📰 Early Light Academy – 3rd Grade Newsletter

Week of May 18-22,  2026

🌟 Dear Families,

WE DID IT! 🎉 We survived end-of-year testing, and we could not be more proud of our students! We are thrilled to celebrate the incredible growth they have shown this year. Through hard work, grit, and perseverance, they have learned and accomplished so much during third grade.

Not only have they grown academically, but they have also built meaningful friendships, strengthened their confidence, and demonstrated RISE in countless ways every single day. We hope each student can look back and truly see just how far they have come this year.

Every student has shown excellence in their own unique way, and it has been such a joy to watch them learn, grow, and shine. We are so proud of all they have accomplished! 🌟

🎶 Multiplication Musical Performances🎵✨This week is our Multiplication Musical. The students have been working so hard memorizing their math facts through song. We have definitely seen improvement in their math skills, but we have also seen that if they get stuck on a certain problem, they quickly start singing a song to help them solve the problem. We love it! Have them practice these songs over the summer so they don’t forget! All parents are invited to attend the Multiplication Musical. You will need to check in at the office, then proceed to the pavilions next to the music room. Doors will open at 8:50 am. Please don’t be late! Please don't be late since it is a small music room and it will be difficult to enter without disturbing others.

🌳 👟Field Trip

We will be walking to a park for our Field Trip on Wednesday. Please make sure your student is wearing comfortable walking shoes and brings a water bottle. We will be focusing on some science standards while we are out and about.

☀️💧 Field Day

On the last day of school we will be holding our field day. The kids will get wet so make sure you send a change of clothes and sunscreen and waterbottles to school with them. This will be a celebration of all we have accomplished this year. Each class has been assigned a color to help wrangle kids, McIff-red, Zimmerman- blue, Hill-green, Harshman- red. Please have your child wear that color shirt on the last day of school.

📖 Reading Focus:
As we wrap up this year, we will continue to work on reading comprehension. We will practice our skills by reading different genres of stories. It is often said that from kindergarten to third grade, students are learning to read, and from then on, they are reading to learn. Students have learned to monitor their understanding and focus on details to help them comprehend the stories better. They are ready for fourth grade, and we hope they will continue to excel in reading.

 📝 Grammar Focus 

This week in grammar, we will be tying in adjectives as we create a character adjective accordion. Students will create a character and need to give it physical or personality traits on the accordion. They will then create a story to go along with it, too. We will also be reviewing our new spelling words this week, which focus on r-controlled syllables.

✍️  Writing Focus 

This week in writing, students will be creating a zoo writing project based on their zoo area and perimeter project they will be doing. They will be choosing an animal that is in their zoo and researching information about it. They will then turn it into a paragraph based on the four questions they are given and create a picture to go with it.

🏛️ Social Studies Spotlight

This week we are wrapping up our projects for the History Fair on Thursday night and jumping into some fun Mystery Science lessons about fossils and dinosaurs.

✖️Math Corner: Classifying Quadrilaterals

In math, we will be working on 2 math-based projects that review 3rd grade standards. We are also preparing for our musicals!

🔠 Spelling Words-Prefixes

Every syllable in a word has one vowel sound. Explain to them that they should pay attention and notice that when a vowel is followed by the letter r, both letters remain in the same syllable and act as a team to form a special vowel sound called an r-controlled vowel syllable.

severe

prepared

declare

later

writer

cellar

trailer

author

person

circus

garlic

partner

restore

sister

actor

explained

bried

enjoys

cirucular

editor

📅 Important Dates

• May 22: Library Books are due.

• May 18-22: Book Fair

• May 19: Phoenix RISE UP Day - students will visit the 4th grade to see what to expect next year.

• May 20: Field trip to local park 10:00-2:00- 

• May 21, 2026: 5-7 pm History Fair 5-7 pm

• May 25: Memorial Day- NO School

• May 28, 2026, End-of-year third-grade class parties.

• May 29, 2026: Last day of school, Field Day

I've had some parents reach out letting me know they've struggled with the links, so I've copied and pasted them below. Hopefully this helps!

• Quizlet multiplication flash cards: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kQ1jdLL2Qc8TOur9--J8i3SddQaT-yTo2niYB3qzQko/edit?usp=sharing

• Khan Academy steps to login at home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11c0eFvAk-j0QMoA0N-Jwt1pdgcdlZK2bu3u-0iJ_pDk/edit?usp=sharing

Here are some websites you can use to practice math skills. 

• iReady Flight Fluency available through your student’s portal in Classlink.com  They will use sign in with Google. They use the same log in as they do in school. You may have to add @earlylightacademy.org to their Google login

• Multiplication.com

• https://www.boddlelearning.com/parents-page

• https://xtramath.org/#/signin/teacher_other

• https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/parents

• https://www.boddlelearning.com/parents-page

• https://play.stmath.com/academy/modules/hs_started/ if you sign up as a homeschool student you can get free access to ST math. Your student should be familiar with this math program from years past.