Weekly Update: December 13, 2019

Happy Friday 3B Parents!

Christmas is coming right up! The students can hardly contain their excitement! Thank you to all who attended this week’s Christmas Concerts. The children were so excited to have all of you there to see them perform.

Important Events:

Wednesday, December 18^th---Mass 10am

Wednesday, December 18^th—Chapter 4 Science Test

Wednesday, December 18^th---Topic 5 Math Test

Thursday, December 19^th---Christmas Party 10am-11am

Christmas Break-Friday, December 20th-Wednesday, January 1st

Math:  We have almost finished working through Topic 5. Students seem to be grasping the concept of multiplication. The test is next Wednesday!

Reading: This week, we began a Christmas Gingerbread Man Unit. So far we have read 3 different versions of the Gingerbread Man. We started with the original and discussed the setting and character traits of the Gingerbread Man. We have compared the story elements for the original story with the others.  We also worked to determine the central message (moral) of the story, The Gingerbread Boy.

Next week during Reading Rotations students will complete Gingerbread Man related activities in their literacy workbooks!

Writing: Students spent time this week working to put isolated words into full sentences. These sentences were jam packed with adjectives. Students are learning how to spice up their writing using descriptive language. After the sentence activity, students started brainstorm sensory adjectives they could use to describe their traditional Christmas mornings. Next week students will write a detailed paragraph describing their perfect Christmas morning.

Science: This week we worked through Lesson 6 of Chapter 4. Students learned how ecosystems recover after a natural disaster. They learned that when a habitat is destroyed organisms relocate, perish, or adjust. This was the last lesson in the chapter. We have already begun reviewing for the chapter test which will be given next Wednesday.

Social Studies: Mrs. Newell is sending home the social studies test today. After she corrected them I went through and gave an additional FCA grade for the essay portion of the test. FCA stands for Focused Correction Areas.

Before the test, students were made aware of 3 FCA’s for this test:

1. Answer each question in a complete sentence (CS).—50 points

2. Use a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence.—25 points

3.  Use punctuation at the end of each sentence. -25 points

The FCA grade does not affect their social studies grade in any way. It is used to hold students accountable for applying proper grammar and writing skills to their work. If students struggled with the complete sentence FCA, please have them read the blue ink to help them get the idea of how they should have responded. Students will continue to progress in this area as the year continues, I’ve already seen great progress!

We will follow a similar format moving forward with regards to tests that require written responses.

Book Buddies: Today students met with book buddies and together they read a biography booklet about St. Nicholas and completed a color by number picture after answering true/false questions about the text.