October 26, 2015

Well we have had a very successful first quarter. I think congratulations are in order for every student's hard work throughout the quarter. Report cards will go home on Friday, please take the time to review your child's report card with them and congratulate them on their successes.

 A sign up genius will be sent home this week to sign up for a date and time for conferences. Conference dates will be November 12 and November 19. 

The Halloween party is scheduled for Friday, October 30.    The Halloween Parade is scheduled to begin at 2:30 that afternoon on the playground area.  Parents are welcome to attend the parade, however, the room parent has contacted those parents who will be attending the class Halloween Party.  Students can bring their costumes to school that day.  They will be given time to get dressed prior to the Halloween Parade.  They may wear a portion of their costume to school if it does not become a distraction through the day.  No weapons or violence themed costumes, please!

We will be finishing our Science unit this week and reviewing throughout the week. We will have our Science test on Friday before the Halloween party. 

October 19, 2015

It was so good to see everyone at Open House on Thursday night. 

All of the students are finishing up their animal research projects and Google Slideshows. Everyone has been working really hard on this project and they are excited to be able to share them. After the slideshows are graded I will share them with you so that you are able to view them at home. We will continue to learn about traits this week in Science.

We are continuing to work on similes and word choice in writing. We are also going to start a study of historical fiction and will be reading the book, Kirsten. This is an American Girl Story but it is historical fiction and also includes the topic of immigration which is part of our unit study this week. Due to the two short weeks our typical schedule has been modified and includes:

Wednesday, October 21-Vocabulary Test
Wednesday, October 21-Spelling packet due
Thursday, October 22-Spelling Test and Reading test
Thursday, October 22-Reading Log due

We will be learning multiplication and division patterns: multiplying and dividing by 2 and 5. We will continue with our daily practice of Kick It! All of the students are excited to practice and are very excited when they move to a new level. 

This is the final week of the grading period and report cards will be coming home soon. Please take the opportunity to check your child's grades on Progress Book.

October 12, 2015

Habitat Shadowboxes are due Tuesday, October 13.

We finished up our math unit about the relationship between Division and Multiplication and had our unit test on Friday. Judging from the scores it looks like everyone did some nice studying. We have also been working on research on the classroom so that we are able to transfer this information to our Google slideshow. The children did their title slide last week and we will continue to work on this in class this week.

This week we will start multiplication and division patterns. We are going to be working on practicing our multiplication facts in class with our Kick It! materials. Each student has been assigned a partner that they practice the facts for the belt they are working on with. Each students gets an opportunity to be the practicing partner and the checking partner. After practicing their facts we move on to a timed test. Once a student masters a fact at the current level they are working on they move on to a different level. For every four levels the student completes they move to a different belt level. Currently all students are White Belts and need to master levels A, B, C and D before moving on to their yellow belt.

This week and next week are four day weeks so the third grade teachers have decided to extend this language arts unit for two weeks. Below is a list of the dates that activities are due and when certain activities will be occurring in the classroom:

• October 14-Spelling packet will go home.
• October 21-Spelling packet due.
• October 21-Vocabulary test.
• October 22-Reading test.

I hope to see everyone at Open House on Thursday, October 15. Don't forget you will also have the opportunity to shop at the book fair.



October 2, 2015

This week we have begun a new Science unit about animals and how they are classified. Your child has chosen an animal that they are going to research and do two projects about. One of the projects is one that will be completed at home, the Google Slideshow and writing of their research project will be done at school. I have placed an explanation in each student's Friday Folder. We will start actively researching next week and our Media Specialist will be coming in to our classroom to help us learn how to use Google Slides. Through this project we are able to target standards in science and writing.

During rounds of Daily 5 this week we were able to work in strategy groups to review skills that would be targeted on their reading test. We took one extra day to work in strategy groups so the final part of the test will be completed on Monday, we took one part on Thursday and we took one on Friday.

Next week we will be finishing our last division lesson and will be having our division unit test on Thursday. Your child will bring home homework pages from their Math book in order to review and practice skills for this assessment. Please make sure to review the sheets with you child after they complete them.

Our Pizza Party Game day was fun for everyone. We were able to play some games your children brought in and enjoy some pizza together. I am very proud of them for earning this reward. We have had several discussions this week about how chatty they can be as a group. We are going to continue to work on this especially when we are in specials.