McKelvey Elementary School
3rd Grade 2011 – 2012
Ms. Nichole Woodard
1751 McKelvey Road
Maryland Heights, MO 63043
(314) 415-4521
WELCOME TO 3rd GRADE with Ms. Woodard
2011-2012
Contact Information
Please do not hesitate to call or send me an e-mail for anything! I look
forward to getting to know your child as well as you. J Through communication and working together, each student can have a great opportunity to succeed!
(314) 415-4521
HOMEWORK
Homework can have many benefits for students! In third grade most students are transitioning from a weekly homework packet to nightly homework. This can teach children how to manage time and take on more responsibility. Homework will also help students to understand that learning takes place everywhere while they are reinforcing skills they have learned at school. Students will be given homework Monday through Thursday evenings that should take about 15 minutes to complete. Students will be given an assignment notebook that they will write their homework in each day. This will go home with them each night. Looking through their notebook and homework each night will provide a great opportunity for you and your child to discuss what they have been doing at school! Parents are required to sign or initial the planner each night. By requiring a parent signature, we can use the planner as a source of communication.
READING CONTRACT
Along with homework, students are expected to read at home for 15 minutes at least 20 times per month. So, if a student reads 15 minutes one night they fill in one square on their chart. If a student reads for 45 minutes one night, they can fill in 3 squares. Monthly charts will be sent home for students to keep track of their reading. Before the end of each month, charts need to be signed by both the student and parent and they need to be returned to school. For completing the required chart, students will receive Pasta House coupons. If calendars are not turned in by the end of the month, students will be required to read at recess until their reading time is either turned in or made up.
TAKE HOME BINDER
Students have a Take Home Binder that will go home with them every day along with their planner. Inside the binder is a pocket that will have important information for parents, as well as completed papers that parents should look at to see what we are doing at school as well as how their child is doing. There is also a separate place on their binder for their homework if it is a work sheet. Please take a few minutes to look through your child’s Take Home Binder each night. Again, the planner inside is a great source of communication.
SNACKS
Students are more than welcome to bring a healthy snack to school to eat towards the end of the day. Please be aware that we have a peanut/nut free room. Please do not allow your child to bring toys from home to play with at recess.
STAR STUDENTS
Students will each have an assigned week to be the star student. At the beginning of their week, students can bring in a poster with pictures and words all about them (be as creative as you’d likeJ). They will get to share their poster with the class and then we will hang it up through the rest of the week.
BIRTHDAYS
Students are more than welcome to bring treats to school to celebrate their birthday. Please send me a note or give me a call if your child is planning on sharing birthday treats with the class. Please send a store bought treat (nothing homemade) as well as any supplies needed to go with it (napkins, etc.). If your child has a summer birthday, they are more than welcome to celebrate it on their half birthday or at the end of the school year. Please remember that we have a peanut/nut free classroom.
BOOK ORDERS
Scholastic Book orders will be sent home a few times during the school year. Ordering books from Scholastic is a great, inexpensive way to expand your child’s book collection at home. You are not obligated to purchase any books, but it is there for you to take advantage of if you would like.
LIBRARY
Library is based on flexible scheduling this year to cater lessons more toward curriculum needs. Our class will still have a weekly checkout time on Thursday mornings. Books are supposed to be returned within 2 weeks of checking them out. Students are allowed to go checkout books once a week outside of the class checkout time if needed. It is very important for students to make sure they bring books back on time to return or check out again. If they are missing books, they will not be able to check as many books out. They will also owe the library money for the missing books.
CLASSROOM JOBS
Having a classroom job encourages students to take responsibility for their classroom and allows them to take pride in our classroom community. Students will take turns with different jobs throughout the school year. Some examples of classroom jobs are line leader, messenger, board eraser, mailbox stuffer, and lunch helpers.
ATTENDANCE
Please let the office know if your student will be absent. I would also appreciate advance notice if you know your child will be late, leaving early, or absent. An email or phone call would be greatly appreciated.
TRANSPORTATION
In order to keep your child safe, we need to know how your child is going home from school each day. If your child’s normal transportation plans ever change, please notify the school. It would be greatly appreciated if you could send a note to me with your child. We cannot send your child home a different way unless we have verbal or written permission from an adult.
Ms. Woodard’s Behavior Plan
Our class has decided on some ideas on how we can be good students and teachers to each other. We turned these ideas into a class pledge that we all signed. It involves a lot of ideas, but ties closely into our McKelvey Code of Conduct. All students at McKelvey are expected to be RESPECTFUL, RESPONSIBLE, SAFE, and COOPERATIVE learners at all times everywhere in the building. These rules are highly enforced in our classroom. If a student makes poor choices, they will have consequences. Our goal is to reduce behavior situations through positive reinforcement. Our class will do the following things at some point throughout the year: Braggin’ Dragons, BINGO chart, COMPLIMENT letters, marble jar, dragon dollars.
Stop Light System!!!
All students will start the day with a green card showing. Students will be asked to flip their card to yellow if they are making poor choices. If a more serious offense occurs, they will be asked to flip immediately to blue or red. Please see the color code below for more information.
GREEN: The student has made good choices throughout the day.
YELLOW: The student needed several reminders to make good choices. He/she will need to fill out a “Think-It-Through” sheet that will go home to be signed. This sheet will allow the student to reflect on the choices they made and think of a more effective solution to the problem. They will also miss a few minutes of their next recess.
BLUE: The student will receive a McKelvey Incident Report (MIR) that will be sent home to be discussed and signed by a parent. This is for a more serious offense or if a student needed more than a few warnings. Four MIR’s in one trimester will automatically result in an office referral.
RED: The student will be sent to the principal’s office and will receive an office referral.
A FINAL NOTE
*** I really look forward to a great 2011-2012 school year! My goal is to help your child succeed and have a fun 3rd grade year! Please let me know if you need anything… the more we work together and contact each other, the more success your child will have.
CURRICULUM
We will be learning lots of exciting things this year in third grade. There is a complete description of the third grade curriculum online at the link below. If you do not have computer access, let me know… I will get you a copy of the information. Please see general information about the curriculum below.
http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/curriculum/courseGrade.cfm
READING UNITS
Readers Build Good Habits
Thinking Strategies
Non-fiction
Retelling/Summarizing
Story Elements
Synthesizing
Readers Talk to Build Comprehension
WRITING UNITS
Personal Narrative
Telling Good Stories
Nonfiction
Persuasive Letters
Poetry
Reading and Writing are both taught in a workshop format. This consists of the following three parts.
Mini-lesson - a short, focused lesson taught in whole group format which teaches a strategy, skill, or classroom routine.
Independent Time - a period of time in which individual students are engaged in reading at their independent reading level or writing. During this time the teacher is conferring with individual students or small groups to provide direct instruction.
Share/Debrief/Celebrate: a time for students to share great thoughts they had about their reading, learn from each other, or share their accomplishments.
MATH CONCEPTS
Addition and subtraction
Line Plots
Number Sense
Multiplication
Measurement
Perimeter, Angles, and Area
Fractions and Decimals
2D and 3D Geometry
Patterns
Simple Division
Graphs
SCIENCE UNITS
Force and Motion
Rocks and Minerals
Plant Growth and Development
Animal Studies-Food Chains
SOCIAL STUDIES UNITS
What is Social Studies?
What is Geography?
What is Culture?
What is Government?
What is History?
What is Economics?