WELCOME!

Mrs. LaGasca's 3rd grade

carissa.lagasca@sanjuan.edu

Room 23, Del Paso Manor Elementary

Dear Room 23 Families,

         I hope you all are managing well. This is not an ideal situation for anyone, but we will make the best of it! I will be available to you to answer questions and offer additional ideas for learning. Please feel free to reach out to me for ideas or help during this time through Class DoJo or school email. The students can also stay connected with each other by leaving messages on Google Classroom! (I will of course monitor any messages posted by students).

I understand that home learning may be hard for your family. Please, please, please make sure your children continue to learn during this time. Children work well with schedules, so please consider setting a daily schedule, with at least a couple of hours of learning time. Below are the details of the items that were sent home last Friday, as well as additional resources and ideas for learning.

**Materials sent home**

(Unfortunately, we had little time to prepare for work at home, so students didn’t bring as many items as they probably could have, but we’ll make the best of it.)

• Math book pages: All of these pages are review of concepts that we have done throughout the year. Most offer an example on the reteach side. Students can complete both sides of the pages.
• Communities: Then and Now book: This is the next unit in our Benchmark Reading Program. Students can read and annotate the stories. They should be developing the main idea for each nonfiction story, while underlining important details that support that main idea. They should also be writing concepts for both fiction and nonfiction stories. Students can complete the “BuildReflectWrite” activities.
• Writing Notebook: Students can use their writing notebook for many things.

1. Creative Writing: Writing of their choice including a letter to a friend, a poem, a song, a story, an opinion, their thinking about reading they’ve done.
2. Write summaries of what they have read in the Communities book or any other book/article they have read. They know to begin with “In the story/article ____ by ____, an important concept is ____.” Then explain how the concept was developed in the text.

**Online Learning**

Here are some online learning opportunities as suggested by the San Juan Unified School District:

Connecting to San Juan’s Portal:

• Go to sanjuan.edu
• Click on “Students” tab
• Click on Google Apps Log in
• This should take your child to the login page that he/she is familiar with. Students know their individual login information. If they forget, message me and I can send it to you.
• Once in portal, students can do:

1. Studies Weekly: Read and do social studies activities that we haven’t completed yet
2. iReady Reading or Math- leveled practice that we use often
3. Khan Academy – leveled lessons, great practice
4. Google Classroom – send a message to me or your classmates
5. Google Drive, Google Docs – type a story or letter
6. com: Continue to practice keyboard skills
7. Storyline Online: Listen to stories read by actors
8. com – an online site with leveled learning that we use often. Message me if students forget their username.

This should get you all started. Please feel free to use additional resources that I have not listed. I did not want to overwhelm you with too much right now. I know this will not be easy and I am here for you! Please contact me for anything you need. We’ve got this!

Mrs. LaGasca

March 2020

FEBRUARY 2020

Hello,

As we round the corner to this second half of the school year, I am excited for the growth this class has made and for the higher level learning we still have coming. Thank you for your ongoing support!

A note about homework: I’ve reminded the students that I assign simple homework each night with the expectation that most of their time will be spent on reading and filling out reading logs. The spelling and math homework are usually quite short and simple, on purpose, so students will have more time to read. Please help your child improve their reading by giving them a quiet place to enjoy their book for at least 20 minutes each night. Thank you!

Reading: Our next unit for Reading Groups is -Advancements in Technology. Students will learn about famous inventors and the perseverance it took for them to create many of the things we now use daily.

Writing: Mark your calendars for our OREO opinion writing celebration, February 14^th 2:00-2:40pm. Parents are welcome to come read the students opinion masterpieces (OREO stands for Opinion, Reason, Example, Opinion). We’ll also need one package of each type of OREO cookie including double stuffed, mint, golden, confetti flavored, etc. to enjoy during our party. Please send some in!

Math: Up next…Fractions!! This is a very important foundational unit for our 3^rd graders. Fractions will be explored and understood in a variety of ways. We will of course continue to practice memorizing our multiplication facts!

Social Studies/Science: Our weather unit was a blast! The students learned how to do a group presentation slide show, made tornadoes in jars, and built homes strong enough to withstand hurricane force winds (from my blow dryer)!

Dates/Things To Remember:

• Friday, February 7^th – Art lesson from ReCreate Art Sacramento
• Friday, February 14^th – OREO writing party 2:00pm and Valentine’s Day (students do not need to fill out Valentine cards at home, we will write nice notes to each other in class).
• February 17^th – February 21^st NO SCHOOL

JANUARY 2020

Hello families and welcome back! I am looking forward to getting back to work with the kiddos. They are a great class and we have so much more learning to do!

Reading: We will do Unit 8 – Weather! - in reading groups. Students will learn to annotate for main idea and details and learn vocabulary skills reading mostly non-fiction passages about weather.  We will also begin a new novel study, Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. We will have a furry friend visit our classroom with the SPCA and will learn about safety around dogs as part of our novel study.

Writing: Our masterpiece Opinion pieces will be worked on throughout January. We will brainstorm, draft, edit, and publish our own opinion pieces. Look for an OREO writing celebration coming in February, parents are invited to come!

Math: With the great success of our multiplication unit, we are all set to begin…Division! We will use the idea of “sharing cookies with friends” to learn division strategies. (I have 10 cookies to share with 5 friends, so each friend gets 2 cookies 10   5 = 2) We will also relate those multiplication facts we’ve memorized to help with division ( I know 2 x 8 = 16, so 16    8 = 2) Please continue to help your child with these facts daily at home, thank you!

Science: Weather! We will do various STEM projects, like engineering a structure to stand up to hurricane (blow dryer) winds! We’ll also make weather instruments to observe the weather patterns in January.

Dates/Things To Remember:

• Wednesday, January 8^th – DPM PTA meeting 6:30pm
• Monday, January 20^th – No School, MLK jr. day
• Tuesday, January 22^nd – Progress reports sent home
• Wednesday, January 29^th – SPCA dog visit to classroom
• Thursday, January 30^th – DPM multi-cultural night

December 2019

Hello parents, 

It was my pleasure meeting with you during parent-teacher conferences. Thank you for the partnership and support!

We have a quick and bustling 3 weeks of school in December. I am excited for our Minute-to-Win-It holiday party on Friday, December 20th from 8:30-9:30am. I am looking for parents to help during our party, let me know if you can make it!

December:

Critical Literacy: In Critical Literacy, we are now focusing on Non-Fiction text structures. We will read various articles on Polar Bears and learn to find important concepts and how to cite an article as we summarize it.

Reading: Our new unit is Point of View. We are reading different versions of the Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk stories and comparing the points of view of the characters. We are learning to form our own point of view and to support it with evidence. 

Writing Workshop: We continue our Opinion/Persuasive writing unit.  Students are practicing stating their opinion and supporting it with reasons and examples. We will be having another Writer’s Showcase at the end of this unit. Parents are welcome to join, more info to come!

Math: Multiplication!  The students are really enjoying becoming "Masters" of the different multiplication facts. Help them practice at home for Mastery! We will be moving on to Division in January. 

Literature: We are finishing our first class novel, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo. The students are entranced by it!  They are noticing concepts of love, loneliness, hope, sorrow, and despair in this wonderful story. Ask them about it! 

Dates/Things To Remember:

• December 11th - PTA meeting 6:15 pm
• December 20th - Holiday party - Parent volunteers needed!
• December 23rd - January 6th: No School, Happy Holidays!

Room 23 News

September 20, 2019

DPM Fall Carnival is coming soon! We need volunteers to run our Bean Bag Fling booth. Please help! It will be a fun day!

Reading: We continued leveled reading groups this week. Groups are based on text levels. We continued reading about Government in the first unit. We will finish this unit with the Unit 1 test next week.

Writing Workshop:We are writing personal narratives. This week we learned about adding descriptive details (adjectives) and vibrant verbs to our writing.

Math:The students are mastering addition and subtraction with regrouping! As part of the common core math standards, students are expected to show their work in more than one way and explain their thinking. Most students have a favorite strategy that helps them solve the problem correctly, which is great, but we challenge ourselves by showing other ways to think about math problems. We will have our addition and subtraction unit test next week!

Science/Social Studies:We use Chromebooks to listen to articles, take quizzes, and watch videos in Social Studies. This week we read the newspaper, Rights and Responsibilities, and discussed the Bill of Rights.

We did our first group STEM engineering project. Students made plans to build a tower with index cards and stickers. It was a great practice for a growth mindset!

Dates/Things To Remember:

• Sign up for ClassDojo if you haven’t already. I can resend your paper with your code if you need one.
• Family Science Night: Tuesday, September 24, 6-7:30pm
• No school Friday, October 4 and Monday, October 7
• Annual Fall Carnival is Saturday, October 12, from 12-5. Our class is responsible for Bean Bag Fing booth. We need volunteers for each hour to run the booth, plus 1 clean up hour volunteer. Please let me know if you can help. We also need a Pop Up Shade Tent for the day. Please let me know if you can donate one for the day.You can email me, message me on Dojo, or send a note to let me know.

September 2019

Hello parents!

We have a wonderful start to the school year. The students are settling in and we are already learning as 3^rdgraders.

It was nice meeting some of you at Back To School night. If you haven’t already, please remember to turn in the forms that have been sent home. Thank you!

Be sure to get the ClassDojo app, or check out my teacher page off of Del Paso Manor’s school website. (under Teacher Pages) for info.

Critical Literacy:We started with a story called A Bargain For Frances. The students were practicing deeper thinking and identified concepts and theme statements about the story, ask your child about it!

Reading Groups: We will start our reading groups next week. Our first Unit is “Government”.  

Writing Workshop:We have put together our official Writing binders and are starting with Narrative (story) writing. We will think of stories to tell about small moments in our lives.

Math:We are reviewing addition and subtraction strategies. We will move on quickly from this as this was a skill to be mastered in 2^ndgrade. Please practice math facts at home daily, it will really help!

Science/Social Studies:We are diving in to our first Social Studies Unit to go along with our Reading unit about Government!

Technology:The students are so jazzed about using Google Classroom. They are learning to log in to sanjuan portal and are practicing typing, collaborating on Google classroom, and playing a math game called Prodigy.

Dates/Things to Remember:

• Monday, Sept 2^nd– NO SCHOOL, Labor Day observance
• Sept 6^th– School Picture Day
• Sept 11^th– DPM PTA meeting 6:15pm in Library

August 1, 2019

Hello DPM Mustang Families and welcome back to school!  I am happy to be your 3rd grade teacher this year and I'm looking forward to meeting you. Check your mail for welcome letters and details about our school supply list.

First day of school - Thursday, August 15th

8:15am in Room 23 (portables near the back of the school)

See you soon!

3rd grade suggested supply list:

1 pencil box

1 inch binder

1 zipper pencil pouch

3-4 blue or black Expo whiteboard markers

5 sharpened pencils

1 pair of scissors

1 rectangular eraser

1 pencil sharpener with lid, non-electric

2 red pens

24 ct. crayons

12 pack colored pencils

1 large glue stick

1 yellow highlighter

5 wide-ruled notebooks

5 three pronged folders with pockets - blue, red, green, yellow, orange