1. Ms. Harris’ Class Happenings Edition 7: 10/17/13 What an awesome week we have had here in third grade! It may be week 8 but I felt as if this was one of our best weeks yet. The kids were working hard, behavior was excellent and lots of teaching and learning took place! MY favorite part of this week? Finally being able to pull small groups in both reading and math! Hooray! Take a peek at all that happened this week! Literacy Students spent this week continuing to study characters. Our main focus this week was on noticing characters’ actions and making inferences as to their motivations. We then took things a step further by using this information to “develop theories” about characters. Students are loving our character study as we use the book “Wonder” in our classroom. Ask them to share with you!. In writing, students finished publishing and began our second round of writing personal narratives. Math We are moving full steam ahead with subtraction. This week focused mainly on how subtraction and addition are related. Students used number lines to help solve subtraction problems. They learned how to jump forward on a number line and jump backwards in order to solve these problems! Science Students spent this week learning about the biomes on earth and also the different land and water features on earth. Students have really enjoyed putting our class IPAD’s to use for research during science! Ask them to share the “landform” song with you! Social Studies Continuing with our focus on changing communities, this week we focused on immigration and suffrage and how that impacted not only the USA but also North Carolina. Students created a 5 W’s folder (Who, what, when, where and why) about their topic of choice! School is FUN! Quite possibly a favorite part of your child’s day is our “brain break” where we play freeze dance. This week students had fun doing the train around the classroom!

2. Math We will continue with subtraction. Our focus will be on story problems and multi step word problems that involve adding and subtracting. We will continue using a number line and introduce subtracting in parts. Happening Next Week…. Literacy In reading we will continue working on character studies. We will focus on turning points for characters in the story as well as how characters persevere through challenges. We will also put a strong emphasis on using accurate vocabulary to describe characters. In writing we will continue with our second personal narrative, focusing on choosing an idea to develop! Science We will begin studying matter and its properties. Social Studies We will continue with our study of historical events that have changed history. Projects are due this week! Dates to know… 10/21 :Parent Teacher Conferences Begin! 10/23: Fall pictures 10/24 Social Studies Project Due 10/24: Balanced Literacy Parent Night! 10/29 End of Quarter 11/1: Teacher Workday MAP info session @ 9am and 3pm 11/15: Report Cards go home! Important Information and Reminders Room Parents Thank you so much to Ms. Veal and Ms. Royster for volunteering to share the role of room parent in our classroom! Balanced Literacy Info Night A little confused on how literacy is being taught this year? There are lots of changes that have been made, but all are in the best interest of your child! Ms. Pagano and Ms. Bailey (our literacy facilitators) will be hosting a balanced literacy parent night on Thursday, October 24 from 6:00-7:00 PM in the media center. Please see the link below for more information! http://www.signupgenius.com/go/508054DA4AD22A3 1-balanced As always, thank you for your continued support! It’s exciting to see the growth and excitement your children come to school with everyday. I am looking forward to meeting with each of you during conferences. Check out our class wiki for a few tips, reminders and the schedule for conferences! http://rachelharrisclass.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/Pa rent+Teacher+Conferences http://rachelharrisclass.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/Pa rent+Teacher+Conferences Wish List! Sticky Notes Student Scissors Black Expo Markers Ziploc Baggies