|
LATEST PARENT LETTER
March
1, 2010
Dear Parents,
We hope everyone had a wonderful vacation week! Your child’s February
letter is coming home for you to read today. We hope you will enjoy
reading it!
In reading class, we have been learning about the importance of making
inferences when reading a story or article. We have practiced using
our own background knowledge as well as text and picture clues to help
us draw our own conclusions about story events and character traits.
For example, we recently read several articles about the Titanic, and
worked hard to infer whether the Titanic tragedy could have been
prevented. We searched for clues in the articles we read and used our
own knowledge about the Titanic and icebergs to help us make good
judgments. The children know how important it is to think critically
when reading, and that sometimes means looking beyond just what an
author writes. To really understand and enjoy a story, making
inferences, or “reading between the lines”, is a very important skill.
In math
class, we are finishing up unit six. Unit six was geometry and we
focused on different types of line segments like parallel lines,
intersecting lines, and perpendicular lines. We also learned more
about the line of symmetry and what it means to have a symmetrical
shape. Lastly, we learned about three-dimensional shapes. We learned
how to name the different parts of the shapes like faces, bases,
vertices, and edges.
For
social studies, we have been researching specific colonial jobs in the
library. We have been focusing on one job per partnership and
becoming the experts on these jobs! We will be presenting our
research to the class later this month.
Science
has been so exciting for us! We have become chemists whose job is
eventually determine what the powder substance is. In order to do
this, we have an ongoing experiment with the powders and adding other
substances to see the reactions. We are really enjoying this unit on
chemistry.
We are also now beginning to discuss the upcoming MCAS tests that
third graders in our state are required to take. The children will be
taking the reading MCAS tests on March 24 and 25. Over the next
couple of weeks we will be taking some practice tests in school so
that we may better develop our test-taking skills and gain a better
understanding of what to expect on the tests. Your child will be
bringing some of these practice tests home, so that you can also see
what they are like.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to remind you to sign up for a
spring conference. The conference schedules are posted at our school
office, so if you have not yet done so, please stop by there soon to
sign up for a time for us to meet. If you are not able to come into
school to sign up, please send us an email or give us a call so that
we can assist you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you soon!
Sincerely,
Mrs.
Durkin and Ms. Bayek
|