Welcome to 3rd Grade with Ms. McKay at Bel Aire School!
February 26, 2019
Dear Families,
I hope everyone had a great week with your families over the Mid-Winter Break.
Believe it or not, we are in the last week of Trimester 2. Report cards will be ready for you next week.
As part of Bel Aire’s celebration of Read Across America, tomorrow is Pajama Day!
Children 4 Change Information - a message from Carin Rhodes and C4C Team (including me!)
Children for Change is having their second Change for Good event THIS weekend, March 2nd and 3rd. There are so many awesome opportunities for you and your children to get out in Marin and make a real difference! They are open to everyone at Reed, Bel Aire and Del Mar, so forward this email to your RUSD community. Some events include a beach clean up at McNears, making sack lunches for the homeless, working with the residents of Cedars of Marin to make crafts, helping to restore the Old St. Hilary's preserve, working with Richardson Audubon to construct pollinator houses to be placed around their property and much more! These slots are filling up fast, so get online now, and click here to reserve your spots!
Karyn
Karyn McKay
3rd Grade Teacher
Bel Aire School
September 18, 2018
Reading and AR: For our first read aloud, we finished the book Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and took our first AR quiz together. Students earned their first 3 points in this program, and are eager to earn more. I’ve changed the goals per student requests, meeting with each child and discussing their plan to earn these points. I’ve also cautioned the students to ONLY take quizzes on books they have just recently finished, and they are encouraged to have the book with them when they quiz in case they need to refer to the book. Several children have tried to take quizzes on books read over the summer, and far too often they are unable to pass the test. I will work closely with them as they navigate their way through this new system.
We also started our first Benchmark reading unit on Government, and will be reading from student magazines as well as guided reading books. Our first small reading groups will begin next week, and I’m looking forward to having parents volunteer in the classroom! Mrs. Le (Khai’s mom) will be sending a volunteer schedule soon. (Thank you Tam!)
Writing: Our class has completed their fall Haiku poems, and have been reviewing the different types of sentences, subjects and predicates, and organized paragraphs. Students are learning about topic sentences, supporting detail sentences, and concluding sentences that make a strong paragraph. Students will soon begin to write organized paragraphs in their daily work as they respond to writing prompts, reading responses, and other various assignments. We will be focusing on making our writing descriptive in the upcoming weeks.
Math with Mrs. Rhodes: Students have been working with time and elapsed time to the nearest minute. This is part of our measurement unit, and we will be moving on to other measurement using the metric system. Students should continue to practice their math facts +/- for fact fluency.
*For all questions and concerns regarding math, please feel free to contact and include both me and Mrs. Rhodes. Her email is: drhodes@reedschools.org
More math: Students have also been working in DreamBox or Reflex Math in our classroom 2-3 times a week, and I will be doing a daily math review with the students as well.
Homework: Mrs. Rhodes’s and I will be collaborating on math homework this year. I will continue to assign math homework that will typically include a spiral review sheet from 2nd grade, as well as a math game on our current unit of study. Looking forward, you will begin to see homework sheets from our Eureka math program, as well as spiral review for 3rd grade.
Weekly homework will usually include some spelling, and I will be including a reading response/writing activity as well. Students who have been given access to Lexia may choose to do Lexia practice in place of the writing assignment, though they are certainly welcome to do both.
Student Work Rubric: I introduced my "work rubric" this week, and I will be including this in the weekly homework packet. The rubric is helpful in understanding how important it is to work neatly and carefully, and to always do our personal best.
Photos: I’ve added photos from math class and writing, and a video of our class working in small groups on a paragraph project. Please take a look at our class website - password: Grade3Days
Children For Change: We had our first gathering of students from Bel Aire on Wednesday during lunch with the teachers and two parents who attended the workshop last week. Many of you have expressed interest in this program, and all of you are encouraged to participate and get involved. Mrs. Rhodes (Carin Rhodes, Library-Media Specialist, sister-in-law!) will be sending out more information to everyone next week. In the meantime, you can explore our website and the Children4Change website, with links on our school library page.
Important Upcoming Dates:
Sept. 24- No School, teacher work day
Sept. 26- Character Day
Oct. 31- Halloween: Class party 11:20 - 12:!0, Bel Aire School Parade 1:00 - 1:30
September 4, 2018
It was great to see so many parents at Back to School Night on Thursday!
A few of you have asked for information from my BTSN presentation. I've included some slides from BTSN on the Parent Page of our class website: http://kmckay.reedschools.org
Our site is password protected (3rdGradeDays).
I've also included some photos from the first student "get to know you" activities.
Sign-ups for Parent Teacher Conferences will be ready soon, and I will send you a link to the website so that you can sign up for our meeting in November.
Scholastic Books can be ordered any time throughout the year. Look for great books at scholastic.com/readingclub Our class code is HD736
Thank you again to Tam Le (Khai's mom) for volunteering to be our Room Parent!
August 23, 2018
Welcome to 3rd Grade! I'm excited to meet our class and get to know everyone. I'm looking forward to a great school year.
Ms. McKay
I hope everyone had a great week with your families over the Mid-Winter Break.
Believe it or not, we are in the last week of Trimester 2. Report cards will be ready for you next week.
As part of Bel Aire’s celebration of Read Across America, tomorrow is Pajama Day!
Children 4 Change Information - a message from Carin Rhodes and C4C Team (including me!)
Children for Change is having their second Change for Good event THIS weekend, March 2nd and 3rd. There are so many awesome opportunities for you and your children to get out in Marin and make a real difference! They are open to everyone at Reed, Bel Aire and Del Mar, so forward this email to your RUSD community. Some events include a beach clean up at McNears, making sack lunches for the homeless, working with the residents of Cedars of Marin to make crafts, helping to restore the Old St. Hilary's preserve, working with Richardson Audubon to construct pollinator houses to be placed around their property and much more! These slots are filling up fast, so get online now, and click here to reserve your spots!
Karyn
Karyn McKay
3rd Grade Teacher
Bel Aire School
September 18, 2018
Reading and AR: For our first read aloud, we finished the book Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and took our first AR quiz together. Students earned their first 3 points in this program, and are eager to earn more. I’ve changed the goals per student requests, meeting with each child and discussing their plan to earn these points. I’ve also cautioned the students to ONLY take quizzes on books they have just recently finished, and they are encouraged to have the book with them when they quiz in case they need to refer to the book. Several children have tried to take quizzes on books read over the summer, and far too often they are unable to pass the test. I will work closely with them as they navigate their way through this new system.
We also started our first Benchmark reading unit on Government, and will be reading from student magazines as well as guided reading books. Our first small reading groups will begin next week, and I’m looking forward to having parents volunteer in the classroom! Mrs. Le (Khai’s mom) will be sending a volunteer schedule soon. (Thank you Tam!)
Writing: Our class has completed their fall Haiku poems, and have been reviewing the different types of sentences, subjects and predicates, and organized paragraphs. Students are learning about topic sentences, supporting detail sentences, and concluding sentences that make a strong paragraph. Students will soon begin to write organized paragraphs in their daily work as they respond to writing prompts, reading responses, and other various assignments. We will be focusing on making our writing descriptive in the upcoming weeks.
Math with Mrs. Rhodes: Students have been working with time and elapsed time to the nearest minute. This is part of our measurement unit, and we will be moving on to other measurement using the metric system. Students should continue to practice their math facts +/- for fact fluency.
*For all questions and concerns regarding math, please feel free to contact and include both me and Mrs. Rhodes. Her email is: drhodes@reedschools.org
More math: Students have also been working in DreamBox or Reflex Math in our classroom 2-3 times a week, and I will be doing a daily math review with the students as well.
Homework: Mrs. Rhodes’s and I will be collaborating on math homework this year. I will continue to assign math homework that will typically include a spiral review sheet from 2nd grade, as well as a math game on our current unit of study. Looking forward, you will begin to see homework sheets from our Eureka math program, as well as spiral review for 3rd grade.
Weekly homework will usually include some spelling, and I will be including a reading response/writing activity as well. Students who have been given access to Lexia may choose to do Lexia practice in place of the writing assignment, though they are certainly welcome to do both.
Student Work Rubric: I introduced my "work rubric" this week, and I will be including this in the weekly homework packet. The rubric is helpful in understanding how important it is to work neatly and carefully, and to always do our personal best.
Photos: I’ve added photos from math class and writing, and a video of our class working in small groups on a paragraph project. Please take a look at our class website - password: Grade3Days
Children For Change: We had our first gathering of students from Bel Aire on Wednesday during lunch with the teachers and two parents who attended the workshop last week. Many of you have expressed interest in this program, and all of you are encouraged to participate and get involved. Mrs. Rhodes (Carin Rhodes, Library-Media Specialist, sister-in-law!) will be sending out more information to everyone next week. In the meantime, you can explore our website and the Children4Change website, with links on our school library page.
Important Upcoming Dates:
Sept. 24- No School, teacher work day
Sept. 26- Character Day
Oct. 31- Halloween: Class party 11:20 - 12:!0, Bel Aire School Parade 1:00 - 1:30
September 4, 2018
It was great to see so many parents at Back to School Night on Thursday!
A few of you have asked for information from my BTSN presentation. I've included some slides from BTSN on the Parent Page of our class website: http://kmckay.reedschools.org
Our site is password protected (3rdGradeDays).
I've also included some photos from the first student "get to know you" activities.
Sign-ups for Parent Teacher Conferences will be ready soon, and I will send you a link to the website so that you can sign up for our meeting in November.
Scholastic Books can be ordered any time throughout the year. Look for great books at scholastic.com/readingclub Our class code is HD736
Thank you again to Tam Le (Khai's mom) for volunteering to be our Room Parent!
August 23, 2018
Welcome to 3rd Grade! I'm excited to meet our class and get to know everyone. I'm looking forward to a great school year.
Ms. McKay
