December 11, 2011 Parent Letter

December 10, 2011

Dear Parents,

The excitement and anticipation of the holiday season is palpable down here in the basement. Secret Santas have been picked and our winter concert is just around the corner. All that is missing is some snow.
On Tuesday, 12/13, we head to Thompson House. We leave at 10:30 and return near noon. The children will share a writing of their choosing, play recorder together, and we will share in the making of simple tree centerpieces. Thank you to Ray, Karen, and Christy for driving and joining us. Back at school on this day the children will have their concert dress rehearsal so now there are TWO VERY GOOD REASONS TO PRACTICE RECORDER BEFOREHAND AND TO BRING RECORDERS TO SCHOOL ON TUESDAY. Thanks for the support and encouragement at home.
We have read the beginning chapters of Farmer Boy. The children have also observed, sketched, and compared 1800’s artifacts. This week we will take turns sorting these gadgets in a game of “What’s My Rule?” This will facilitate generalizations about their critical features, thus furthering our understanding of 19th century New England families’ lifestyles and the resources available to them. Relevant to a recent chapter “Filling the Ice House,” the third graders will view a movie that is a compilation of early 1900’s footage of the ice industry in Maine and Massachusetts. In the classroom they will design experiments to insulate a cube of ice.
The children have made covers for their recent stories and all are up for viewing in the classroom. They have each completed recent poems with accompanying watercolor paintings. These too will be mounted on a bulletin board. The thoughtful choice of words and their combinations were key objectives in the revision process for both of these creative writing projects. This week we will work on two paragraph projects, one of which will describe a painting by Winslow Homer. Structured writing activities this week will focus on verbs.
The choice of specific nouns and descriptive verbs also will be applied in a short math project. Inspired by a picture book depicting division as arrays, “One Hundred Hungry Ants,” each child is working on his/her own set of division problems based on numbers and themes he/she chooses. Illustrations of equal groups, labeled tables, arrays, and areas of rectangles have been the multiplication and division models we have spent a fair amount of time during recent math lessons. On Friday each child filled in a 0-120 multiplication/ division matrix. Applying both skip-counting and patterns discovered was the objective of this exercise. The creation and solution of multiplication/division number stories will be ongoing math activities. Reviewing these skills on long car rides over the holiday will facilitate your third grader’s ease with these operations.
This past week problem solving and collaboration were once again highlighted in another straw structure challenge. This time, teams of two were faced with the task of building a five foot tall straw tower that Linda could not blow down (via huffing and puffing or with the hot air of a hairdryer). There was a range of designs and a range of sturdiness, but all teams successfully applied triangles and communication in the process. Continuing to look at the structure of buildings and artifacts will be part of our upcoming focus as we introduce simple machines into our social studies/science studies.

Soon you will receive your child’s progress report. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. I want to also remind you that our next scheduled conference day is Thursday, January 26 (11:00-7:00). Right now it seems like a “long way down the road,” but I know how quickly the time will pass.

I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday evening! The children are asked to be in the classroom at 6:15. Thanks.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,
Linda