Week at a Glance

Week of May 20-24, 2019

Math: This week we are continuing our work with Geometry. Students will describe sides of polygons and types of lines (perpendicular, intersecting, parallel). They will work on classifying and drawing quadrilaterals, as well as describing triangles. We should reach our Mid-Chapter Checkpoint (Quiz) on Tuesday.

Science: Please visit Ms. Papagianis’s page for Science information.

Language Arts: This week we will use some of the skills we have already seen in our Simple Solutions Grammar books to add quotation marks and parentheses to sentences. Quotation marks will help us show exact words people say, while parentheses will help us mark extra information. During our Writing time, we will work on reviewing our cursive handwriting in order to get ready to write letters to the second graders about what to expect in third grade.

Reading: This week we will work on making generalizations based on facts we read in a story. This is a higher order thinking skill that forces us to be active readers and to decide what conclusions we can draw from information. Our story of the week still deals with the theme of “Freedom” and is entitled Atlantis. The spelling words can be found on the website under “Unit 6, Week 5.”

Social Studies: This week we will continue our unit on Economics. We will explain how people can trade goods and services. We will also discuss ways to spend and save money responsibly in order to pay for the goods and services we want and need. We will encounter new vocabulary terms like import, export, barter, and trade.

Religion: We will discuss the church season of Easter, as we are still celebrating that Liturgical Season. It ends with the feast of Pentecost, so we will read about that from a children’s Bible and complete activities to accompany what we learn about these important seasons and holy days.

Tests and Quizzes:

• Math Ch. 11 Mid-Chapter Quiz = Tuesday
• Simple Solutions Quizzes = to be determined (most likely mid-week)
• Spelling test = Friday
• Reading test = Friday

Additional Reminders:

• Please try to take your children to Mass.
• I will be administering the Fountas & Pinnell running records (for reading fluency and comprehension) on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. I look forward to seeing how your children have improved in their Reading over the course of the year.
• Mass and 8th Grade Ribbon Ceremony = Tuesday, May 21st - 8:30 am
• Band Concert = Thursday, May 23rd - 12:30 pm
• Pep Rally = Friday, May 24th - 12:30 pm

Week at a Glance

Week of May 13 - 17, 2019

Math: This week we will finish our review from Chapter 11 (area and perimeter) and take a test on Tuesday. Starting Wednesday, we will move on to Chapter 12, which focuses on describing attributes, angles, and line segments of 2-dimensional shapes.

Science: Please visit Ms. Papagianis’s page for Science information.

Language Arts: This week’s grammar lesson will focus on the use of commas, so we will be using them in a variety of ways in our writing. We will use them to create compound sentences with two independent clauses, as well as between cities and states and dates and years. During Writing we should finish up our Poetry Portfolios and return our attention to opinion writing, which we worked on before Aspire testing.

Reading: Our Reading story this week is called Two Bad Ants. As we read this story and others, we will focus on the strategies of discussing the plot and theme. The current theme we are discussing during this unit is freedom. In Spelling we will add prefixes and suffixes to base words. You can find this week’s list under the spelling tab for Unit 6, Week 4.

Social Studies: This week we will continue our focus on the topic of Economics, specifically focusing on the roles of producers and consumers. We will see how one role affects the other and how people can assume both roles. We will also see how these roles relate to last week’s topics of wants and needs and supply and demand.

Religion: This week we will return to the topic of the Church season of Easter (50 days after Easter Sunday itself!). We hope to discuss the Feast of the Ascension (Jesus ascended to heaven) and the Feast of Pentecost (Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be with the Apostles).

Tests and Quizzes:

• Math Chapter 11 Test = Tuesday → online practice can be found here.
• Spelling Test = Friday
• Reading Test = Friday
• Math Multiplication Fact “Quiz” = Friday
• i-Ready online diagnostic testing on Wednesday (Reading) and Thursday (Math) --> Please note these scores will not be used for a grade, but students should still try their best to do well in order to accurately show their academic growth over the course of their third grade year.

Additional Reminders:

• Have a blessed and beautiful Mother’s Day! Thank you for all that you do for your children, including raising them in the faith and valuing their education so highly.
• Please remember to take your children to Mass this weekend.
• There is no All-School Mass on Tuesday, May 14th. We will have our May Crowning at 9:30 am on that day.
• Variety Show = Friday, May 17th at 12:30 pm

Week at a Glance

Week of May 6 - 10, 2019

Math: This week we will continue working on Chapter 11, which focuses on the perimeter and area of polygons. When finding perimeter we add all of the sides for the total length around a shape. When finding area, we count unit squares or multiply the length x width to find how much space is covered. We will be using the distributive property to find the area of combined properties. We will also compare polygons’ perimeters and areas.

Science: Please visit Ms. Papagianis’s page for Science information.

Language Arts: For Grammar this week, we are focusing on combining sentences with commas and conjunctions. (Conjunctions are joining words like and, or, but, so, etc.) These strategies will hopefully help us become even more polished writers. During Writing time, we will continue our work on Poetry by exploring Concrete Poems (also called Shape Poems).

Reading: This week we will look at a story called Talking Walls, Art for the People, and our comprehension skill of the week will be to use information from graphic sources in the Text. Our story continues on the theme of freedom, which our Unit 6 stories all have in common. Spelling words can be found under “Unit 6, Week 3” on the Spelling tab of our website, and they end with either -ion or -ure.

Social Studies: We are starting Chapter 7 this week, which is all about Economics. We will discuss differences between wants and needs and focus on how these things affect the idea of supply and demand. We will also encounter the terms value, scarcity, abundance, and opportunity cost. In addition to using our books, we will watch education video clips and work on sorting activities.

Religion: We will be learning about caring for God’s creation and for others this week. Pope Francis wrote an encyclical (long letter) to the church called Laudato Si, in which he urges us to care for God’s creation. We will discuss and explore practical ways we can help the environment and also how we can treat our neighbors with kindness and respect.

Tests and Quizzes:

• Math Simple Solutions Quiz = early next week
• Grammar Simple Solutions Quiz = end of next week
• Spelling test Friday
• Reading test Friday

Additional Reminders:

• Please remember to take your child to Mass on Sunday.
• Wednesday, May 8th = Author visit from Linda Ragsdale - 12:30 pm in the Koenig Center (K-3rd grades)
• Friday = $1 dress down