Dear Parents and students,

      Welcome to third grade!  I know we are going to have a great year together.  Third grade is a pivotal year.  This is a difficult and challenging year academically and socially.  It is a year to learn responsibility.  I know by us working as a team, your child will make leaps and bounds!

       As St. Rose continues to grow, we have many changes occur in the process.  I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about this school year.  We have an excellent faculty and staff in place that truly makes this a blessed place for your child to continue to grow academically and spiritually.       

       To help you understand the students’ weekly routine, I have given a brief description of our curriculum and our grading policy.

 Please do not hesitate to call me or email me at anytime with questions or concerns. 

Spelling

Writing

Open Court

Grammar and Mechanics

Houghton Mifflin (yellow and white hardback book) and Open Court.

Math

Saxon Math – there is no book for this, but you will see at least one worksheet a night on this.  This is a great teaching method that continues to build on the next skill, but constantly reviews previously taught skills.  Please continue to help them with their addition and subtraction fact speed.  This will be instrumental when we start multiplication and division.

Science

Scott Foresman (Blue and purple book with dolphins on cover).

Social Studies

Communities (orange hardback textbook)  We will have unit tests that generally cover a lot of information.  Study Guides will be given.

Religion

Our Life with Jesus (yellow soft cover book )  Even though this appears to be a consumable book is not to be written in at all, it is not consumable. 

Reading

Open Court :  We are adopting this new series this school year.  We will be using the 2008 series and I will send home information after I have been trained on how to use it.

Vocabulary

Open Court

Grading Policy:

Most of our core content areas grades are broken down into 50% test grades and 50% class work and homework.

Reading is the exception.

Vocabulary - 25%

Reading Logs - 25%

Tests and Quizzes – 25%

Monthly Book Reports – 25%

Reading Logs are due every Monday and are to be turned in during reading class.  A minimum of 60 minutes needs to be read a week and recorded and signed by a parent. Book Reports are due at the end of every month.  Please refer to binder for specifics.

It is our policy in 3^rd grade to not give below a 65% on anything unless the child did not do the assignment at all.  Then a 0 will be given.  At the end of every 9 weeks, the lowest score will be dropped.

Again, if you have any questions or concerns, please give me a call me.

I look forward to working with you this year.

God Bless you all,

Mrs. Johnston

898-0555 ext. 214 (School)