October Newsletter 2016

It’s hard to believe that it’s already October! The first month of Grade 3 has flown by! We’ve been working hard on learning routines and have jumped into all of our beginning units.  Here’s a quick peek at what’s been going on in the four cores!

LA: Daily 5, Reading Across Canada Challenge

Reading Strategies: Read like books are gold! / Choose within reach books/Make Predictions

Math: Patterning Unit

Science: Scientific Method/ Hearing and Sound Unit

Social: Mapping Unit

Themes: Terry Fox, Roald Dahl, Orange Shirt Day, Fire Prevention Week, Bats

Words of the Week: Ethical Citizen and Engaged Thinker

Spelling Program

We are starting our spelling patterns program this month and you will see some spelling homework coming home tonight!  The spelling books will come home every Monday with a new word list written by your child. The students will be working on these words in school but will also have a list of activities to choose from each night. Please take 10-15 minutes each night Monday through Thursday to help your child choose which activity they want to try out and to complete the work in the spelling book provided.

These books will come back to school on Friday for me to look at and a spelling test will also happen every Friday (unless there is no school, then we will have it on Thursday). I have completed a spelling inventory of your child’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to spelling patterns and have grouped them so each child is getting instruction on the patterns they struggled with. We do word sorts and hunts with these patterns throughout the week with the goal to help your child recognize these spelling patterns and to apply them to other words rather than just memorizing for the test and then forgetting when applying during real world writing or typing. Each Friday your child will be tested on the 5 new words, 5 old words (to keep them mastered) and 2 surprise words that fall within the same spelling pattern to see if they are able to generalize the pattern to new words.

Thanks so much for your help getting this program up and running! Your time at home is greatly appreciated and I hope to see some great gains for our spellers this year!

Important Dates to Remember

Oct. 4, 18, 25 Junior Choir

Oct. 10-14 Fire Prevention Week “Don’t Wait Check the Date!” Replace smoke alarms every 10 years

Oct. 10 Thanksgiving: no school

Oct. 11 Professional Learning: no school /Minister David Eggen visits MMH 1:00-1:30

Oct. 12 Mission Impossible starts in the gym 

Oct. 13-18^th Scholastic Book Fair 8:00 – 4:00 / except Friday 14th 8:00 – 12:00.   

Oct. 14 Deadline for hot lunch orders

Oct. 17 Picture retake day

Oct. 20 Dismissal at 11:35 today/ no school in afternoon due to Professional Learning Da

Oct. 21 Professional Learning day: no school

Oct. 25 Hot lunch gr. 1-3

Oct. 31 Halloween parade 12:45 (students will change into costumes at noon) (Thanks for volunteering to send treats for our party, if you signed up you will be receiving an email soon! We have 26 students and no nut allergies!)