Ms.

Gutierrez

Grade 3

WEEKLY NEWS
Juliette Low Elementary School | Friday, March 18 | Issue 17

This Past Week

What a busy week! It flew by,
with their show, wrapping up
projects, and Spring Break! I
was so proud of the class
during the show. They were so
excited, despite some stage
fright, at the daytime show. Im
sorry to have missed the
evening performance and the
opportunity to watch them
again! We also voted on a new
playground option based on
some sketches the park district
presented to to our school.
The kids have continued to
work hard on their academic
work as we near the end of
several units. *Please note, if
you have not already signed
and sent back the white grade
folder, please do when we
return! Enjoy your break and
the time with family!

How to Reach Me
gutierrez.elisa@ccsd59.org
(847) 593-4383
http://low.ccsd59.org/
teachers/gutierrezelisa/

Illustrating Realistic Fiction

Illustrations in a book bring in deeper understanding of character
feeling, visualization, action, etc. Illustration, and, frankly, art in
general, is an important mode of storytelling. With that in mind,
and with always wanting to have the class present their work in a
new ways, the class will be creating picture books from their
realistic fiction story. This requires not only the rigorous task of
coming up with the story idea, mapping it out, writing it (over
several drafts), author edits, peer, edits, and conferences with me,
but also for the students to decide what text belongs together on
a page, where to add page breaks in their story, and what to
illustrate. Illustrating a book does not require the author to also
be Picasso, but understanding that visuals add to the story just as
written details do. A red face with a furrowed brow shows anger
while two characters holding up the title on the cover page shows
their silliness. The week after break will be dedicated to finishing
our written work, illustrating our stories, and publishing our
books!

Ms. Gutierrez

Grade 3

Wrapping Up Units

ScienceEnergy and
Matter
We have spent a few weeks
investigating energy and matter.
After discussing what each
energy source does, what it looks
like, and how we use it, I
challenged the students with
different questions. I wanted to
have them dive deeper into their
thinking and understanding of
the world around them so I
posed questions like, Can you
see heat? and Can you see
sound? I then challenged the
class to come up with
experiments to prove their
hypothesis. Their thinking on how
they could solve for their answers
was incredible and I loved
hearing their conversations about
how they came to their
hypothesis. I will continue with
pushing their understanding with
the world around them as we
move back into social studies.

Calendar Reminders
March 21-25: Spring Break!
March 28: Ms. Gutierrez Out
April 1: Yearbook Orders Due
Extended Deadline

We spent much of this past week, mainly due to how disjointed it

was with extended specials, the show, and no school on Tuesday,
wrapping up various projects and units. We finished our
quadramas and will present those on Tuesday after break, we have
the majority of students typing their story into slides and
illustrating their realistic fiction to be able to present those the
week we return, and as a grade we took a gallery walk to explore
each others Q & A books (remember those?). It was a great week
filled with lots of literacy work. In Math we continued to work
with fractions and brought Mrs. Skorin, our math coach, in to
expand our thinking and visual understanding of fractions. When
we return from break, we will only have about two weeks with
fractions before moving onto geometry! We will continue to do
hands-on work with fractions to better understand the various
ways we can represent fractions and how fractions relate to one
another.