Third grade summer work
Dear Families,
Over the summer, it is recommended that your child spend time maintaining their academic skills. Here are some suggestions.
Math
To be ready for third grade, we would like our second graders to practice addition and subtraction facts 0-20 through the summer. If your child has mastered these facts, they can move on to multiplication facts. The goal would be for them to be fluent and automatic with these facts by the end of the summer. There are many ways to accomplish this. Here is a list of websites and games. Choose the combination that works for your family. Working with your child three times a week for fifteen minutes would be great. We are also including a short summer packet of math work that students should complete in August. You can print this out at home, or look for it in a mailing coming from the school in early July. Mr. Griffin can also get you additional paper copies if you write him at ggriffin@gordonschool.org. Your new teacher next year will expect you to have this work complete by the first day of school, so please bring your completed work with you that day.
Informal math conversations
Incorporate math into daily routines. Make change at a store. Add how many hours you went swimming during a week. Cook with your child calculating the measurements you need.
Bedtime Math
http://bedtimemath.org/
This is a great website with daily short stories and problems that will provide you with great mathematical conversation starters.
Reflex Math
Students will have access to Reflex Math accounts through the summer. We recommend that they continue using the app three times a week. If you need a user name and password to log in, please contact Eric Kravitz, the schoolwide math specialist, at ekravitz@gordonschool.org. If they are fluent with their facts addition and subtraction this will greatly increase their ability to understand multiplication and division and do multi-digit addition and subtraction.
Gregtang.com
http://gregtangmath.com/games
Click on online games.
Reading and writing
We would also like for your children to continue reading this summer. The Lower School summer reading booklet has many suggestions for titles!
Incoming third graders should read for at least twenty minutes, four times a week with text that they can read independently. A book is appropriate if the student can:
1. Stay with a book until the end
2. Decode and read the majority of the words on a page
3. Understand the majority of the words in the book, the greater plot of the story, and recall important details from the text
Students should be able to demonstrate their understanding through a book discussion or in a written format. This can also be creative and a student could create a book review to post or a video book review to share with relatives.
Some time should be devoted to reading aloud to someone or something (create a video, read to a pet, a sibling, etc..). Students should be offered a variety of genres - nonfiction informational texts, graphic novels, picture books, chapter books, picture book biographies, etc…
They should aim to read at least two chapter books of their choosing and a picture book biography from this booklet or their home or the public library.
And all third and fourth graders should read:
Mi Casa is My Home by Laurenne Sala
In My Family En Mi Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza
¡Vamos! Let's Go to the Market! by Raul the Third
Attached is a reading log students should fill out throughout the summer and return in the fall.
Audiobooks are wonderful for long trips. Gordon's library has a collection of ebooks; information on borrowing ebooks and audiobooks can be found at www.gordonschool.org/onlineborrowing. Your public library may also have audiobooks/online audiobooks on loan. To build reading fluency, include the text and have your child follow along while they listen.
For summer writing practice, encourage your child to choose from one of the different genres we practiced over the course of the year. These include narrative small moments or fiction, poetry, reading responses or researching and writing a paragraph. Most importantly, focus on sentence structure and punctuation.
Enjoy!!!
Your second grade teachers