 NOTES Multicultural Day is Tuesday, November 24th. Once again, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades are learning about each other's heritage. Students must bring in some type of food to share with a large group. Cold foods are recommended, unless the children can bring in warm dishes that morning. We will hold the event in the morning, before recess. Please remember--NO NUTS OF ANY KIND! Christmas in the Library will be held on Wednesday, December 2nd. We will be performing Where the Wild Things Are. There will be 3 start times: 6:00, 6:30, 7:00. Just show up at the time that you would like your child to attend. The cost is $7 per child. I am noticing that several students are not turning in homework assignments. They have all kinds of excuses. Please explain the importance of doing their homework every night to the best of their abilities. Students MUST take home their homework materials, complete ALL assignments at home, and bring their homework to school the next day. I am required to stay within the Diocesan guidelines of 30-45 minutes per night. If you feel that this is not enough, by all means have your child do more work. Some good ways to pump up the workload are to increase the reading time to 30 minutes, have your child write an entire paragraph every night in their reading log, and practice with flashcards 3-4 times a week for 15 minutes.
SLEMS has gone paperless. You will no longer see the brown Wednesday envelopes. The password-protected Connection Extension is now on-line. Your user name is the same as last year. Parents should have received information from the office on how to access the site. 3rd graders will continue to bring home Friday envelopes. However, we are also trying to send home fewer papers so students will not be bringing home their envelopes every Friday, more like once or twice a month. Rest assured, if your child is having difficulty with a particular subject, I will be in touch. When 3rd grade orders books from Scholastic, you can either fill out the form or order on-line. Simply go to http://www.scholastic.com/clubsordering or http://www.scholastic.com and click on the parent link. The username is LynneLongsClass; the password is pizza. No one else will be able to view your personal information. If you have a second grader in this school as well you can order books for both students from the 3rd grade scholastic web page and everything will be sent to SLEMS and then sorted. If you are looking for ways to help your child succeed in the 3rd grade, there are several things you can do to help. Students should read for 20 minutes every night. Parents can ask comprehension questions that go beyond basic recall. The goal is not only to develop reading fluency but to use higher level thinking skills. Writing is also extremely important. Students should practice all types of writing: diary-style, paragraphs (multiple paragraphs), short stories, poetry (does not need to rhyme), essays. Students should use proper grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc. Multiplication is one of the major math standards that 3rd graders need to master. Parents can assist by quizzing their children with flash cards. Students should work for 10-15 minutes. They should write out every fact they get wrong three times. Guessing is NOT allowed. The goal is to learn the basic math facts through repetition. When children guess, they are not really learning. Therefore, every time a child guesses there should be some type of consequence. Lastly, I am very open to parent/teacher communications. Please feel free to contact me with all of your questions and concerns. Email is best because I have easy access to it. I will certainly call you if there is something that needs to be verbally addressed. Should you wish to set up a face-to-face meeting, just drop me an email and we can schedule an appointment. Please remember, we are a team. Together, we can make sure that the children have the most successful and challenging year possible.
SCHEDULE OF SERVICE PROJECTS September--barn yard animals October--Winter Warmth (2nd/3rd grades sponsoring) November--Thanksgiving baskets; The Gift of Reading (Pre-K) December-- January-- February-- March--April--May--REMINDER: ALL CLASSROOM AND FIELD TRIP VOLUNTEERS MUST BE FINGERPRINTED. 
Homework for the week of November 23rd, 2009 Monday - Math--Excel 59 or 63
- Reading--20 minutes
- Writing--Reading log due tomorrow
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Field Trip Form
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