Dear Third Grade Parents and Families,

It was a pleasure meeting each of you this past week. Thank you for your time as well as all of your support as educating your child is a team effort. During the conferences, many parents asked for some suggestions on grade-level reading. While each student reads at his or her own individual instructional level, I’d be happy to provide you with a general list of fantastic authors with many works appropriate for third grade readers. Authors: Patricia Polacco (we studied her in August and September), Jan Brett (our current author study), Cynthia Rylant, Tomie de Paola and Gail Gibbons (non-fiction) have a large body of work with rich vocabularies and excellent discussion material for building comprehension. If you’re looking for chapter books, Beverly Cleary (of the Ramona series), Judy Blume (of the Fudge series), and any of the Little House… (on the Prarie, in the Big Woods, etc.) books are very popular among both girls and boys. Finally, Charlotte’s Web is a great third-grade book for children and parents to enjoy together.

This week we welcome the primary aides into our classroom in the afternoon hours. Although we are still working out the kinks, we plan to make the most of their help for the remainder of the year. With the extra help, we will be doing more small group work.

Finally, this Thursday we are having our class Christmas Party! On this day, we will also be having our gift (book) exchange. Last Friday, each student pulled the name of another child in our class. This is the child he/she will be giving a book to. I ask that you only buy one book and that it be approximately ten dollars in value. If you would like to confirm whom your child selected, Mrs. Salomon, our Room Mom, has the list. Please send the book with your child to school on or before Wednesday, wrapped and with a tag on it so that we know whom the recipient is. In addition to exchanging books, we will also be decorating cookies and hearing a story. A BIG thank you must also go out to our room moms Michelle Salomon and Veronica Vazquez for putting this all together. They are amazing!