Newsletter

Social Studies
We will discuss popular clothing that was worn in Ancient Greece. We will also address the importance of their religion and temples, like the Parthenon, in their daily life. We will also introduce students the Olympics that the Ancient Greeks used to celebrate the king of their gods. There will be no quiz on Friday, due to FCAT prep and the pep rally.

Science
We will be addressing the concept of flow, or heat transfer, this week. Students need to be able to recognize that heat flows from hot objects to cold objects and that heat flow may cause materials to change temperature. We will investigate how heat energy moves using hot and cold water. There will be a brief quiz on Wednesday. Students will need to be able to infer the direction of heat flow by comparing temperatures of one object to that of another, as well as the three ways that heat is transferred: radiation, conduction, and convection. See blog and notebooks for additional info.

Second Step
A portion of our newsletter will now be used to keep you informed on the character education that your child is receiving each week; this way you can discuss and reinforce these concepts at home. This week we will continue to work at controlling our impulses so that we can solve problems better. The specific impulse we will be addressing is resisting the impulse to lie. It can be hard to overcome feelings of guilt and fear of getting into trouble. However, telling the truth is a way of taking responsibility for our actions. Being honest lets people know we are trustworthy.

Math Workshop
During this week in Math, we will be reviewing 3rd grade benchmarks areas. We will begin with Measurement Monday. The students will be working with rulers to take the measurement (in inches and centimeters) of different objects. The answers will include mixed fractions, with halves and fourths. On Tuesday, we will focus on multiplication and division strategies. The students will be given various story problems and will use their problem solving strategies to determine the correct equation that matches a story problem (also knowing multiplication and division are inverse) and solving various problems. On Wednesday, the students will practice area, perimeter and elapsed time. The students will be applying their knowledge of area (the space inside of a figure) and perimeter (the distance around a figure) to solve problems. On Thursday, we will focus on a review of fractions. The students will be working with finding equivalent fractions (for example 1/2 =3/6 or 3/4 = 6/8), identifying mixed and improper fractions from a picture given, and comparing fractions (greater than, less than, or equal to). Finally, on Friday, we will have a mixed review for the students. Please look for their work to come home each evening and ask your child to show you how they solved a few of the problems. The practice FCAT will not go in the gradebook, but was used as data to show us what areas we needed to focus on. This was a new test given this year, but historical data shows, those students who scored at least half correct, typically got a 3 or better on the FCAT. This week will be spent working on areas with room for improvement shown from the practice test. The homework sheet for this week will be Sheet #27, and will be checked on Wednesday and Friday.