Week 21

Resources SY26

CPS Calendar

Past Resources

Announcements

Hey, there!

Important dates:

January 14 and 15 - Star360 Testing (Reading and Math)
January 19 - No Classes - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 20 - Unusual Animals Project Poster Due

Star360 Testing - This week, we are entering our second of three testing cycles. We are beginning with Star360 to track your child's progress through the year. Please make sure that your child is on time and well-rested so that they can give their best. All students have access to IXL at home (it can even be accessed on the phone) and they should utilize it to help review third grade concepts in Language Arts and in Math.

Headphones - If you haven't yet, please send your child to school with headphones to help them focus on their digital activities. Thank you to everyone who has sent them!

Specials Classes - Our class will now have Music with Ms. Mahoney each afternoon. She can be reached at: mmahoney3@cps.edu .

Students are allowed and encouraged to bring bottles of water to school. In the classroom, students are only allowed to have water (no juice or soda). We have many spills throughout the year and cleanup can be difficult when we find that it isn't just water - especially when electronics are involved. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Student Wellness Good attendance is wonderful, but our health is much more important. If your child is experiencing symptoms of illness but will still attend classes, please send them in a mask to help protect their classmates from transmission of the various illnesses that tend to grow in numbers this time of year.

Student Uniform and Dress Down Days Students should come to school in uniform Monday through Friday. Proper uniform consists of navy blue pants/skirt/dress/collared shirt. Gray Edwards sweatshirts and t-shirts (when students have PE) are also allowed. Additionally, our classroom can get very cold so please provide your child with a navy blue sweater with no hood. Principal-approved dress down days will be announced ahead of time.

As always, please feel free to contact me via Remind with any questions you might have.

Social / Emotional Learning

Second Step

Social Emotional Learning

Unit 3 of our Second Step Program is all about "Empathy and Kindness." These activities are meant to help your child grow as a person as they navigate life.

The weekly lessons are: Kindness and Friendship, Building a Friendship, My Kind of Kindness, Asking Questions, and Do Something Kind.

With adult support, students will be able to Explain how empathy and kindness can build strong friendships and identify the types of kind acts that that can benefit others by thinking about what someone else might want or need.

Encourage your child to identify kind things they can do to build friendships.

Language Arts

Animal Behaviors

Module 6, Animal Behaviors, asks this question:

What behaviors hekp animals survive?

Throughout this module, students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that present them with information about animal survival.

A genre focus on realistic fiction provides students with opportunities to identify literary elements, author’s craft, and theme in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter narrative nonfiction and video to build knowledge across genres.

As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn more about the way that sports can bring people

together to work as a team.

Performance Task: Students will work collaboratively to create a website about unusual behaviors and characteristics of wild animals.

Critical Vocabulary:

invisible, keener, nostrils, trumpet, flexible, siphon, lurking

Big Idea Words:

hatch, universal, span, growth

Generative Vocabulary:

Latin Prefixes: un-

Foundational Skill:

Reference Sources: Thesaurus

Story of the Week

Octopus Escapes Again

Word Work

Ruby

Emerald

Sapphire

Diamond

Choice Board

Each day, from Monday through Thursday, students will be asked to complete one Choice Board activity for homework in their spelling notebooks. They can choose any activity they would like as long as it is different from the others they've chosen during that week.

Spelling Words

Each week, students will receive a new spelling sort. These are words that we would normally be practicing (and tested on) in the classroom. Being able to correctly spell these words will be important as they develop as writers and students should practice every day.

Students have been assigned varying spelling sorts according to their ability.

There will be a test on Friday.

This Week - Students will have spelling homework on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Students should also have completed 5 times each and sentences for 10 of their words (classwork).

Math

Skyline Math

Unit 6: Geometry

Essential Question: What are the attributes of shapes and how can they help us mathematically?

Recognize characteristics of shapes.
Sort shapes into categories and subcategories based on their attributes.
Describe shapes by their attributes.
Recognize that different shapes may share attributes.
Measure the perimeter of shapes.
Describe attributes of shapes based on side lengths.
Identify attributes of different quadrilaterals.
Recognize and draw examples and non-examples of quadrilaterals.
Find the perimeter of polygons when given all of the side lengths.
Identify and explain the difference between perimeter and area.

*Students should also study multiplication and division facts independently throughout the year.

Science and Social Studies

Inheritance and Traits: Variation in Wolves

How do organisms get their traits?

This is an unspoken question that underlies things many of us wonder about beginning at an early age, such as Why does my sibling have curly hair whereas mine is straight? How come I am shorter than others in my family? Why is my sister a faster runner than I am?

In the Inheritance and Traits: Variation in Wolves unit, students dive deep into exploring patterns in the traits of organisms to answer the question of how those traits come to be.

Why?

People have many misconceptions about how organisms get their traits and about the role that inherited information and environmental factors play in determining variation in the traits of organisms. This unit addresses these concepts directly by providing numerous opportunities for students to construct an accurate understanding of the influences that inheritance and the environment play in determining organisms’ traits.

My Community in the World

In this unit, students explore the concept of community and place, and how they shape and define students’ own identities, including their racial, ethnic, cultural, environmental, personal, and community identities. They will investigate the physical and political features of geography in global, regional, and local contexts.

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