiplication and division in real life situations.

Science

What We Learned This Past Month:

We focused on Social Studies this month.

What We Will Be Learning Next Month: 

This upcoming month we will be studying the water cycle and the importance of the water cycle to our ecosystems. Students will be exploring what the main components of the water cycle are in relation to different ecosystems and how it is similar and different.

Social Studies

What We Learned This Past Month:

This month, students focused on the seven continents and five oceans. We took a dive into each continent and the many geographical features that made up each. Students used their reasoning skills to identify different map features for each continent as well as the Earth.

What We Will Be Learning Next Month: 

Next month we will be focusing on Science.