Language Arts-This week's stories focused on the essential question, How do people from different cultures contribute to a community?  We cited relevant evidence from text, worked on sequencing and asked and answered questions.  Kids had to demonstrate an understanding of compound words.  Our two main stories were Narrative non-fiction and we discussed the characteristics which make a story this genre.  

Math-  This week we worked patterns that we find when multiply by 0, 1, 2, 5, and 9.   We will continue to talk about the commutative property and the identity property as well as the zero property.   This is a short topic and we will be testing over it this coming week.  Ways to prepare for the test will be practicing their math flashcards.  Please have them practice these nightly. Their first test came home Wednesday.  In third grade we take the math tests online and only their scores and scratch paper are sent home, if you would like to see the test, you can find them in their Powerschool account.  If your child scored below a 70% I will send home a paper version of the test with highlighted problems for them to complete that coincide with problems they missed on the actual test. Please have your child complete these for extra points and sign and have them return it by the date written on at the top of the paper. For this first test I will allow C- scores to be corrected as well. One thing you can discuss with your children is making sure that they take their time on the test. I had several kids skip problems on the test because the forgot to scroll down. 

Science- This week we continued to work on Matter. On Tuesday they observed how to make a lava lamp. We discovered that by adding a liquid and a solid together we could create a gas. 

Please remember to check their Folders each week and look over their papers with them. I often ask them to finish something they forget to complete before turning in and it is a good way to get those points back. 

Just a reminder there are conferences this week so there is no school for kids on Thursday. Also, Friday is a teacher work day so there is no school.