Creative Kids!

Good evening!  I'd like to thank the many parents who donated glue sticks to the classroom!  I'd also like to thank parents who purchased books from my Wish List this week.  I'm so excited to add the new books to our library!  There were some wonderful books at the fair this week, so I hope everyone had an opportunity to go!

For Classroom News:  Students in Room 8 are really enjoying our poetry unit.  Last week in reading, individual students chose a poem to share aloud with their peers.  They described the mood of the poem, it's rhyme scheme, and their interpretation of the poem's meaning.  We are working hard to analyze words and language used in poetry.  We're asking ourselves questions like, "What is the poet trying to say here?"  "Why has the poet chosen this language?"  "What techniques are being used to create the mood in this poem?"

In the upcoming weeks, we will be exploring alliteration, personification, similes, and metaphors. We will look for examples of these in our reading and try them out in our own writing.  So far, students have written beautiful color poems, rhyming quatrains, and diamantes.  Please be sure to look for some of this poetry in the hallway when you come for your report card conference.  I've been so impressed with student work!  Well done everyone!





In math, students are exploring fractions.  Last week, we made "Fraction Flowers" to celebrate the

beginning of spring and our love of fractions, of course!  You'll find these outside of our classroom when you come to visit.

Thursday, we worked in pairs with fraction circles to learn more about equivalent fractions.  We discussed how we could use multiplication and division to help us find fractions of equal value for 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4.

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Report Cards for Term 2 will be going home on Tuesday, April 4th.  I'm looking forward to meeting with parents that week.  Confirmation notes will be in this Friday's Folder.

As you know, students will be taking the ELA portion of the MCAS that week as well.  Yesterday, we used the laptops to work through a tutorial that is meant to help students navigate the program and use the available tools.  Please try to keep your child relaxed about testing.  Third graders tend to be quite nervous about the test.  I will not be assigning homework during the testing week.  I'd prefer that students go to bed early and come to school well-rested.  Please be sure that your child has eaten a healthy breakfast that morning so they have lots of brainpower and are ready to go!