• What We are Learning This Month in...
     
    Reading
     
     

    Unit 1:  Building a Reading Life

    This is the first reading unit of third grade. The big work of this unit is to instill in your children the lifelong habits of strong readers, including choosing books wisely and getting a lot of reading done, learning to talk about books with others, and applying comprehension strategies to hold on to and synthesize all the parts of the text. They will strengthen their skills in envisioning, predicting and retelling. They will also focus on tackling hard words and phrases. They will also be assessed individually for their independent reading level as they start the new school year.

    By the End of the Unit Students should be able to:

    Choose appropriate level books that they read with fluency, stamina, and increasing volume. They should be monitoring their reading to check for understanding. They should strengthen their skills in asking and answering questions to show understanding of key details in a text. Students should be retelling/recounting stories using the 5-finger rule. Students should be able to describe how characters respond to major challenges in a story. They should begin to describe the overall structure of a story and the central message or moral. They will begin to acknowledge differences in points of view of characters.

    Skills Emphasized in this Unit:

    Primary:

    • Set goals and meet at least one goal
    • Improve reading behaviors: choose appropriate level books, engagement, track thinking across a text with post-its, and grow ideas through writing responses
    • Envision, predict, and begin to analyze characters
    • Recount stories and begin to determine a central message or moral
    • Develop strategies, including contextual clues, to tackle difficult words and phrases

    Other Related Skills:

    • Have conversations in partnerships
    • Describe the overall structure of a story
    • Acknowledge differences in points of view (perspectives) of characters

     

    Ongoing:

    • Reading with stamina, fluency, word solving and engagement
    • Setting goals and self-monitoring progress through an action plan
    • Conversational skills
    • Gaining independence in texts with increasing complexity
     
    Math
     

    Click on the link to access the Family Letters for Math Unit 1: Understanding Equal Groups: Multiplication and Division 1

     

    Writing
    This month we are working in our first unit: Crafting True Stories. We are writing personal narratives known as small moments. The rubric below outlines the expectations for your child's writing by the end of the unit.
     

    Name ___________________________                                            Date ________________________

    Narrative Grade 3 Writing Checklist

     

    Structure

    Not

    Yet

    Starting

    To

    Yes

    Overall

    I wrote with stamina. I filled at least a page.

     

     

     

     

    I wrote with focus. I talked about one time something happened and told it bit by bit. I have a seed, not a watermelon.

     

     

     

    Lead

    I wrote a beginning that hooked the reader and included my characters and setting. I gave it three tries and chose the best one.

     

     

     

    Transitions

    I told my story in order using phrases such as “a little later” and “after that.”

     

     

     

    Ending

    I chose an action, dialog or feeling that would make a good ending.

     

     

     

    Organization

    I used paragraphs to separate the different parts of my story

     

     

     

     

    Development

     

     

     

    Elaboration

    I wrote action details in the beginning, middle and end.

     

     

     

     

    I wrote setting details in the beginning, middle and end.

     

     

     

     

    I wrote dialog in the beginning, middle and end.

     

     

     

     

    I wrote the inside story – what my characters thought and felt.

     

     

     

    Craft

    I developed the heart of my story. I made it the longest section.

     

     

     

     

    Language Conventions

     

     

     

    Spelling

    I used my best spelling to edit my draft.

     

     

     

    Punctuation

    I used quotation marks and commas in my dialog.

     

     

     

     

    I put capitals at the beginning of every sentence and endmarks at the end.

     

     

     

     

    I wrote in ways that signaled to readers to change their voice.

     

     

     

     

    I reread my story to make sure it is clear and sounds like a story.