August 14th, 2026
August 14th, 2026
August 14th, 2026
Hello Families, and welcome to Third Grade for our 2026-2027 school year!
Please take a moment to visit and read this newsletter weekly, as it contains important information about our class, as well as upcoming events at Westlake. You will receive an email with the link every Friday. Thank you for your collaboration and support. I am looking forward to our school year together!
Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday, August 26th- Back to School Night
Monday, September 7th- Labor Day- No School
Tuesday, September 1st- Fall Picture Day (uniform picture day)
Classroom News
School Dismissal Manager: If you have not already done so, please update your child's School Dismissal Manager with how they will be going home this year. It is super important that I know where each student is going at the end of the day for safety purposes. If you have any difficulty logging in or accessing your account, please email talexander@westlakecharter.com for assistance.
Specialties Update: At Westlake, we value our students’ social-emotional growth and have adjusted our Specialties cohort model to create a more stable and connected school community. A stable community helps reduce stress, foster teamwork, deepen friendships, and ultimately support deeper learning. With this new model, four classes in each grade level remain together as a classroom community during Specialties, while one class divides into four groups to join the other classes. This model is rooted in a foundational belief at Westlake: all of our students are ALL of our students.
Your child’s Specialties schedule was sent home in their Friday Folder during Meet the Teacher. Please take a moment to review it with your child so they know which group they will join each day.
Social Emotional Learning Focus
We spent the first three days of school getting to know our new classmates, new classroom space, and establishing our Community Agreements.. This week, we began brainstorming our hopes and dreams for the 3rd-grade school year.
Next week, we will focus on what collaboration looks like, sounds like, and feels like as we continue to launch the school year in our Getting to Know You unit.
This year, we are excited to launch Character Strong, our new social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum! Each Monday across our K-8, students will participate in a Character Strong lesson during Morning Meeting as we build skills around kindness, relationships, self-awareness, and responsible decision-making. We are also excited to partner with families in this work. Each week, we’ll share resources and, when helpful, a short parent video connected to our classroom lesson so you can continue the conversation at home.
CLICK HERE for a video from Character Strong.
ELA (reading, writing, grammar)
This week, we learned all about each other! Together, we brainstormed what we know about third grade and what questions we have about third grade.
Next week, we will begin discussions on what it means to be a writer, what writers write about, and topics that are close to their hearts that they may want to write about. We will practice narrative writing as our first style of writing.
CLICK HERE for resources to practice writing at home and a rubric of what a third-grade writer’s narrative story should include.
Students will be decorating the front of their writer’s notebooks. Please see the notice that was sent home or CLICK HERE for more details about what they can bring in to decorate.
We will also begin our phonics instruction from our Fundations curriculum. We will work on our procedures and routines while learning about closed syllables and the trigraph tch.
CLICK HERE for a video of Unit 1 Home Support Overview.
CLICK HERE for a video of Home Support Additional Tips
CLICK HERE for a letter describing Unit 1 along with home activity sheets. A hard copy of this can also be found in Friday Folders.
Science
This week, we completed several STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) challenges as we continue to work on building our teamwork, collaboration, and classroom community.
Math
Next week, we will begin our first unit in our math curriculum, Illustrative Mathematics: Introducing Multiplication.
CLICK HERE for a family support video for the launch of Unit 1
CLICK HERE for family support materials for Unit 1
Parent Info Sheet- Operations and Algebraic Thinking standards
Westlake News
K-8 Back to School Night: Our K-8 Back to School Night is on Wednesday, August 26th. To the best of our ability, we would like to keep this event distraction free by encouraging families to make this a non-student event. This will allow for teachers and families to connect in a distraction-free environment. For families that need supervision, our BASE program will be available to help, however, space is potentially limited. If you know that you will need childcare to attend this event, please CLICK HERE to RSVP for BASE as soon as possible so that we can properly prepare.
Kindergarten through 5th Grade Families: We have two identical sessions, you only need to attend one. Session one is 6:00 - 6:30 PM, session two is 6:40 - 7:10 PM. A video from your child's specialty teacher(s) will be available.
6th-8th Grade Families: We have two identical sessions, you only need to attend one. Session one is 5:00 - 5:40 PM, session two is 6:00 - 6:40 PM. During these sessions, you will meet with your student’s core teachers and specialty teachers. Your students are creating your schedule for the evening.
Fall Picture Day: K-8 picture day will be on Tuesday, September 1st. This is a uniform picture day for our K-8 campus. All students will have their picture taken for the yearbook and student IDs, even if they don’t purchase a picture package. CLICK HERE to pre-purchase your pictures online. Group pictures will be taken for Kindergarten through 5th grade classes only.
Free and Reduced Priced Meals:Good news! This year, we qualify to complete the SHORT form for Free and Reduced Priced Meals (FRPM). Each year it is incredibly important to our school that we are able to account for every student during this form collection process. We are authorized by the Natomas Unified School District and as a part of our partnership, we commit to collecting these forms from every family. This quick form plays an important role in determining how much funding our schools receive. Every completed form helps ensure Natomas Unified receives the full funding our students deserve. When forms are not submitted, schools can miss out on valuable resources. Even if you believe your family may not qualify, your response still makes a difference. CLICK HERE to complete the 2026-2027 Educational Benefit Form.
Learning Lab: The Learning Lab will open to Middle School Explorers after school on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 3:15 - 3:45 PM beginning Monday, August 17th. The Learning Lab is staffed by an Instructional Aide to assist Middle School students with their classwork and homework. Families should sign up their Middle School student(s) using School Dismissal Manager.
Jibe Walk and Bike to School Program: The Jibe Walk and Bike to School Program is back! Students earn prizes and rewards for walking, biking, or scooting to school while parents skip the drop-off line and gain peace of mind knowing they will be notified when their student is scanned in at the school’s entrance. If your student already has a card, they can simply find an adult in an orange apron when arriving on campus to get scanned in. Need a card? Please CLICK HERE to register.
Specialty Classes:
Week of
8/12/2026
Weekly Focus
Upcoming Assessments
Resources for Practice at Home
Art - Ascheman
This week, artists learned about classroom expectations. Artists who have not been to art class yet will learn about expectations when they arrive next week. Following these lessons, we will EXPLORE and experiment with various art tools.
PE - Morales
Welcome back PE explorers! This week we are going over policies and procedures for our PE class.
Spanish - Grimaldi
August 21st, 2026
Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday, August 26th- Back to School Night
Monday, September 7th- Labor Day- No School
Tuesday, September 1st- K-8 Fall Picture Day- Uniform
Tuesday, September 1st- NWEA MAP Testing: Math
Thursday, September 3rd- NWEA MAP Testing: Reading
Classroom News
School Dismissal Manager: If you have not already done so, please update your child's School Dismissal Manager with how they will be going home this year. It is super important that I know where each student is going at the end of the day for safety purposes. If you have any difficulty logging in or accessing your account, please email talexander@westlakecharter.com for assistance.
ELA (writing, reading, grammar)
This week in reading, we worked towards having sustained reading stamina. To build students up for success, we discussed what it looks like to pick a good-fit book.
The 30 Book Challenge was introduced and students are very excited! This year in third grade, I challenge students to read 30 books or more! Students may read any good fit book that interests them. Encourage your child to explore various genres while they complete this challenge. These books can be read at home or at school. The goal is to create a love for reading that lasts a lifetime. Students will be tracking progress in their Reading Log that will stay at school. Each time they finish a book, they will add it to their list.
This week, we also spent time brainstorming ideas for future writing in our notebooks. Students made collages on the inside cover of their notebooks that they can reference throughout the school year for topic ideas..
Our first writing focus will be personal narratives. Students will write true stories that they have experienced.
Study guides for writing were sent home in Friday Folders this week. CLICK HERE for a digital copy of the study guide. This will be assessed at the end of the trimester, but a process that we are learning and practicing all trimester.
We have also begun our phonics instruction from our Fundations curriculum. This week we reviewed procedures and routines. We focused on closed syllables and the trigraph tch.
CLICK HERE for a video of Unit 1 Home Support Overview.
CLICK HERE for a video of Home Support Additional Tips
CLICK HERE for a letter describing Unit 1 along with home activity sheets. A hard copy of this can also be found in Friday Folders.
Math
This week, we began Unit 1: Introducing Multiplication, Section A: Interpret and Represent Data on Scaled Graphs, from our Illustrative Math curriculum. This week, we have been learning new routines and procedures as we build our Mathematical Community. Students have been collecting and analyzing data to create scaled graphs.
The daily cool-downs will be sent home weekly in Friday Folders. This is a quick way to check in with your student and see how they are doing on the learning in class.
Next week, we will continue to create and understand scaled graphs as we begin to make a connection between scaled graphs and multiplication.
At-home Resources:
CLICK HERE for a family support video for the launch of Unit 1
CLICK HERE for family support materials for Unit 1
Parent Info Sheet- Operations and Algebraic Thinking standards
Social Emotional Learning
This year, we are excited to launch Character Strong, our new social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum! Each Monday across our K-8, students will participate in a Character Strong lesson during Morning Meeting as we build skills around kindness, relationships, self-awareness, and responsible decision-making. We are also excited to partner with families in this work.
CLICK HERE for a video from Character Strong.
We’re excited to kick off the new school year by talking about Kindness. Our definition of Kindness is acting with understanding, generosity, and care. We believe developing skills around Kindness will help us build a strong foundation for a great year of learning, connecting, and growing together.
CLICK HERE to check out our Family Letter for more information about PurposeFull People and some fun ways you can join us in kicking off our most Kind year yet!
As a class, we learned about the various types of discussions that we will participate in during the school year. A discussion can be teacher-led, in a group, or with a partner.
Assessment Information
Speaking and Listening Benchmark
This will be given the week of August 24th:
This will be reported on the Trimester 1 Progress Report
NWEA MAP Testing
Tuesday, September 1st- Math Test
Thursday, Thursday 3rd- Reading Test
Unit 1: Introducing Multiplication Benchmark
This will be given the week of September 14th.
Click Here for the study guide. A hard copy was also sent home in Friday Folders today.
Westlake News
Grade Level Field Lesson & School Supplies Donations Competition: Third Grade families: In the first 30 days of school, we’d like to raise at least 50% of our Field Lessons and School Supplies fundraising goal! Every dollar raised goes to pay for our Third Grade Explorers to travel to Field Lessons and pays for school supplies so you don’t have to run around Target looking for “just the right” glue stick!
Using the links below, you can,
Donate to our grade level using this link!
Fundraise by posting our grade level link on Social Media, or send the link to friends and family asking for contributions to your students’ grade level!
New Way to Contribute: CLICK HERE to refer a business that may be interested in sponsoring an Explorer! Our Explorer Partners team will reach out to every business that is referred by a family member and help the business to sponsor an Explorer! When they do, they will become a part of our Explorer Partners Program!
We’ve now reached 16.67% of our goal. This week the grade level with the most business referrals will win a prize! Let’s go families, let’s make sure Third Grade wins big!
K-8 Back to School Night: Our K-8 Back to School Night is on Wednesday, August 26th. To the best of our ability, we would like to keep this event distraction free by encouraging families to make this a non-student event. This will allow for teachers and families to connect in a distraction-free environment. For families that need supervision, our BASE program will be available to help, however, space is potentially limited. If you know that you will need childcare to attend this event, please CLICK HERE to RSVP for BASE as soon as possible so that we can properly prepare.
Kindergarten through 5th Grade Families: We have two identical sessions, you only need to attend one. Session one is 6:00 - 6:30 PM, session two is 6:40 - 7:10 PM. A video from your child's specialty teacher(s) will be available.
6th-8th Grade Families: We have two identical sessions, you only need to attend one. Session one is 5:00 - 5:40 PM, session two is 6:00 - 6:40 PM. During these sessions, you will meet with your student’s core teachers and specialty teachers. Your students are creating your schedule for the evening.
Fall Picture Day: K-8 picture day will be on Tuesday, September 1st. This is a uniform picture day for our K-8 campus. All students will have their picture taken for the yearbook and student IDs, even if they don’t purchase a picture package. CLICK HERE to pre-purchase your pictures online. Group pictures will be taken for Kindergarten through 5th grade classes only.
Free and Reduced Priced Meals: Good news! This year, we qualify to complete the SHORT form for Free and Reduced Priced Meals (FRPM). Each year it is incredibly important to our school that we are able to account for every student during this form collection process. We are authorized by the Natomas Unified School District and as a part of our partnership, we commit to collecting these forms from every family. This quick form plays an important role in determining how much funding our schools receive. Every completed form helps ensure Natomas Unified receives the full funding our students deserve. When forms are not submitted, schools can miss out on valuable resources. Even if you believe your family may not qualify, your response still makes a difference.
CLICK HERE to complete the 2026-2027 Educational Benefit Form.
Learning Lab: The Learning Lab will open to Middle School Explorers after school on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 3:15 - 3:45 PM beginning Monday, August 17th. The Learning Lab is staffed by an Instructional Aide to assist Middle School students with their classwork and homework. Families should sign up their Middle School student(s) using School Dismissal Manager.
Jibe Walk and Bike to School Program: The Jibe Walk and Bike to School Program is back! Students earn prizes and rewards for walking, biking, or scooting to school while parents skip the drop-off line and gain peace of mind knowing they will be notified when their student is scanned in at the school’s entrance. If your student already has a card, they can simply find an adult in an orange apron when arriving on campus to get scanned in.
Need a card? Please CLICK HERE to register.
Specialties
8/17/2026
Weekly Focus
Upcoming Assessments
Resources for Practice at Home
Art - Ascheman
Next week will be an introduction to art tools and tool exploration. Artists will use oil pastel, watercolor, and paint sticks to name just a few! We will also learn about art centers, which are choices for early finishers, and a community agreement that all tools and toys stay inside Mrs. Ascheman's classroom.
PE - Morales
Welcome back PE explorers! This week we are going over policies and procedures for our PE class.
Spanish - Grimaldi
This week, I reviewed colors and common Spanish greetings, including good morning (buenos días), good afternoon (buenas tardes), and good night (buenas noches). I also went over class expectations and classroom rules with students.
August 28th, 2026
Upcoming Dates:
Tuesday, September 1st- K-8 Fall Picture Day- Uniform
Tuesday, September 1st- NWEA MAP Testing: Math
Thursday, September 3rd- NWEA MAP Testing: Reading
Monday, September 7th- Labor Day- No School
Classroom News
Back to School Night Follow-Up: Thank you for attending Back to School Night. If you were unable to attend or would like to access the slides, please CLICK HERE.
School Dismissal Manager: We appreciate your efforts to keep Dismissal Manager updated with your child’s dismissal instructions. This ensures that everyone gets where they need to go quickly and safely.
ELA (writing, reading, grammar)
In writing, we are hard at work on our first personal narrative writing piece. This week, students practiced including transition words and adding more details to their stories . The writing process can be messy with a lot of edits and revisions.
Next week, in writing, we will publish our writing. We will set goals for how we want to grow as writers and review the 3rd-grade narrative rubric.
This week, we wrapped up our Getting to Know You unit. As we launched the school year, we have read many books about community, collaboration, and friendships.
Next week, we will begin our Folktales unit. We will study folktales, fables, fairytales, and myths. While reading we will be focusing on retelling stories as well as asking and answering questions about a text.
Study guides for writing were sent home in Friday Folders last week. CLICK HERE for a digital copy of the study guide. This will be assessed at the end of the trimester, but a process that we are learning and practicing all trimester.
This week in phonics, we focused on closed syllable exceptions and glued sounds.
Next week we will begin Unit 2, where students will learn about 1-1-1 words.
CLICK HERE for a video of Unit 2 Home Support Overview.
CLICK HERE for a video of Home Support Additional Tips
CLICK HERE for a letter describing Unit 2, along with home activity sheets. A printed copy can be found in Friday Folders.
Math
This week, we wrapped up Unit 1: Section A from our Illustrative Math curriculum. We continued to create and understand scaled graphs as we began to make connections between scaled graphs and multiplication.
Next week in Section B, students will make sense of multiplication in terms of equal groups of objects.
Cool downs and Checkpoints will be sent home weekly in Friday Folders. This is a quick way to check in with your student and see how they are doing on the weekly lessons.
CLICK HERE for the third-grade standards.
At-home Resources:
CLICK HERE for a digital copy of the study guide.
A hard copy was sent home today in Friday Folders.
CLICK HERE for a family support video for the launch of Unit 1
CLICK HERE for family support materials for Unit 1
Parent Info Sheet- Operations and Algebraic Thinking standards
Social Emotional Learning
We’re excited to kick off the new school year by talking about Kindness. Our definition of Kindness is acting with understanding, generosity, and care. This week during our Character Strong lesson students continued to practice kindness by creating Kind Classroom Agreeents.
CLICK HERE to check out our Family Letter for more information about PurposeFull People and some fun ways you can join us in kicking off our most Kind year yet!
This week, we continued to learn more about having a growth mindset. We discussed the idea that learning never stops and that even when things get challenging, we should not give up.
Next week, we will launch into our first Core Value of the school year: Respect.
Assessment Information
Speaking and Listening Benchmark
This will be given this week.
This will be reported on the Trimester 1 Progress Report.
NWEA MAP Testing
Tuesday, September 1st- Math Test
Thursday, Thursday 3rd- Reading Test
Unit 1: Introducing Multiplication Benchmark
This will be given the week of September 14th.
CLICK HERE for the study guide. A hard copy was also sent home in Friday Folders today.
Westlake News
Grade Level Field Lesson & School Supplies Donations Competition: Third Grade families: In the first 30 days of school, we’d like to raise at least 50% of our Field Lessons and School Supplies fundraising goal! Every dollar raised goes to pay for our Third Grade Explorers to travel to Field Lessons and pays for school supplies so you don’t have to run around Target looking for “just the right” glue stick!
Using the links below, you can,
Donate to our grade level using this link!
Fundraise by posting our grade level link on Social Media, or send the link to friends and family asking for contributions to your students’ grade level!
New Way to Contribute: CLICK HERE to refer a business that may be interested in sponsoring an Explorer! Our Explorer Partners team will reach out to every business that is referred by a family member and help the business to sponsor an Explorer! When they do, they will become a part of our Explorer Partners Program!
We’ve now reached 17.87% of our goal and our families have referred three businesses! Let’s go families, let’s make sure Third Grade wins big by hitting 50% of our goal!
Fall Picture Day: K-8 picture day will be on Tuesday, September 1st. This is a uniform picture day for our K-8 campus. All students will have their picture taken for the yearbook and student IDs, even if they don’t purchase a picture package. CLICK HERE to pre-purchase your pictures online. Group pictures will be taken for Kindergarten through 5th grade classes only.
Free and Reduced Priced Meals: Good news! This year, we qualify to complete the SHORT form for Free and Reduced Priced Meals (FRPM). Each year it is incredibly important to our school that we are able to account for every student during this form collection process. We are authorized by the Natomas Unified School District and as a part of our partnership, we commit to collecting these forms from every family. This quick form plays an important role in determining how much funding our schools receive. Every completed form helps ensure Natomas Unified receives the full funding our students deserve. When forms are not submitted, schools can miss out on valuable resources. Even if you believe your family may not qualify, your response still makes a difference. CLICK HERE to complete the 2026-2027 Educational Benefit Form.
Specialties
8/31/2026
Weekly Focus
Upcoming Assessments
Resources for Practice at Home
Art - Ascheman
Third grade artists will be introduced to art centers and maker space materials! This will be our first maker space experience. We will sign an agreement that all materials, toys, and tools will stay inside the classroom so that all students can enjoy them at school.
PE - Morales
This week we will begin our chasing and fleeing games along with overhand throwing activities.
Spanish - Grimaldi
This week in Spanish, students learned how to say **“Me gusta”** and **“No me gusta.”** We also practiced five common action verbs and shared activities we like and do not like.