We had a wonderful FULL week of school!  It felt good to be back in the swing of things after having a few days off for conferences and the convention and the kids were ready to learn as well! We enjoyed meeting with each of you for conferences and are so thankful to journey with each of your children through Third grade.  We treasure all of the students in our class and consider it an honor to teach them every day.  As always, feel free to contact us anytime with any questions or concerns you may have.

We have had a busy week!  Here is what we have been doing:

Math:  This week we continued to build fluency with our multiplication and division facts.  We are also carefully reading story problems and drawing pictures to help us determine which order of operation is needed to solve the problem.  This coming week we will begin two step story problems and continue to work on our math facts. 

Bible:  We have been studying in the book of Genesis and learning how sometimes it is hard to obey God.   We have learned about Adam and Eve, Cain killing his brother Abel, and how their disobedience led to some tough consequences.  We have also studied the story of Noah and the ark and the challenges that Noah faced while building the ark.  Yet we see God’s protection and love for His people shinning through these stories and His salvation plan unfolding.  What an awesome God we serve!!  The students LOVE reading the stories directly from the bible and take turns sharing their thoughts and insights.  Bible continues to be a favorite subject of many kids and I just treasure this time as well.

Bible Memory:  We have begun Psalm 121.  As we learn each verse we are writing it down into a memory book and adding an illustration to help us remember it.  I will send home a slip on Monday with the NIV version we are learning so you can practice at home with your child as well.  

Social Studies:  We have begun our Social Studies unit called “The Geography of Michigan.”  We have learned what it means to be a geographer and we are busy studying about the natural and human characteristics of our community.  We have also focused on Michigan’s location through exact and relative terms.  The class LOVES this unit so far and is so excited to learn more about their state.  They especially love the book Legend of the Sleeping Bear this week.  I love to see their enthusiasm for learning!

READING
This week we really got very deep into thinking about our characters and connecting with them. We first looked at the objects that our characters hold close and what does that reveal about them. We then looked for patterns in the relationships that our characters have with others. This lesson fostered a conversation in our reading time about how relationships that we have with others can sometimes help us or hurt us and then we have choices to make about the importance of that relationship in our life. We also talked about which characters in our book act like image bearers. That is pretty high thinking for our 3rd graders. It always amazes me how deep my students think about their books and how they feel so comfortable to share. We also looked at the problems our characters face and how they overcome them. Before I taught this lesson, we talked about how we overcome our own challenges and problems and talked about how Jesus helps us overcome everything. I then asked the children how they thought people without Jesus overcome tough times in their life. They all just looked at me because they really could not image it. This led us into a discussion about why it is so beneficial to believe in Jesus and to put all of your faith in Him.

Reading this week was AMAZING!!

WORD WORK
Thank you all for signing your child's homework folder showing that your child explained their sort to you on Monday and they did it. I hope it was a bit more clear about what you can do with those sorts. You might want to have your child sort their words several times per week. One way to help your child spell the words is to follow this procedure:


1-have your student read the word
2-have them look at the word and spell it out loud
3-have them turn the word over and write the word without looking
4-have them flip the word back over and check their spelling
5-have them put all of their correct words in a pile and their incorrect words in a different pile
6-have them continue to practice(in the same way as mentioned above) the incorrect words until they get them all correct


SPELLING TEST
When I give the spelling test on Friday, I am also going to be using that as a test to correct letter formation and placement. I have talked to the children about this. If they put an uppercase letter in the middle of a word, it will be marked incorrect even if it is spelled correctly. This is part of a 3rd grade standard that your child needs to master--using uppercase and lowercase appropriately.

Just as a side note--I am sure that you have noticed how neat your child's writing has become using the penmanship paper and raising the expectation a bit. CELEBRATIONS!!!!

WRITING
This week in writing we have started our second unit on creating an even more powerful personal narrative. We kicked off the unit by reading a book titled Come on Rain by Karen Hesse. She is an amazing writer and uses some many of the strategies that we will be learning about in this next unit. We will use her book for our entire writing unit to study her work so we can then practice it in our own writing. This week we learned that not only can personal narratives be about important people, places or things in our life but we can make them even more powerful by writing small moments about the "FIRSTS" in our lives. My examples that I modeled for them were...The first time I had to call 911....The first time I had a student teacher...The first time I dropped Elise and Maddy off at Pine Ridge... This next unit is a unit in which we really want the children to write with much more emotion. They did an amazing job with this as some of them shared their writing on Friday.


REMINDER: Swimming Lessons will start the week of November 10-21. We will go each day from 12:30-1:52(this includes our bus ride there). Parents are welcome to come and watch. Your child will not need to bring a suit or towel as they will be provided for them and the kids are THRILLED about the fashion statements the suits make :). On the swimming days, it would be helpful if your child does not wear any accessories...jewelry, rope necklaces...only because they often get left behind and it takes more time for them to get them on and off. You also might want to pack a snack for the afternoon as they will be hungry when they are done.

Blessings to you in the upcoming week!

Lynae and Erin