Important Dates:
Specialists for September 8 - 12: Monday -- PE, Tuesday -- music, Wednesday -- art, Thursday -- PE, Friday -- music
Wednesday, September 10: Picture Day!
Thursday, September 18: Lower School Back-to-School Night 5:30 - 7:30 (information night for parents/guardians)
Friday, September 19: Exploration and Colonization mid-unit quiz (study guide will be sent home soon)
Poetry Memory Work: In third grade, scholars work to memorize a poem each quarter and present it to the class near the end of that quarter. Students have a choice for their quarter one poem -- either "There was an Old Person Whose Habits" or "A Young Lady Named Bright", both by Edward Lear. The poems can be found by clicking on the Poetry Memory Work tab at the top of this page, along with a sample grading rubric showing the areas graded in their recitation of the poem. Scholars are expected to recite the poem by the end of October. Please check in with your child to be sure he/she/they have picked a poem!
History: This week our study of exploration and colonization has a lesson on the Taino people of the Caribbean, who -- like the Kingdom of the Kongo we learned about last week -- were highly affected by the explorations of the Europeans. We will also learn about explorers for Portugal and for Spain. Ask your child to tell you the three reasons Europeans were NOT going to the Spice Islands (answer: they didn't know where the Spice Islands were, they were scared you would fall off the earth if you tried to said south around Africa, and the Arab traders told stories of fantastic monsters and flesh-eating birds).
Writing: Our first writing unit of the year will focus on a review of sentence structure and paragraph structure. Students will practice writing complete sentences and full paragraphs during this study. This week students will work together as a class to write a paragraph about a favorite season and a paragraph about a favorite food.
Science: Our first science unit of the year is a study of animal habitats. We have reviewed the basic needs of all living things (food, water, air, shelter, and space) and learned about the classification of animals (vertebrate and invertebrate; the five classes of vertebrates). This week we will learn about some animals that live in deciduous forests and some animals that live in coniferous forests, as well as the similarities and differences in these two forests.
Grammar: We begin the year with a review of nouns -- that a noun names a person, place, thing, or idea -- and then dig a bit deeper to review common nouns vs. proper nouns, singular nouns vs. plural nouns, and the use of pronouns in sentences. Here is a noun jingle your child will work on during this study:
The Noun Jingle
This is a noun jingle, my friend,
A noun jingle, my friend.
You can shake it to the left
And shake it to the right.
Find yourself a noun,
And then recite:
A noun names a person.
A noun names a thing.
A noun names a person,
Place, or thing,
And sometimes an idea.
Person, place, thing, idea!
Person, place, thing, idea!
So, shake it to the left,
And shake it to the right.
Find yourself a noun,
And feel just right!