WEEK OF JUNE 6, 2016

Dear Parents,

I cannot believe this is the last newsletter of the 2015-2016 school year.  It has been a privilege to partner with each of you this year as we have worked together to help your child have a successful school year.  Your children are amazing, and I love them dearly.  I am going to be very sad saying good-bye to them on Thursday, but they are ready to move on to fourth grade.  I am proud of all their accomplishments and wish them the best always.

READING - On Monday we will finish some work that we previously started on comprehending a piece of poetry entitled "Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost.  We will also continue our study of social issues through engaging read alouds.  We had some great discussions last week on issues of racism, segregation, discrimination, environmental issues, and relationship challenges. 

WRITING - Students are writing a short research report on an interesting animal.  Information they are researching includes body parts, special features, habitat, and any similarities  the animals may have to humans.

SOCIAL STUDIES - Students will finish a test with Mr. Otto on Monday to wrap up their final social studies unit.

MATH - We will be applying our knowledge of fractions to split a recipe into smaller portions as we prepare No Bake Chocolate Cookies. Students will also be finishing up another math activity we started last week.

IMPORTANT DATES
Monday, June 6 - PBIS Assembly - 10:15 - 10:45 a.m. - Douglas Gym

Tuesday, June 7 - Junior Achievement - Third graders will be involved with guests from Junior Achievement as they learn about financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

Thursday, June 9 - Third Grade Picnic - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. -  Learning Pavilion on playground - Students may bring lunch or get it from the cafeteria.  Third graders will gather for a picnic and a time to play some outdoor games.  Please feel free to join us.  We would love to have you!

Thank you so much to Mrs. Purcell for organizing our class year-end celebration that took place last Thursday.  Thanks to all the parents who donated supplies/food items for our party.  We had a great time!  We also appreciate Ms. Stephenson, Mrs. Kubovcik, Mrs. McCullen, Mrs. Purcell, Mrs. Ramadan, and Mr. Petty for helping at the celebration.

Thank you for all of your support this year.  Enjoy a well-deserved break this summer.

Respectfully,
Ms. Underwood

WEEK OF MAY 30, 2016 NEWS

Dear Parents,

I hope you enjoyed some rest and relaxation over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.  It was nice to have an extra day to rejuvenate as we move into the final days of our school year. Listed below is helpful info for the upcoming week:

READING - This week in reading, we will be identifying social issues (issues that matter to many people) such as discrimination, environmental concerns, hunger, poverty, etc.  I am excited about the read alouds I will be sharing with my students this week as we explore the various issues. We will also begin a new set of word work words this week with fun activities to learn the spelling of them.  Our words this week will be:  again, because, could, favorite, people, said, and they.

WRITING - Students are finishing up informational reports on their current event.  My plan is to have them write one more informational piece before school ends.  This report will be on an animal and will involve using nonfiction text features such as diagrams and photos to help them in writing their report.

SOCIAL STUDIES - Students will continue going to Mr. Otto's class for social studies as they wrap up their study of the development, structure, and function of local government, as well as the role citizens play in their communities.  

MATH - In math, students will be participating in some hands-on learning activities involving area/perimeter and fractions.  I am even planning a cooking activity so that students may get experience in reducing the size of a cookie recipe to fourths.  I think they will enjoy making the cookies, and, of course, eating them!

IMPORTANT DATES

Wednesday, June 1 - Pizza Party for Achieve 3000 - Third grade did so well in participating in Achieve 3000 this year, so we are receiving a pizza party during our lunch time.  Way to go students!

Thursday, June 2 -   1:30 - 3:00 p.m. - Ms. Underwood's Class Year-end Celebration - Our theme is a luau.  Students will enjoy some good food and exciting games as we celebrate their hard work and the fun memories we made in third grade this year.  Thank you to Mrs. Purcell for organizing our party. Thanks to several of Ms. Underwood's students for thinking of the theme and planning the games. Thank you also to all of the parents who are contributing food and supplies for our celebration.

Friday, June 3 - Read to Achieve testing

Monday, June 6 - PBIS Awards Assembly - 10:15 - 10:45 a.m. in the Douglas Elementary Gym

Please do not hesitate to contact me at dunderwood@wcpss.net if you should have any questions.  Thanks for all of your support this year.

Sincerely,

Ms. Underwood

WEEK OF MAY 23, 2016 NEWS

Dear Parents,

I cannot believe we are in the final stretch of the 2015-2016 school year.  We will be working hard this week to review strategies students have learned in both reading and math as we prepare to take the reading EOG on Thursday of this week and the math EOG on Friday of this week.

READING - I have some cute videos I will be showing students this week to help them relax and prepare for testing at the end of the week.  I will be reviewing our PARTY TIME reading strategy.  

P = Preview the text.  A = Analyze the questions.  R = Read carefully.  T = Toss the trash (answer choices that do not make sense).  Y = Yellow highlight or underline evidence for your answer.  TIME to check over your work.  

WRITING - Students are continuing to write a report on the current event they have been assigned. Last week we worked on how to write a topic sentence to introduce the event.  This week, students will write the facts from the article in their own words including correct punctuation and capitalization.  They will also be taught how to conclude their reports. 

SOCIAL STUDIES - In Mr. Otto's class, students have been working on an informative poster to help them learn about the organizational structure of our government.

MATH -  Each third grade teacher is reviewing a specific standard in our third grade math curriculum.  Students will be rotating among the teachers to review the various standards.  This gives them an opportunity to work with the different teachers and spices up our review a bit.  

IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday, May 26 - Reading EOG - Please make sure your child gets to bed on time and eats a good breakfast.  Homework, if any, will be very light on EOG nights.

Friday, May 27 - Math EOG

Friday, May 27 - Tie Dye Spirit Day - Wear something tie dyed.

Monday, May 30 - Memorial Day Holiday

Friday, June 3 - Read to Achieve Testing

Sincerely,

Ms. Underwood

WEEK OF MAY 16, 2016 NEWS

Dear Parents,

What an exciting day we had last Friday as we celebrated being the #1 Magnet School in the nation.  After an energized pep rally, students went back to our third grade hallway to paint ceiling tiles that will be displayed around our school.  They had a blast and were very creative in their art work.  Here is an update for the week ahead:

READING - This week we will continue to review reading strategies such as main idea, context clues, character traits, text structure, and inferring through engaging activities.  Students should continue reading fiction, nonfiction, and poetry at home for 30 minutes each night, using reading strategies listed on the reading logs to comprehend text.

WRITING - I assigned each student in the class a current event, and he/she will be responsible for writing an informational report on this event.  Last week, students read their articles and placed the important points (who, where, when, what, why) into a graphic organizer.  They will use the graphic organizer to write the report in a manner that can be clearly understood by the reader.

SOCIAL STUDIES - Students are enjoying learning about national government versus local government with Mr. Otto.

MATH - On Monday and Tuesday of this week we will create and interpret data on line plots.  On Wednesday, we will have an assessment on the measurement unit including grams, liters, inches, and line plots.  The remaining days up until EOG's will be spent on reviewing math concepts learned this year.

IMPORTANT DATES
Friday, May 20 - Favorite Book Character Spirit Day - Dress like your favorite book character.
Thursday, May 26 - Reading EOG
Friday, May 27 - Math EOG
Monday, May 30 - Memorial Day Holiday
Friday, June 3 - Read to Achieve Testing

As the year is quickly winding down, I want to thank you for all of your support!

Sincerely,

Ms. Underwood

WEEK OF MAY 9, 2016 NEWS

Dear Parents,

I really appreciate all the kind gestures you and your children showed me last week during Teacher Appreciation Week.  I was very touched by your generosity and kindness.  Teaching is truly a rewarding career, and I am blessed to have the opportunity to work with your sweet children each day. Listed below is some info for the upcoming week.

READING - We will be reviewing reading strategies we have learned this year including inferring, determining main idea, using context clues to figure out the meanings of unknown words, etc.  I have some fun ways to engage the students as they practice these reading strategies.  On Monday, we will "play" BUMP as we review.  Our vocabulary words for this week will be lavender, trifle, prune, improve, combination, compromise, and focus.

WRITING - Last week in Writer's Workshop, we worked on paraphrasing an informational article rather than copying straight from the author's words.  This week, students will be given their own nonfiction article (a current event) and write a report on it by paraphrasing.

SOCIAL STUDIES - Students have now begun their last Social Studies unit with Mr. Otto.  The focus is on national, state, and local governments.

MATH - On Thursday, we wrapped up our unit on time with an assessment. Overall, the test scores were good, and students seem to understand elapsed time.  Some students need additional practice reading an analog (not digital) clock.  We began our measurement unit on Friday and had a friendly competition with Ms. Flowers' class as we explored the concept of capacity using a liter as our reference point.  This is another fairly short unit which we will complete by next week. 

IMPORTANT DATES
Friday, May 13 - Spirit Day - Come dressed like a teacher.
Thursday, May 26 - Reading EOG - Third Grade
Friday, May 27 - Math EOG - Third Grade
Monday, May 30 - No School - Memorial Day Holiday
Friday, June 3 - Read to Achieve Testing

Thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,
Ms. Underwood

WEEK OF MAY 2, 2016 NEWS

Dear Parents,

I cannot believe that we are already beginning the month of May.  The time seems to be flying by as we approach the end of the school year.  Here's what is happening in the upcoming week:

READING - We will be reviewing the ways in which sentences within a paragraph or paragraphs within a reading passage may be organized.  The types of organization or text structure that we have been studying are cause/effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, and sequencing.  Our class members has been very enthusiastic about using Achieve 3000 to support their reading comprehension.  (Well, we are in a competition with Ms. Flowers' class, so that could be part of the reason.)  Encourage your child to use this program at home for some of his/her nightly reading.

WRITING - Students will be practicing how to paraphrase information they read in order to write informational reports in their own words.  This week, students will be given a high interest nonfiction article to read, and then write an informational report on it.  We have also been practicing varying our sentence structure by writing both compound and complex sentences.

SCIENCE - We had fun last Friday making an edible model of the soil.  Students used various cereals, as well as brown sugar to represent the layers of the soil - bedrock, clay, silt, sand, and humus.  Milk (to represent water) was poured over the "soil" so students could observe how water moves through the layers of the soil.  On Friday, we also transferred our bean plants that started sprouting in cups in the room to the garden. While in the garden, we also planted many types of seeds including radish, carrot, gourd, and tomato into our garden plot.  Third graders are also excited about heading up the composting project that we will be starting at Douglas.  We will have a unit test on Wednesday to culminate our plant development unit.

MATH - Students are currently learning how to tell time to the minute, as well as solve problems involving elapsed time.  We will use a number line model to help students understand how to solve problems involving the passing of time.  On Thursday, we will have a unit test on time.

IMPORTANT DATES

Tuesday, May 3 - Interims go home

Tuesday, May 3 - Math Night - 5:00 PTA Meeting 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. - Math activities

Book Fair will be taking place this week in the Media Center.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.  Thanks for all of your support.

Sincerely,

Ms. Underwood      

WEEK OF APRIL 25, 2016 NEWS

Dear Parents,

I hope you enjoyed the beautiful weekend with your families.  Listed below is information about the coming week.

READING - We will shift our focus back to determining the main idea/central message of a reading passage including poetry.  Distinguishing the main idea from supporting details is a difficult concept, so we will continue practicing this strategy in the week ahead.  We will also take a look at the spelling patterns in our set of  "Word Work" words this week.  We have been playing a game called "Sparkle" to reinforce correct spelling of these words.  The class loves this game!

WRITING - Students should be wrapping up their biography reports.  This week, I will be teaching minilessons about the revision part of the writing process.  We will be looking at items such as sentence structure and improving word choice to make our writing clear and interesting to the reader.

SCIENCE - In our study of plant development, we have now begun to focus on the composition of soil. We will be comparing/contrasting some of the components of soil such as clay, sand, and humus. I have a fun edible project planned in order to help students understand the various layers of soil.  We will also learn about composting.  Students have been very excited to check the bush beans and lima beans they have been growing in plastic baggies.  Last week we transplanted the sprouts to a cup, and many of them are growing quite nicely.  Hopefully, we will plant them in the garden soon.

MATH - We will spend two more days reviewing fraction strategies followed by an assessment on Wednesday.  Our next unit will be approximately six days with the focus being on telling time to the minute and solving elapsed time problems.

IMPORTANT DATES
Friday, April 29 - Spirit Day - Who can wear the most zippers to school? - National Zipper Day
Tuesday, May 3 - Math Night - 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

Sincerely,
Ms. Underwood