Chandler’s Champions                       Week of December 1, 2008

We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go to 4^th grade!

Can we do it?  Yes, we can!!

I hope you and your family enjoyed a very happy holiday and a nice long weekend!  I am truly thankful for the opportunity to spend my days with your child. 

EDM:  The Unit 4 math test for multiplication and division will be this Friday.  We will be reviewing and preparing for the test over the next few days, but please have your child go over the review sheet and complete practice problems at home, as well.  On Monday, the students will fill in missing numbers on number lines, and they will use map scales to estimate the most direct distance between two places.  On Tuesday, we will perform a coin-toss experiment to confirm that some outcomes are equally likely.  We will also continue to practice probability vocabulary.  Then on Wednesday and Thursday we will review multiplication and division strategies and practice problems for out unit test.  Please continue to practice fast facts for the timed test section.        

ILA:  This week in ILA we will be reading the story, The Talent Show by Susan Wojciechowski.  Short Summary: Beany’s class is going to put on a school talent show.  Another girl, Carol Ann, decides that Beany and she will recite a poem about bees, with Carol Ann as the queen bee and Beany as a worker bee.  Beany feels more uncomfortable and anxious about the performance as the days pass.  After a discussion with her father, Beany realizes that she should be enjoying herself, and decides to perform cartwheels in the show instead.  The focus strategy for this story is creating mental images.  We will be given the opportunity to record and create a vivid mental image while listening to the story on tape.  We will also work on the focus skill which being able to locate information.  We will use a variety of resources to locate and collect information about the vocabulary that is in the story.  Later in the week we will complete a content literacy lesson on Patterns which relates to our “Mystery Powders” unit.  

WRITING:  We will continue our work with personal narratives this week.  We have generated many lists for ideas and now we will select a topic and begin drafting.  We will first expand our thoughts and ideas on the topic.  Then we will use our senses to gather more details for our topic in order to write a proficient personal narrative.  After we have organized our thoughts we will have a mini lesson on “marking time.”  We will discuss how to move readers through time and how to correctly use past and present vocabulary.  Towards the end of the week we will focus on how to reveal the important part of our story to the readers, by making them excited and interested to continue reading.  Lastly, we will discuss how to accurately incorporate the beginning, middle, and end of a story to help our readers understand what we are writing.

SOCIAL STUDIES:  Our new unit is called, “Connecting People and Places.”  We will begin by learning about the five themes of geography: location, place, human environment interaction, movement, and region.  We will read Dakota Dugout and identify the five themes of geography that are present throughout the story.  The students will also use geographic tools to study Harford County connections.  We will identify the relative location of Harford County using various maps throughout the week.   In addition, the students will determine “Where in the World Am I?” by locating their city, county, state, country, continent, etc.  Towards the end of the week we will focus on identifying the seven continents and four oceans.     

SPELLING:  Monday, we will take our spelling pretest.  Depending on your child’s results from the pretest he or she may have a list of all challenge words.  This is the list they will use to complete their homework and then they will be tested on all the challenge words on Friday.  Spelling homework also has a new look.  The students were introduced to “Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe.”  They will complete one activity Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights according to the Tic-Tac-Toe board.  Then on Thursday nights, the students may visit www.spellingcity.com or complete a practice test in order to review for the test on Friday.  Please see your child’s spelling folder for more details.                 

Special thanks to our mystery reader, Stacey Gail, who shared a cute story about a firefighters Thanksgiving.  Thanks, as well, to Stacey for creating the December showcase for 3^rd grade, found in the intermediate lobby.  Thanks to Vanessa Kraft for creating our bulletin board for our new Social Studies unit.

Monday - recorders - Music

Tuesday - library books - Library

Wednesday - sneakers - Gym

Friday – Unit 4 Math Test – Scholastic Book Orders Due

Next Monday 12/8 – book reports due

Next Friday 12/12 - $$ or gift for Deron / canned goods due

Thank you for helping 3^rd grade to help other children in Harford County to have a beautiful holiday with your donations to our holiday collections. 

Thank you for being so involved with your child’s education and for taking the time to read our newsletter each week.  As always, please feel free to share questions, ideas or concerns. 

Tonya Chandler / tonya.chandler@hcps.org