In the News

September 8, 2020

Dear 3S Parents,


I appreciate your patience today! I knew it would be an interesting day and there would certainly be glitches! Here is what we’ve learned today from at home learners and in class learners:


  • Most importantly, everytime your child goes to join Zoom, he/she needs to sign back into Zoom in the Clever dashboard. If you are not signed in, it will tell you that you are not authorized to join.

  • Our set meeting times for the whole class right now are 9:00am and 2:15pm each day. I have been asked to take attendance at Morning Meeting.

  • IXL was not working for much of today, but is up and running now. My fingers are crossed for the cohort B students at home tomorrow.

  • All assignments are posted in Google Classroom under Classwork. You can click on the assignment and it will bring you to the individual slide deck.

  • With the longer day, we have realized we drink water a lot faster than last week. We cannot access the water fountains, so it would be a good idea to bring two full water bottles.

  • Tomorrow is Art day! Our special schedule is as follows:

    • A Day: World Language

    • B Day: Art

    • C Day: Music

    • D Day: Music

    • E Day: PE

    • F Day: World Language

I will also post this schedule on my teacher website! This is definitely tricky, but we will get there! I think that’s it for now, I hope everyone had a wonderful afternoon!

Best,

Mrs. Selensky








































anuary 13, 2020

Dear Parents,

We will celebrate our friendships on February 13th! Since this upcoming weekend is a long one, I thought I'd give you a heads up in case your child would like to begin working on Valentines/Friendship cards for the class!

The cards should be brought in on February 13th.Please do not attach food and/or candy to the cards.

Many thanks,

Mrs. Selensky



January 6, 2020

Dear Parents,

Our class will be going on a field trip to the Darien Historical Society, on Monday, January 13th.

We will leave Hindley at 9:00 and return to school by 10:30.

Not only is our trip timely with the kick-off on Saturday, January 10th, for the Darien 2020 celebration, but it will provide additional information connecting to our social studies unit about Darien which we had recently completed.

Here's to celebrating 200 years of Darien history!

Mrs. Selensky








For the week of December 16, 2019 - Some Hindley Holiday Fun!

Frosty Monday: Brrr! Wear your HINDLEY blue and white!

Holiday Hat Tuesday: Wear your favorite holiday hat!

Sweater Wednesday: Holiday shirt or Ugly Sweater day (Red, green or blue count as holiday colors!)

Dress Up Thursday: Dress for Success in your Holiday Best (This means pants with a button or zipper for the boys and possibly a skirt for the girls! Teachers.. you too!)

Frosty Friday: Pajama Day!

December 13, 2019

Dear Parents,

For next week we are doing a special activity with Mrs. Heyde in the library on Tuesday, so even though the children checked out books today, I have noticed that some children return the books after one or two days. Therefore, if books could be returned Monday or Tuesday then they will have new books for the vacation week. However, if your child does want to enjoy today's checkout books for longer, that is fine.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to meet with you in conferences this week and last week. I truly enjoyed the chance to speak with you about your children.

Enjoy the weekend with your families.

Best Regards,

Mrs. Selensky

December 2, 2019

Dear Parents,

With the early dismissal the math packet will be sent home tomorrow. Children should do the IXL math work tonight. In addition, the December reading log will be given out tomorrow so tonight's reading may be recorded on the November reading log.

Many thanks and looking forward to our conferences this week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Selensky



November 19, 2019

Dear Parents,

The children have brought home a School-to-Home Connections letter which summarizes our newly-begun math chapter. Whenever we begin a new chapter I also post this School-to-Home Connections letter on our class google site within the Math in Focus tab. As a reminder, the class google site is accessed via the Hindley Homepage under Academics to the Teacher Websites. The letter includes math talk we are using in school as well as activities to be enjoyed at home. It would be wonderful to try out this math language and the math activities to reinforce what we are doing in class.

In addition to the new math chapter we are launching our next reading unit which is Reading to Learn, a nonfiction unit. In order to maintain our skills in the fiction genre the children will read fiction for their reading homework and will enjoy nonfiction in class. In writing we continue to develop our opinion writing to "Change the World". The children have written speeches and letters and presented them to the class. They are learning their opinions and their writing can make a difference. We review the lowercase cursive letters taught in second grade and they write beautifully. In social studies we learn about how Darien has changed and/or stayed the same over time as well as where we live affects how we live. In all curriculum areas the children have opportunities to work in partnerships and/or small groups. Our Fundations' phonics program is currently practicing adding vowel suffixes to words. For example, hope becomes hoping and shop becomes shopping.

I am thankful for all of the support you provide to your children.

Best Regards,

Mrs. Selensky

November 14, 2019

Dear Parents,

Tomorrow we are celebrating the completion of our mystery reading unit! In addition to book conversations we will have an opportunity to play some mystery games!

If your family has the games Clue and/or Guess Who? please write your name on them and send them in tomorrow so we can play!

Many thanks for your help!

Mrs. Selensky


October 21, 2019

Dear Parents,

Last week we began new reading and writing units. The writing unit is in the opinion genre and is currently focused on writing persuasive speeches. The class has already achieved success after presenting speeches to persuade Mrs. Droller to provide us with more mystery books for our classroom library. Mrs. Droller, a great proponent of reading, was impressed with their speeches and our mystery library has expanded. We are reading mystery books, and some of this reading is in partnerships. Tonight the children have brought home reading folders, reading journals, their shared mystery book, and their reading logs. They worked with their partner in class today to decide upon their stopping point tonight ( 20 pages ) and after reading tonight they will write about crime solvers, suspects, motives, opportunites, and clues in their reading journals. They may not read ahead of their stopping point with their partner. If, however, they would like to read a book in their book bag they had not finished they may do so and record clues, suspects, etc... in the small detective mystery notebooks I gave them last week. All reading should be recorded in their logs. Thank you for your support.

In math we began a new unit today centered on subtraction within 10,000. Problem solving with real world problems will broaden the use of strategies we will practice, including the use of bar models paired with equations to demonstrate a child's thinking. Use of math language to discuss what the problem is, a plan to solve it, and then checking our work after solving it will strenghten communication skills.

Please continue to encourage the children to also do their IXL homework.

Tomorrow we will have some DHS students work with the class on a STEM project which will synthesize and apply what we have studied and experienced in our science unit, Forces and Interactions.

In our first social studies we are learning about Darien - so appropriate as Darien looks forward to celebrating a special anniversary in 2020.

In Fundations we are practicing the 1-1-1 rule: when a word has one syllable, one vowel, and one consonant after the vowel, we double the consonant when we add a vowel suffix (except if the consonant is the letter x).

Wow! So much learning happening in 3-S!

We appreciate all of your consistent support.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Selensky



October 15, 2019

Dear Parents,

As I have been meeting with children to talk about their reading and checking their reading logs I have discovered there are children not doing their reading homework. Although there are children consistently doing their reading homework and recording it on their reading logs, this is an opportunity to clarify third grade reading homework expectations. The children should be reading 20 pages per night in their classroom reading book and recording their reading in their reading logs.If a child wants to read other books after their regular reading is completed, that is fine. Bookbags, books, and reading logs should be brought back to school each day. Please check in with your child and see how they may need encouragement.

Children are telling me that due to activities after the school day they don't have time to read. This is a wonderful learning opportunity to work on time management so that they learn to do their homework as well as their activities.

As always, I appreciate your support.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Selensky



September 27, 2019

Dear Parents,

The children are bringing home the Chapter 2 Family Math Letter. It summarizes the goals of the chapter and offers activities to try at home. If the letter does not make it home to you, you may read it on our class google site accessed from the Hindley homepage. Go to the Math In Focus tab and click on the chapter 2 link.

Enjoy the beautiful weekend with your families.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Selensky



September 24, 2019

Dear Parents,

Our class will have library book check out day on E days. Therefore, if the children would return their books on D days then Mrs. Heyde will have enough time to process their return. Our wonderful room parents are creating monthly calendars for us and will include reminders about library book return. We will also meet with Mrs. Heyde on other days for the purpose of working on projects, special tasks, or for learning about a new section of the library open to us. During those meetings Mrs. Heyde and I will coteach the children.

The children have brought home the school photo handouts today. Hindley School photo day is October 4th.

Have a nice evening,

Mrs. Selensky


Monday, September 23, 2019

Dear Parents,

I hope you enjoyed the beautiful weekend weather with your families.

HOMEWORK: Today the children are bringing home a new math packet for this week's homework. In addition, they have last week's homework which I have corrected, unless the packet wasn't given to me until today. Some of the children have corrections to last week's homework. I told them today that once the corrections are made the packet should be returned to me. Children wil continue to read each night and record their reading in their reading logs. The expectation is that the children will be reading 20 pages per night.

FIELD TRIP: The entire third grade will go to the Bridgeport Downtown Cabaret Theater on October 17th to see the play, “Sherlock Holmes and the Haunted Cabaret”, which will connect to our mystery reading unit. We will travel by bus leaving Hindley at 9am and returning to Hindley by approximately 12:15. We will eat lunch at the theater and then have our snacks later in the afternoon. The third grade team will be sending home a handout reminding you of this trip as we are closer to the date. Therefore, for October 17th, children will not be able to order lunch from school that day and will need to bring lunch from home.

STRINGS' LESSONS: These lessons will always be on Mondays. A number of students came to school without their instruments. I will not be emailing nor calling home at ask that their instruments be brought to school. We discussed at morning meeting today that they are learning to be responsible for their instruments each week.

Have a lovely evening,

Mrs. Selensky

September 18, 2019

Dear Parents,

Your child may come home to ask you if you would be able to drive him/her to school early (7:50am arrival) one morning a month to attend a Spiriteers' meeting.

At our morning meeting today we discussed what it means to be a spiriteer and how spiriteers encourage good citizenship and community spirit.

If your child is interested they will let me know tomorrow and then the class will vote to choose three children to represent our class as Hindley Spiriteers.

I wanted to give you a heads up on this wonderful possibility.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Selensky

September 13, 2019

Dear Parents,

The class continues to grow as a community!

We will be "growing" our homework routine next week. We will begin adding our math homework next week. On Monday a math packet will be sent home with the homework for the week. It will be due on Friday, September 20th. I will attach a "Homework Helper" sheet for students (and parents :) ) to help practice the math vocabulary used on the math sheets. Please keep the Homework Helper sheet in a safe place for continued use.

By providing the packet on Monday we are hoping this will help children and familiies plan how to best finish the packet before Friday. The math homework is in addition to continuing with the reading homework and recording the reading completed in the reading log.

Have a wonderful weekend with your families!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Selensky