I can’t believe it; in about 3 weeks we will be dismissing for summer vacation! The last day of school is June 12th. We will dismiss students at normal time. Thank you for another great year!

Here are a few things you need to know before the end of the year:

1 - Next Wednesday, May 28th, will be spring pictures. We will take our end of year individual and class photos for the yearbook.

2 - Read Every Day Log Books - If your student has completed all the pages and the summary with cover illustration then I have their book and they are done logging their reading for the year. They may continue reading independently. If they have not completed all of their log pages or the final summary and cover illustration page, then they have their reading log and need to continue recording their reading until they completed their book. Last library check out day is May 26th. I will begin collecting books for the summer starting June 2nd.

3 - End of the year field trip is scheduled for Friday, June 6th. I will be sending home information soon.

4 - Mark your calendars and let family and friends know that the End of Year Celebration and Kindergarten Graduation will be Thursday, June 12th at 6:00 pm.

Reminder - School Dress Code

As the weather begins to warm, remember the school dress code when getting ready for school in the morning.

• Shorts/skirts/dresses are to be of midthigh length.

• The length of shirts must extend beyond the belt level and the student’s midriff must not be visible. Shirts and dresses must fully cover the back and chest area and have adequate shoulder straps. Single strap or spaghetti strap shirts and dresses are not allowed.

Box Tops: Thank you for scanning your receipts! Our fundraising is up from $297.60 to $356.20.

Happy Birthday to our Summer birthday students!

Celebrating Spring with our community!

Cleaning up our community.

Parents please share photos for the yearbook or copy any of your students that you wish to save. Above is a link to our shared Google Drive folder. Please don't delete any photos.

Last call for yearbook photos. If you have taken any photos this year, please share.

All grade participate in end of year testing.

No School

Please dress nicely for our end of year class pictures as well as individual photos for the yearbook. I will be taking photos.

Mrs. Kathy from Glacier Art Museum will be here all day teaching the students about our local tribes through art and games.

This is our typical Friday exchange for a Monday holiday, however due to our end of year field trip we will be flip flopping this day with next Friday.

Libby Dam and Heritage Museum

Normal, full day of school - Dismissal at 3:46 pm

End of Year event starts at 6:00 pm

What are we learning in reading is listed following the individual grade levels by their program colors. If you do not know which color your student is in, please ask Miss Sheets.

Math

Unit 6: Measurement: Comparing Length, Height, and Weight

Science

Topic 6 - Environments

How do plants and animals change their environment?

Social Studies

Topic 6 - Learning About the Past

What was life like in the past?

Arts

In art, we are working on our final medium of chalk pastels with the desert themed unit. The final project is a cactus.

In music, we are working on our end of year songs.

Math

Unit 5: Shapes and Arrays: Partitioning and Tiling Shapes, Arrays, Evens and Odds

Science

Topic 6 - Habitats

How do habitats support living things?

Social Studies

Topic 6 - Our American Culture

How is culture shared?

Arts

In art, we are working on our final medium of chalk pastels with the desert themed unit. The final project is a roadrunner.

In music, we are working on our end of year songs.

Math

Unit 6: Shapes: Attributes and Categories, Perimeter and Area, and Partitioning

Science

Topic 7 - Fossil Evidence

How have living things and environments changed?

Social Studies

Topic 7 - Celebrating our Communities

How is culture shared?

Arts

In art, we are working on our final medium of chalk pastels with the desert themed unit. The final project is an adobe house.

In music, we are working on our end of year songs.

Math

Unit 4: Fractions, Decimals, and Measurement: Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication

Science

Topic 6 - The History of Planet Earth

What evidence can you find that Earth's surface has changed?

Social Studies - Montana: A History of Our Home

Unit 6 - Montana: Land and People

Essential Questions:

• What makes Montana special?
• Who are some great Montanans?

Arts

In art, we are working on our final medium of chalk pastels with the desert themed unit. The final project is a landscape of Bryce Canyon National Park.

In music, we are working on our end of year music.

Math

Unit 7: Probability: Theoretical Probability, Experimental Probability, and Compound Events

Reading - Middle School ELA

Finishing 7F: The Gold Rush Collection

Science - Middle School Course 2

Topic 10 - Information Technologies

Essential Question: Why are digital signals a reliable way to produce, store, and transmit information?

Social Studies - Middle School American History

Topic 16 - A Global Superpower Facing Change (1975-2000)

Essential Question: How should we handle conflict?

Topic 17 - Meeting New Challenges (1975-Present)

Essential Question: What can individuals do to affect society?

Arts

In art, we are working on our final medium of chalk pastels with the desert themed unit. The final project is a landscape of the desert at night.

In music, we are working on our end of year music.

Skills 9:

This unit does not introduce any new letter-sound correspondences. However, it does introduce the uppercase letters having a different shape than the lowercase letters as well as fifteen additional Tricky Words. It also introduces Story Questions Activity Pages, which contain questions on the stories in the Reader.

Tricky Words:when, word, why, to, where, no, what, so, which, once, said, says, were, here, and there. All ‘wh’ question words are included here with the exception of who; it will be introduced in Grade 1.

Skills 10:

This is a review of the year and will be sent home to practice over the summer.

Knowledge 12: Presidents and American Symbols

This domain explores the lives and legacies of five famous presidents and introduces students to several national symbols, including the American flag, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and Mount Rushmore. Students begin by hearing about the branches of the government and the role of the president. Students should have learned about monarchies in the Kings and Queens domain prior to this domain, providing useful background knowledge on forms of government. By the end of this domain, students will be able to compare a king and a president.

Students will also build on information learned in the Columbus and the Pilgrims and the Colonial Towns and Townspeople domains. It is important to draw on this background knowledge so that students can contextualize information about how George Washington and his army fought against Great Britain and won freedom for the colonies, which then became the United States of America.

In the first part of the domain, students will learn about two of our country’s founding fathers: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They will hear about the legend of Washington and the cherry tree, Washington’s role as a general in the American Revolution, and his role as the first United States president. They will then learn about Jefferson’s presidency and his role in drafting the Declaration of Independence.

Students will also learn that when the colonists decided to fight for their freedom from Great Britain, they, themselves, were keeping freedom from a large number of enslaved African Americans. The domain covers Abraham Lincoln and his role in ending slavery fewer than two hundred years ago.

The domain then focuses on Theodore Roosevelt who remembered, as a child, when Abraham Lincoln died. Students will learn how Roosevelt’s early life affected his life as an adult and later his presidency. Students will also learn about Roosevelt’s love for the outdoors and how he worked for nature conservation.

Finally, students will hear a story about the carving of Mount Rushmore, which commemorates four of the five presidents presented in this domain: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Skills 6: The War of 1812

This unit reviews skills previously taught during the year while introducing students to reading nonfiction text. The Reader for this unit is The War of 1812. The Reader covers topics listed in the Core Knowledge Sequence under Grade 2 History, War of 1812. The War of 1812 is important historically as it was the first foreign conflict that the United States faced as a young nation.

Students have already been introduced to the topic of the War of 1812 earlier this year in the Knowledge Strand. However, although students have been listening to nonfiction selections in the Knowledge Strand since Kindergarten, this is the first complex, nonfiction text students will read as part of the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program.

Knowledge 11: Immigration

This domain will introduce students to the concept of immigration in the United States, an especially important topic because the United States is often referred to as a country of immigrants. Students will learn about the biggest wave of immigration to the United States, which occurred between 1880 and 1920. They will discover why people immigrated, what factors pushed them from their homelands and pulled them to the United States, and why many immigrants settled in particular cities or regions upon their arrival. These basic facts about immigration will help students further their awareness of U.S. history. Learning about immigration to the United States is also an opportunity for students from immigrant families to find out more about their family history and what brought them and/or their ancestors to the United States.

In the last three Read-Alouds of the domain, students will hear about becoming a citizen and what it means to be a citizen of the United States. They will learn some basic facts about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and about one of these documents’ key creators, James Madison. This will help students begin to understand the many privileges as well as some of the specific rights they will have as citizens when they get older. As students learn about the early years of immigration to the United States and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, they will be introduced to new vocabulary and concepts that will help them understand why the United States is called the “land of opportunity.”

Unit 10 - Colonial America

This unit builds upon what students have learned about the exploration and settlement of North America by Native Americans and Europeans, and reviews what students may have already learned about the English colonies in North America. Students will learn more about the way in which the English colonies were established and how each developed a unique culture. Furthermore, students will learn details about the way in which the climate, geography, and motivations of the settlers influenced life in each of the thirteen colonies. Finally, students will hear a brief overview of the events leading to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the establishment of the United States as its own nation.

The content students learn in this grade will serve as the basis for more in-depth study in the later grades of colonial America, the French and Indian War, and the Revolutionary War.

Skills:

Spelling

During Lessons 1–5, students will review words with spelling patterns for / e/, / e/ + /l/, /sh/ + / e/ + /n/, /ue/, /oo/, and /f/. For Lessons 6–10, students will review words with spelling patterns of /oi/ spelled ‘oi’ and ‘oy’. Finally, in Lessons 11–15, students will review words with spelling patterns of /ou/ spelled ‘ou’ and ‘ow’.

Grammar

In grammar, students will practice comparative and superlative adjectives using the suffixes –er and –est as well as more and most and be introduced to comparative and superlative adverbs using the suffixes –er and –est as well as more and most. Students will also be introduced to subject pronouns and their antecedents and object pronouns and their antecedents.

Morphology

Throughout Grade 3, students have studied word parts, such as prefixes, suffixes, and root words, during the morphology portion of the lessons. In this unit, students will learn the common prefixes uni–, bi–, tri–, and multi– as well as the common prefixes over–, mid–, and under–. Students will continue to practice their knowledge of how these affixes change the meaning and part of speech of words.

Unit 8: Treasure Island

This unit examines the fiction genre through a classic novel, Treasure Island. Students will focus on character development, setting, and plot, as well as literary devices, while reading an abridged version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s popular adventure story. It is important for students in the upper elementary grades to read longer works of fiction and trace the development of plot, characters, and literary elements over the course of a novel; this unit will provide students that opportunity. In addition, this text presents an opportunity for students to learn about the adventure story as a unique subgenre of fiction. Students will also be exposed to other relevant aspects of the text, such as geography, pirates, and sailing.

Email: teacher@pvsmt.org
Website: pvsmt.org
Location: 7975 Pleasant Valley Rd, Marion, MT 59925, USA
Phone: 406-858-2343