Mrs. Vartenisian's 3rd Grade Blog

Welcome Back!

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This Week

Happy Monday Parents and Students!  5 more days until the break! We have a lot going on this week so I wanted to let you know about all of it! 

-We will not be having a spelling list/test this week. 

-Tomorrow (Tuesday December 16, the students will have lunch at 10:56-11:26. They will have specials from 12:30-1:25)

-Our Holiday party will be Wednesday December 17 @ 9:30-10:45. We will have pancakes and a craft. 

- On Thursday December 18 our students will have the opportunity to hear an author speak here in our media center! 

-On Friday December 19 we wil have have specials at 8:05-8:50 and lunch from 10:56-11:26.  We will have a school wide sing along that day as well. 

We plan to continue normal instruction as much as possible!  Here is what we are learning this week!

Reading-We will be talking about determining word meaning based on prefixes and suffixes.  We will also be reivewing synonyms and character traits.

Writing-The students will be taking a 2nd grade writing prompt this week to assess what they have learned about informational writing. 

Math-We will be applying what we learned about geometry last week to problem solving situations this week. 

Welcome Back!

Welcome back!  We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!  Mrs. Mann and I both enjoyed a lot of quality time with our family and friends.  Here is what we are up to this week! 

Math-We have been working on solving word problems.  We have been practicing reading the word problems carefull and using representations such as part/whole boxes to help us solve the word probmes.  Attached you will find all of the types of word problems that 2nd graders should be able to solve.  The examples use one digit numbers, however, students in 2nd grade should be able to solve problems with two-digit numbers.  Download Types of common core word problems Give your child practice problems similar to any of the addition and subtraction problems on the attached document. 

Reading-We have been reading a lot of nonfiction books.  We have learned how to determine main idea and how to monitor our reading by asking and answering questions about what we are reading. We will continue to read informational texts this week.  Remember to continue to read for at least 20 minutes each night to your child.  Make sure to talk a lot about what you are reading with them!   

Here are some things going on here at school:

Download Giving Tree 14.15

  December 2-5-  “Holiday Shop”     (More information to come)
  December 6-   Acworth & McCall Santa Breakfast   10am-12 pm
  December 9-  PTA Chuckie Cheese Family Night 
  December 16-   Chorus tour downtown Acworth
  December 17-18  Class Holiday Parties
  December 18-   2^nd- 3^rd grade   Author visit “Carmen Agra Deedy"
  December  22- January 5 - Winter   Holidays – No School 
  

What's going on this week?

Hello Families! 

Here are some things that we are learning for the next couple of weeks!

Math-This week we worked on comparing three-digit numbers. Next week, we will begin using the place value strategy to add. Look for examples to come home!

Reading-We have been learning about Author's purpose.  This is the reason that an author writes a text.  This week we focused on the author's purpose of entertaining.  We discussed how when author writes afiction book their purpose is to entertain.

Writing-This week we started writing informational writing. The students will all be writing about an animal.  This week we are going to the computer lab to collect research on our animals.  Next week we will continue to write on informational writing.

Here are some things going on here at school:

November 4- No school/ Student Holiday

November 6- Title One "Out of the World" Family Science   Night and Science Fair Exhibit form 5:30-7pm in the Cafeteria.   Learn about the solar system, planets, constellations and   more!

November 17-21- Book Fair Week "Sir Readalot's Castle"   Enter the Kingdom of Books!

November 18- Grandparents Thanksgiving Luncheon (A-L)   November 18- Grandparents Thanksgiving Luncheon (M-Z)

 

Words Their Way

Hello!  I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend:)  Today we started a new Words Their Way unit. The unit is on short and long "A" words.  The students wrote the 10 words that they should know in their agendas.  On Friday, we will assess these words.  I will call out the words and the students will have to write them in either the short "a" or long "a" group.  I will also dictate 2 sentences to the students.  They will need to spell the words correctly in the sentence.  I will also check the sentences for capitalization and punctuation.  Please review the words nightly with your child!  Have a great week!

 

Check out the October Reading Connections Newsletter! Download OctoberNewsletter

Question of the week: In which region of Georgia did the Creek people live?  Why did the Creek and Cherokee have to use natural resources to build houses, make their tools, and make their clothing?

 

Some Important Things

Ask your child if they have earned any special STAR tickets in the school for good behavior in the hallway, playground, restroom, or cafeteria! These tickets are given out by all staff members to students who are doing an exemplary job of showing good behavior in public areas. Please see the picture below to see what your child may earn for getting STAR tickets! We are working hard on showing good STAR behavior to try to earn individual tickets from other teachers!

Download October-2014-pta-newsletter-5

Download Safari Math Night

Welcome Back!

Hello!  We hope everyone had a wonderful and restful break:) Here is what we will be working on this week.

Reading- We are continuing to focus on asking and answering questions.  We will be working on asking and answering questions with informational text this week.  When you read with your child at home, stop throughout the text and ask your child if they are wondering anything or if they have any questions.  They may ask questions about words they don't know, why an event happened, or what might happen next.  After reading the text, ask you child questions about what you read together.  Try to ask some higher thinking questions.  For example, "How do you think the character felt when ________?"

Writing- We will be continuing to work on narrative writing.  The students are using a graphic organizer that will assist them with their narrative.  The narrative should inclue a bold beginning, a mighty middle, and an excellent ending.  Ask you child what should be included in each of those parts of the narrative!

Math- We are moving on from place value to addition. We will focus on fact families Monday and Tuesday.  Students should understand that the largest number in a number family has to be the sum in addition.  When we subtract, the largest number has to be the first number in the number sentence.  Later in the week, we will be reviewing the mental addition strategies that we learned earlier in the year!  At home, please have your child practice using these mental strategies when they practice their addition facts.  If you need an explanation of the strategies, there is link on the right side of the blog that explains all 2nd grade math strategies:) You may also click here to watch an explanation of the strategies that we use to teach the basic facts.  We will continue to review place value in guided math groups. 

Words Their Way-We will begin Words their way this week.  A list of the words will come home in the agenda.  Please review these nightly.  We will have a dictation test when we finish the unit.  I will let you know in advance when that will be. 

Important Events

October 2- Title I “Wild for Problem   Solving” Family Math Night 6:00 / Cafeteria

Question of the Week: What is the sum of 4 + 8?  Explain the strategy that you used! 

This week

Hello Parents and Students! I hope everyone had a restful weekend!  Here is what's happening this week.

Reading-We are going to continue to work on questioning.  According to the standards, students should ask and answer who, what, when, where, why and how questions about the books that they are reading. When you read with your child at home, have them ask questions before you read the book, during the reading, and after the reading.  Also, ask your students questions, and have them locate the answers to these questions.

Writing- Last week we took time to review complete and incomplete sentences.  Students learned the five things that a sentence has to have to be complete.  We learned a song to help us remember those five things.  Ask your child to sing you the sentence jingle.  This week we will begin our personal narratives.  Ask your child what their topic for their personal narrative is.  This should be something they actually happened to them!  We are not writing fictional narratives just yet!

Math-Today we are going to assess where we are on place value.  We will give the students a quick assessment.  The assessment will be used to create and plan our guided math groups for the rest of the week. 

We will be going to library Thursday at 1:15. Please make sure your child returns their library books that day!

Remember: September 15-19 is Fall Break!  We will not have school that week!  Enjoy!!!

Question of the Week: What are the five parts of a complete sentence? Write a complete sentence about something you learned at school today.

This Week

Hello Parents and Students!  We are having a great week.  Here is what we are learning.

Math- We have been learning about place value.  We have learned why a "ten" base ten block is worth "ten". We have reviewed creating numbers with base ten blocks and counting the base ten blocks to figure out a number.

At home: Check out the math lab blog for review games on place value! 

Reading-We have continued to set up our procedures for Reader's Workshop. We have been practicing how to read independently and building reading stamina.  We have also practiced recording our thinking as we read.   

Social Studies-We are learning about where we live!  We have learned our country, state, and city! We listened to a great book on youtube!  Here is the link if you would like to watch it with your child: Me on the Map 

At Home: Ask you child what country, state, and city they live in! 

The September Homework calendar is now uploaded on the "Homework Calendar" page.

Ok!  Now, The first student to respond by commenting to this question will get a treat! Here is the question: What is our Country, State, and City?  

Open House!

Download Open house

Hello!  Thank you for all of the parents that came to open house!  It was great to see you all, and we enjoyed sharing information about our class:)  I have attached the power point that we shared at open house!  Check it out and useit for future reference:) Have a great weekend and we will see everyone on Monday!