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Field Trip: Field trip permission slips will came home last week, and are due back by Friday, May 8th with payment. The third grade will visit the Southwick Zoo. The cost of the field trip for students is $18.00.Checks should be made out to FSS. We will be contacting volunteers for chaperoning this trip shortly. We want to thank PTO for their generous support of our enrichment activities. Due to their support, the cost of this trip has been greatly reduced and our in school field trip, where Plimoth Plantation will visit us, has no cost.
MCAS: On Tuesday, May 5th and 6th third graders will take both their Math MCAS tests. It’s important that students get a good night's sleep and eat a good breakfast. Although we’ll have a short snack prior to the start of the test, there will be no scheduled snack time during the testing sessions. If you want to send your child in with gum or a piece of hard candy to help them concentrate, please send it to school in a labeled baggy. I will be collecting their labeled bags when they arrive at school. If students had leftover candy or gum from previous sessions, I will pass that out to them. When students finish the session they are allowed to read. We are encouraging students to bring in books from home that they will enjoy reading if they should have time when their testing session is over. If they are at the end of a book they should have a second book ready if the need arises.
Logging into Clever-- Please use this link to find directions for logging into Clever at home.
Clever Instructions for Families
Reading 20 minutes a day at home is important. This could be done daily or as a total of 80 minutes per week. We want the students to choose high-interest, “good fit books.” The goal of reading daily is not only to grow as a reader but also to instill a love of reading. We don’t assign students books to read at home, but trust that they’re choosing a book that they enjoy, and will help them develop reading for meaning skills and further develop their vocabulary.
Math fact fluency is the building block for higher-level math concepts, and by the end of third grade, students should know by memory all products of two one-digit numbers (3.0A7). Students should spend 5-10 minutes each night practicing their multiplication facts up to 10x10. Math fact fluency also helps students solve more complex math problems more quickly. If they have mastered their math facts, these concepts will be significantly easier, and they will be better equipped to solve them at a more efficient speed. The benchmark for trimester one is that students will “Know from memory all products of factors 0,1,2,5,9 and 10.” They can practice in a number of ways. Traditional flash cards, reciting facts aloud, writing them on paper, or using an online program. We suggest that students start with 0, 1, 2, 5, 9, and 10.
Xtra Math- In math, we use the online fact program XtraMath to monitor their progress. It is an online fact fluency program that helps students develop quick recall and automaticity of their basic math facts. Although it is a timed fluency program, we remove the visual timing elements from the screen so that students are not distracted or become anxious by this. Within the program, students have 3 seconds to type an answer. If this is not completed, the program reinforces their learning by giving the correct answer, having students read the correct answer, and typing it in before moving on. We will be introducing this program next week and having each student take the placement quiz to determine their initial fluency score. Once the placement quiz is completed, each day, students will be given a two-minute progress quiz to check what progress they have made. Based on this progress quiz, students are given an individualized set of 10 facts for the students to work on. Spaced repetition is used to solidify knowledge of these particular facts. Students are asked to complete a full round of XtraMath each day, which is 10 minutes or less. Students with a strong foundation of basic math facts will have an easier time when they begin to tackle more advanced math, like fractions or algebra in the higher grades.
ELA- Over the next few weeks, we will be working on Module 4, Water Around the World, in our EL program. In the first unit, students read selected pages from the book One Well: The Story of Water on Earth to learn where freshwater comes from and explore three main issues: access to water, the demand for water, and water pollution. At first, they listen to the pages being read aloud to find the main ideas and supporting details. Then, they read the pages again to study the illustrations, learn new vocabulary, and answer questions about the text.
Math- Later this week after MCAS, we will be expanding our knowledge of multiplication as we learn strategies to multiply large numbers together. For example, develop and use strategies for multiplying by 11 and 12. Also, multiply single-digit numbers by multiples of 10. Finally, multiply single-digit numbers by two-digit numbers.After finishing this unit, we plan to have a number of fun project based math activities that will review our skills learned throughout the school year.
Feel free to use the free Math Vocabulary Cards app that accompanies our math program for additional support in practicing multiplication. You can find these at mathlearningcenter.org/apps. Another great resource is IXL Fact Fluency Zone. Fact Fluency Zone can be found under the learning tab, and includes fluency games, worksheets, and videos. You can access IXL through this link https://www.ixl.com/signin/nashoba You may need to log into google to use this link.
Science-- We will be finishing our unit on Inherited and acquired traits in animals soon. In this unit, students explore the inherited and acquired traits of plants and animals. Analyzing traits provides evidence for how those traits vary, how they are inherited, and how they have changed over time through both artificial and natural selection. Students also examine how a particular environment can affect traits, including inherited traits that provide animals with an advantage for survival. Soon we will be starting our next unit on Circle of Life. In this unit, students compare and contrast the life cycles of both animals and plants. Students create models to build an understanding that all organisms share certain stages in their life cycles: birth, growth, reproduction, and death. Students also explore how an understanding of life cycles can aid in solving problems that occur when there are too many or too few organisms in a particular environment.
Social Studies–-Over the next few weeks we will continue to learn more about the Pilgrims & Puritans. We have talked about who the Pilgrims were and learned about their voyage on the Mayflower. We will continue to discuss what their lives were like during the first winter in New England, how the Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims, what life at Plimoth was like, and the challenges that they faced in a new land.
Later this month, we are excited to explore how the American Revolution began right here in our own state of Massachusetts! Students will learn about the important events and brave people who helped shape our nation’s history and fight for freedom.
One of our big topics will be the Declaration of Independence—a very important document where the American colonies told Great Britain they wanted to be their own country. We’ll learn why the colonists felt it was time to speak up and how they worked together to make their voices heard.
We’ll also talk about several key leaders from Massachusetts who played a big part in the revolution: Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, John Adams, and Abigail Smith Adams
To connect what we’re learning to real places, we’ll also take a “virtual walk” along Boston’s Freedom Trail, where many historic events happened. Some of the important landmarks we’ll talk about are:
Old South Meeting House – Where colonists gathered to plan protests like the Boston Tea Party.
Granary Burying Ground – The resting place of many revolutionary leaders.
Old State House – The site of important speeches and the Boston Massacre.
Faneuil Hall – A meeting place where people spoke out for independence.
Bunker Hill Monument – Honors one of the first major battles of the Revolution.
This unit helps students see how history happened right around us.
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