News

ELA

Dear Families of 3-Fitzgerald,

This week students put the finishing touches on their games for the Halloween Fun Fair for UNICEF. What creative, thoughtful children you have! So much care went into creating the crafts to sell, the DVD to educate, helping at the ticket sales table, making morning announcements, decorating and promoting the cause, and so much more. We will look forward to calculating how UNICEF could spend the money that we raised at the fair as well as trick-or-treating for UNICEF.

As we look to next week, we will begin our study of rocks and minerals. This unit will feature many hands on experiments that the third graders are sure to love!

Have a safe weekend!

In Readers' Workshop this week we continued our work in partnerships. Students shared about what they read with their talking partner. We practiced asking "thick" questions to take the conversation deeper. These questions tend to require deeper thinking and usually have an open-ended answer. Encourage your child to share what he/she has been learning in Readers' Workshop.

Next week we will begin a genre study of ghost stories. Students will choose reading partners and will practice responding to the text in the form of a conversation with their talking partner. These partnerships will be the base for our book clubs as we look further down the road this year.

During Writers' Workshop, we continued to work on our activity pieces. We focused on getting our ideas from our webs to rough drafts. We practiced revising a piece together as a class, and next week will be practicing peer revisions. Our goal during the revision process is to reread the story, see how we can make it stronger by adding specific details.

Taking Care of Business

Math

10/30 Halloween Fun Fair 8:30-11:30
11/3 No School for Students (Conferences)
11/10 Scholastic Book Orders for November due
11/11 Veteran's Day No School

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 come in. A few books were temporarily out of stock. You should have received a coupon for a free book. As soon as the books are received by me at school, your student will have them. The November book club flyers have been sent home. You can view them and more online at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. The due date for the new orders is November 10th.

Halloween Fun Fair:
Thank you for your support with our Fun Fair. We appreciate all the prizes, candy, paper goods, time, and moral support you have provided!

Conferences:
If you have not had your Parent-Teacher Conference yet, and have not sent in the green slip of paper with questions or concerns, I would appreciate a note or the slip of paper before your child's conference so that I will have time to gather any resources necessary to address your concerns.

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!

Our math this week focused on different strategies to add and subtract large numbers. Everyday Math teaches two strategies (one each for addition and subtraction) that are different from the traditional method. For partial sums addition, students first add the hundreds, record that, add the tens, record that, add the ones, record that, and finally add all the "partial sums" to find the total. In subtraction, the counting up method teaches students to take the smaller number in a subtraction problem and "count up" to the larger number. This Everyday Math page also might explain these strategies to you.Also taught are the traditional methods of carrying in addition and trading in subtraction. Students are encouraged to try all the strategies first, and then choose the method that works best for them.

Partial Sums Addition Method step-by-step tutorial

Counting Up Subtraction YouTube video

Trade First Subtraction step-by-step tutorial

Unit 2 will come to a close this week and students will have the End of Unit Assessment on Thursday of next week. You can expect to see those assessments shortly thereafter.

Unit 2 Everyday Math Family Letter