About the Teacher

  • Karen Ferguson

    kferguson@stocktonusd.net

    This is my 11th year teaching 3rd grade at Commodore Stockton Skills School.

    I was born and raised in Stockton and have a passion for making sure students in Stockton get a quality education. I am the first in my family to go to college.

    I understand that many families have busy lives and I will try my very best to support your child the best that I can. 

     

  • 3rd Grade Curriculum and Academic Expectations

    • SBAC- Third grade is the first year students will be taking this state test. 

    • IReady- This is given three times a year.

    • All students have a parent-teacher conference in the fall and again in spring as needed. 

    • Curriculum:

      • Benchmark (ELA)

      • Ready Math

      • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Science)

      • Studies Weekly (Social Studies)

    • Cursive- A key part of 3rd grade is learning cursive. This is a tradition at Commodore and a skill they will need moving into the following grade levels.

    • Multiplication Facts- A significant portion of the year is dedicated to the concept of multiplication. We find that it’s also beneficial for students to have automaticity in their multiplication facts moving into 4th grade. 

    • Writing- The main goal in writing this year is that students are able to write a 5 sentence paragraph that includes a topic sentence, 3 details, and a closing sentence.

  • We incorporate many hands-on activities to help students understand math concepts and have a variety of strategies before moving on to algorithms. Science involves many hands-on activities as well. Some of this year's activities include: watching a pumpkin decompose and sprout to observe its life cycle, planting flower seeds and watching its life cycle, observing a horned worm's life cycle while it turns into a moth, and learning about buoyancy by building rafts and seeing how much weight they can hold. 

  • Students work on individual reading goals. Students who achieve these goals are rewarded at the end of each trimester with an award and a reading party. I'm proud that almost all of my students typically achieve these goals and develop a love of reading that remains with them as they move to the next grade level. We have a large classroom library and a large school library that's recently been updated with new furniture. Students have access to a large variety of physical books as well as digital books.