📰 Early Light Academy – 3rd Grade Newsletter

Week of May 4-May 7, 2026

🌟 Dear Families,

It is May! That means we are heading towards the finish line. We will be doing a lot of reviewing of all the standards that have been taught this year in preparation for the RISE testing. We will go over test-taking strategies and how to do our best on assessments. We will hone in on concepts that may be more challenging and give them lots of practice.

📖 Reading Focus: 

We have learned so much this year while reading. Now it is our time to shine. We will practice our skills while reading to focus on building proficiency in reading complex texts. We will analyze literary and informational texts, citing evidence to answer who, what, where, why, and how.

📝 Grammar Focus 

This week, we are reviewing for the RISE test. We will be focusing on Cause and Effect, an important piece of RISE testing. We will not be learning new grammar skills this week, but this is a great opportunity to talk with your child about things they have learned this year with grammar.

✍️  Writing Focus 

This week, we will finish up our roller coaster informational writing. Students have done a graphic organizer and a rough draft so far. We will be working on the final draft piece, and students will be using a rubric to grade their writing piece. 

🏛️ Social Studies Spotlight

This week in social studies we'll focus our learning on the Declaration of Independence and creating a project for the History Fair in two weeks!

✖️Math Corner: Classifying Quadrilaterals

This week, we will be reviewing for our RISE test! We will review 2-step word problems, fractions, and do some practice RISE tests! We are so excited to let our students show what they know! Keep studying multiplication facts!

Multiplication Musical Performances

May 18th Zimmerman (9:00-9:30)

May 19th Hill (9:00-9:30)

May 20th McIff (9:00-9:30)

May 21st Harshman (9:00-9:30)

🔠 Spelling Words-Prefixes

Remind students that when a word ends in le, the consonant before it—plus the letters le—usually form the last syllable. This is also true of consonant + el, consonant + al, and consonant + il. Tell students that breaking words into syllables helps identify open and closed syllables.

able

purple

riddle

handle

eagle

puzzle

castle

little

pickle

towel

nickel

camel

travel

tunnel

squirrel

preschool

rebuild

unlucky

motel

couple

📚 Vocabulary Words

1. Essential- very important or necessary

2. Communicated-passed along feelings, thoughts, or information to others

3. Goal- something a person wants or tries to get or become                   

4. Motivated- has a reason for doing something

5. Professional- a professional job requires special education

6. Research- careful study to find and learn facts

7. Serious- something important

8. Specialist- someone who knows a great deal about something

📅 Important Dates

• May 4-8: Teacher Appreciation Week!

• May 6: Buddy Class day

• May 13 & 14: RISE assessments

• May 11-22: Library Books are due.

• May 18-22: Book Fair

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

• May 21, 2026: 5-7 pm History Fair

• May 25: Memorial Day- NO School

• May 28, 2026, End of the 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.