News

ELA

Dear Families of 3-Fitzgerald,

This week students worked in cooperative groups to learn about how water is used around the world. Children were shocked that some children had to walk with heavy buckets to collect water. Others were relieved when UNICEF helped a village by installing a hand water pump. Students were engaged and having meaningful conversations about the topic of clean water. Ask your child to share with you what they read. They are very insightful!

Ask your child about some of the team building activities we have done this week. We added a new greeting called the Spider Web greeting. Another activity we learned was Spelling Baseball. Since the weather cooperated, we even got to go outside and run the bases for this game. I bet your child would carefully explain the rules to you!

In Readers' Workshop this week we focused on partnerships. Students shared about what they read. We are practicing what it looks and sounds like to talk with another person about the book we are reading. It is hard work to keep a conversation going, but we are learning ways of doing just that.

During Writers' Workshop, we began mapping and drafting an activity story. We focused on the small moment that was captured in the lovely photographs that you sent in. We have found that it is hard sometimes to focus on one small moment. Orally, we shared the story behind our photo and realized that in fact, we did have a lot to say about the activity. Our next goal is to take our time to record all the details from our story as we write our rough draft. We definitely have a class full of children who can tell a great story! What a fortunate situation to have in a writing setting.

Social Studies

Math

Students continued work on their Fun Fair Committee jobs. Our games are pretty much complete, and are just waiting for a few finishing touches. We also made many Ghost Puppet Crafts which will be sold at the Fair to raise money for UNICEF.

Groups finished working on their "Best World Maps" by finalizing where the continents and oceans belong. Ask your child to share with you the "Story of the 7 Continents" as a way of remembering all of them. We will compare the maps to globes next week. Our next project will be to create our own globes which we will use as a base to locate world communities during our studies later this year.

This week we focused on number stories (word problems) and a variety of strategies to solve them. Students practiced reading the problem, identifying what they were being asked to find out, identifying what they already knew, choosing a strategy, finding the answer, and checking that the answer made sense.

Children have the opportunity to solve number stories all the time. If watching the weather report, students could find the difference between the high and low temperature of a day, or compare the temperature in NY to that in Florida, or another state. Encourage your child to explain why his/her answer makes sense.

Unit 2 Everyday Math Family Letter

Taking Care of Business

10/28 1/2 Day (Conferences)
10/30 Halloween Fun Fair 8:30-11:30
11/3 No School for Students (Conferences)

Communication:
Please feel free to email me at: fitzgeraldm@guilderlandschools.org. Another way to reach me during the day would be to leave a message on my voicemail: 357-2770 x4105. I will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks!

Book Orders:
The October Scholastic book order has been sent in. Thank you for your orders - we will have some new books for our classroom library thanks to the online orders. You can expect the books within 1-2 weeks. Usually they ship pretty quickly.

Halloween Fun Fair "Prizes":
If you have any small toys around your house that can be recycled as "prizes" for our Fun Fair, please send them in. As we collect prizes (and candy, too!) students will be able to plan how many prizes they will be awarding when students win their game during the Fair.

Halloween Fun Fair Cafe Goods:
Our class is in charge of paper goods. Please send in paper cups, plates, utensils, tablecloths, napkins, and anything else you think we might need. We're expecting around 350 students (although each student won't necessarily require all of the paper goods, depending on which snacks they purchase.)

Conferences:
As Parent-Teacher Conferences approach, I have sent home a reminder of your date and time along with a short questionnaire highlighting any areas you may want to discuss during our conference. I ask that you return these as soon as you are able in order for me to gather any resources necessary to address these concerns/comments.

Helpful Info to Keep On Hand:

You can order online now! Go to:
www.scholastic.com/bookclubs

Our class User Name is: 3Fitz
Our class Password is: Reading4Fun

UNICEF: If your child chooses to participate in "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF", please return your child's UNICEF box to school on Monday, November 2nd so that we may count it and find our total. Thank you!