Welcome to Mrs. Dawson’s Third grade class
Contact Information:
This is an overview of what to expect in third grade. We will discuss this at parent night but this will allow you time to get a glimpse into your child’s year and have questions ready for me. I look forward to meeting each of you and am excited for a wonderful year of learning with your child.
Class Website: Please check out our class website on the JCE homepage. This is a great place to stay informed of upcoming events, homework, class photos, and helpful links even when you cannot be here with us. This is updated frequently.
Newsletter: Each Sunday evening, I will post the newsletter on our class website. It’s a great way to know what we are going to do that week and be prepared for upcoming events.
Class Rules: We will discuss these on the first day of school to assure a fun and fair school year. The rules are simple; treat yourself and others with respect and always try to be your best!
PEACE Notebooks: This stands for:Prepared Everyday For Academic Classroom Excellence. This notebook contains their planner, reading log, classroom passwords, homework, Subject work/information and anything that is important to our day. This is to be with the student each day and goes home each night! Please do not remove items from this notebook-this is an ongoing data notebook!
The 7 Habits of Happy Kids: We will focus on the 7 habits which are listed on our class website and in the classroom. This is a great way for students to take charge of their own behaviors and learning.
Data Notebooks: Students will complete data notebooks this year. This is a tool for students to track their own academic progress based on set goals. This helps with the responsibility of each child to make the right choice to reach their goals.
Tuesday Folders: Each Tuesday a class folder will go home with school information, graded papers and parent information. Please take the time to look at this folder with your child and discuss its contents. It is to be signed and returned.
Academics: In third grade, your child will be doing every subject—Reading, Writing, Math, Science and Social Studies. Writing is part of all of these subjects and will be a big part of third grade. Grades are also new to third graders! Grades will be given in each subject. You will be getting an overview of how grades are earned. Please remember that an A is considered above average while a C is average. This will be explained more at open house.
Readingand Writing go hand in hand! Students will concentrate on reading fluency and comprehension, while also learning how to go back into a story to find critical details that helped with comprehension.When using this information, it is expected that students will spell the words correctly that they are taking from the reading content. We will be doing several novel studies this year as well. These are great fun to read aloud in class and within our small groups. Some of these books will be available here at school and others you will be asked to purchase. I will get that list to you soon so that you may be prepared for when we need them.
Writing will be key to all subjects! Students will need to know how to create a story with a beginning, middle and end that stays focused on one topic and is chronologically fluent. Incorporating spelling and vocabulary words within written text is an expectation. Learning the correct usage of words and phrases and keeping sentences in same tense, using punctuation and capitalization correctly are most important. Writing will also include the child’s viewpoint of material read. Students will be asked to tell (write) what they learned from a story, they will be asked to give examples to validate their information.
Math—this year we begin a new math series called GO Math. We will be learning higher level addition and subtraction, measuring, multiplication and division, fractions and more. Students will use writing to explain what they know in math. This also helps so that we can see where the child may be struggling with a concept.
Science and Social Studies: These will be studied both independently and within other subject areas. For example, we will use non-fiction SS reading material to incorporate our reading strategies. We will be using writing to explain experiments as we do them. There will be hands on activities as well to help develop and learn the information.
During all subjects—correct grammar, punctuation and complete sentences will be an expectation and will count towards the overall grade of the assignment!!
3rd grade is a wonderful year! This is the year children become students, and begin to understand the relationship between their goals and their accomplishments. Reading becomes a tool for learning and students get to see how far they can let themselves soar. We are a team and I am here for you and your child to make this year fun and successful.
Let’s get started…..