Coming up in the next few weeks we will be starting a reading buddy system for the students in primary school. Our class will be together with a grade 6 class and your child will be assigned a student from the grade 6 class to be their reading buddy. After reading a book with your child, they will write a few sentences about the book and hand it in.
We will start this off once a week but hopefully we'll be able to have reading time more often.

I hope your child is enjoying school at the moment. Unfortunately due to the fact that we have a grade 1 class having recess with the grade 3 classes, we're going to have to change the schedule as it may get too dangerous in the playground.
Starting on Monday we will be using a slightly new bell schedule to accommodate for the recent changes. A new schedule for your child is in their handbook. Please be aware that their specialty classes such as PE, computers and art may have changed.

In the coming few weeks we will be autioning your children for the lower primary Easter performance. The reason we won't be having a Christmas performance this year is because we have had to split campuses with upper primary as the school is expanding. You will get more information soon but for the time being please talk to your children about what they'd like to do. Those who want parts will be auditioned by the music teacher and other lower primary teachers and a decision will be made later.

English Homework

As for what we talked about in class. Please read up to chapter two in the book Peter Pan by Monday so we can talk about it in class. I may also be giving a quiz on the two chapters of the book so if you haven't read the book, you will loose points.

Integration of Technology

This entry is primarily for parents.

One of the important things your child will be doing in grade 3 is Information Technology. Once a week you children will get the opportunity to go into the I.T. lab to learn more about computers and how useful they can be. As the year goes on we’ll also be integrating computers into the classroom. How many of you parents have complained about the fact that your students have to carry large textbooks and your child complains about how heavy they are? Well hopefully we’re coming to a point where that will stop. As part of the school’s project to develop technology in the classroom, your child  will be allowed to use an iPad which will have a section of the textbook in it. If all goes well hopefully we’ll be able to integrate this into the rest of the school and our goal is to one day take out textbooks altogether. This may take some time to implement so please bear with us as we try to sort out the kinks.

Below is a copy of the worksheet that was covered in English class earlier today. Please print it off, complete it and bring it to class on Friday for us to go through in class.

As a part of social studies your child will get to learn various topics about history and geography. In history your child will get to learn about the history of Canada. The first unit your children will study will be about Terry Fox who is a Canadian hero. In geography your children will get to learn about Australia and the different cultures as well as the unique animals that can be found there.

In geography your children will also be learning about erosion. They will also get to do a science experiment in the lab to show the effects of erosion. Below is a video on the amount of erosion that can happen over time. The video shows how over the course of time, erosion will gradually wear away the earth.

Starting the new year in science I will be teaching your children about Earth and Space. Your children will get to learn about how the Earth moves, how the moon moves around the Earth and the solar system. This will hopefully culminate in a field trip to the Hong Kong Space Museum which all the grade 3’s classes will go on together. More details will be sent out to you as the year progresses.

In math I will be taking your child through a quick refresher course to make sure they still remember what they’ve learnt in grade 2. We will then begin with more difficult addition such as adding 3 numbers together. As we go throughout the year my goal is to be able to get your child to add in hundreds. Together with addition I will also be teaching your child multiplication and division and make sure they are ready to go into grade 4 confident in their math's.

In class your children have covered multiplication, the worksheet is below.