Communication
Communication from school will come in many forms including the Viking Voice (school newsletter), a weekly classroom newsletter, phone calls, e-mail, and weekly Viking Folders. These folders will come home each Friday with your child's graded work.
Please look over your child's accomplishments, keep all papers, and sign/date the inside sheet before returning it to school the next Monday. Feel free to contact third grade teachers whenever necessary, e-mail is most convenient.
Procedures
Third graders will be using a binder system this year. These binders will come home every night and should be returned to school each morning. It is your child's responsibility to keep track of what is in their binder. We will periodically clean out the binders in class, so please do not throw away any papers from the binder.
Each student will be asked to bring his or her assignment book to school each day. At the end of the day, students will use these books to write down their nightly homework. We are requesting that students exhibit responsibility by writing down their own assignments each day. Parents should sign the assignment book each night. Homework is due the next day unless otherwise noted. Teachers will send home fliers regarding any projects or other special assignments.
Each week one student will be chosen as the Star Student. The chosen student will display a poster which tells the class all about them. These posters may include pictures. Students in the past have arranged to bring in pets, collections or treats, but this is all voluntary. Each student will have a chance to be the line leader for the week, tell the class about themselves and answer questions. To reinforce our Viking Virtues, students who exhibit positive behaviors will earn Gotchas. At the end of the month, gotchas will be counted and the person with the most will attend the "Star Luncheon." All the remaining gotchas will be put into a drawing and one lucky winner will be drawn to also attend the luncheon.
Students may bring treats to celebrate birthdays. Please make sure the treats are not homemade. If you child's birthday is during the summer, feel free to celebrate a ½ birthday instead.
Third Grade Curriculum
Here is a glimpse of what we will be covering throughout the year. As you can see, we will be very busy!
Social Studies
Immigration, Timelines, Transportation, Communication, Constitution/Branches of Government, Maps (Basic skills, Regions, States), Economics
Science (We will take the MAP test in this area in the Spring)
Sound, Sun, Moon, and Earth, Magnets, Friction, Habitats, Food Chains, Simple Machines, Erosion and Weathering
Math
Graphing, 2-3 Digit Addition/Subtraction, Time, Money, Multiplication, Division, Measurement (Standard and Metric), Fractions, Decimals, Problem Solving, Geometry
Language Arts (We will take the MAP test in this area in the Spring)
Letter Writing, Parts of Speech, Expository and Narrative Writing, Paragraph Writing, Cursive, Spelling
Reading (We will take the MAP test in this area in the Spring)
We will be using the Harcourt reading series this year.
We will also be using literature sets throughout the year.
We will continue reinforcing learned skills, such as comprehension, main idea, sequencing and drawing conclusions.
We will also work on developing new reading strategies.