December 16-20

Announcements:
 
Our class Christmas party will be on Friday, December 20. We will be crafting and playing games, followed by a taco lunch in the classroom at 11:45. I sent home stickers with what each student needs to bring, and if there are any problems PLEASE let me know so we can work something out. I will have a Crockpot to keep meat warm as well as access to a refrigerator that morning.
 
Friday is a 1:00 release.
 
 
In reading this week our story will be Night Letters, and we will be focusing on drawing conclusions and asking questions to help with comprehension.
 
In grammar we will be working on subject/ verb agreement.
 
Spelling words for this week are:
 
clock
large
page
mark
kitten
judge
crack
edge
pocket
brake
change
ridge
jacket
badge
orange
freckles
advantage
pledge
Kentucky
kingdom

 
In math we will finish up our graphing unit, and complete the chapter review. The chapter test will be on Thursday. Students will be expected to complete pages 254- 257 at home to prepare.
 
Have a great week, and a wonderful break!

Christmas WebQuest

With the holidays and Winter Break quickly approaching, we have been having some Christmas fun during our Friday science time! Inspired by our French pen pals and learning about their traditions/ teaching them about ours, I wanted to do a fun and quick research project to learn more about Christmas around the world.

Each group was given a set of questions, an iPad, and the links to three educational Christmas websites. They had a lot of fun finding out the history behind some of our traditions, and I was very impressed by the use of their research skills like skimming and using headings to find answers! I learned some things too- who knew that children in Great Britain throw their Santa letters into the fireplace so that they can float out the chimney and up to the North Pole!

Here are some pictures of the smart little researchers at work!

Math- Graphing!

In math the last couple of weeks we have been working on graphing. This included reading graphs, and even more fun- making our own graphs! I have been VERY impressed with everyone's ability to read graphs, and even more so with their neatness and accuracy in making graphs. I wanted to post a few so you can see what we have been up to!

 

For the bar graphs, each group was given a bag of skittles that they had to sort and count. From the data they got, they then had to make a bar graph. This included deciding on the scale (Would going up by 1 fit on their graph paper? If not, what number would be best?), labeling, and coloring the graph. Then they had to find the mode and range, and we talked about which colors occurred most/ least often. They turned out not only accurate, but beautiful!

 



 

 

We also made line plots. For this project we collected data as a class to see how many family members each student had. Then each group had to take the data and create a line plot with it. We talked about mode and range with these graphs as well. Once again, they turned out great- mathematically and artistically!

 

 

When we started learning to make graphs, we also learned how to make tally charts to organize our data and get it ready to turn into a graph. I let each group ask whatever question of the class they wanted to for their survey, and they recorded the responses. Then we talked about what we could tell from the tally chart (What category was most/ least popular, if any were the same, how many more people chose one category over another, etc.). It was really fun to see all the creative questions they came up with, and I think we all learned a few more things about each other along the way :) 

 

 

 

Graphing has always been my favorite part of math, and I LOVED this unit. Of course it helps that I discovered my class is full of brilliant graphers!

December 9-13

Announcements:

We have swimming on Thursday, December 12! Please remember you swimsuits and towels, and a hat for the chilly walk back!

Our class is going to the Santa Shop on Monday from 9- 9:20, an envelope was sent home if your child wishes to purchase anything.

We will also be having multiple rehearsals for the Holiday Concert this week, with the final performance at 6:30 on Thursday, December 12.

Our class holiday party will be next Friday. We will be having a taco lunch in the classroom, and doing some other Christmas activities. I will be sending a note home if you would like to volunteer to bring in food for our party, or to help serve!


In reading this week our main story will be Pushing Up the Sky, and we will be talking about the genre of myths. The focus will be on summarizing and determining the author's purpose.

Our spelling words are:

unhappy
recall
disappear
unload
mistake
misspell
dislike
replace
mislead
disagree
rewrite
unroll
unknown
dishonest
react
unfortunate
discourage
uncomfortable
recycle
mispronounce

In math we will continue learning about graphing, reading graphs, and making our own graphs.

December 2-6

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We are back to our normal routine this week! Thank you to those of you who have been encouraging your children to fill out the reading calendars and sending them back, it is so important that they are reading 20 minutes a night.

This week in reading our main story will be The Gardener. We will be focusing on cause and effect and the structure of sentences and stories that helps determine what the cause and effect are.

Our spelling words this week are:

let's
he'd
you'll
can't
I'd
you'd
haven't
hasn't
she'd
they'll
when's
we'd
they'd
wasn't
didn't
should've
would've
could've
needn't
you've

All of our words are contractions, so look for the patterns when studying!

In math this week we will be finishing up time and moving into graphing (my favorite!!). This week we will cover tally charts, line plots, and pictographs and bar graphs.
 
Looking into next week: I will be sending home notes to parents who have volunteered to help with our Christmas party, and will be looking for more volunteers :)

 Have a great week!

November 25-27

Reminders:

We have our once a month swim on Monday, November 25. After that the swimsuits will finally be coming home :)

Wednesday is a 1:00 release for the Thanksgiving holiday, and there is no school Thursday and Friday. Enjoy the long weekend!


This week we will be taking our Unit 2 reading test. As with Unit 1, this test will be broken up between multiple days, and the rest of the time will be devoted to writing. This week we will be writing about what we are thankful for, and focusing on correct paragraph structure and strong descriptive examples.

This also means there are no new spelling words for the week. Unit 2 will start after the break, and we will be back to our usual routine.

On Monday we will be taking our Unit 3 math test, and then diving in to Unit 4 which will focus on time and graphing.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am so very thankful that I have such a wonderful, hardworking group of students in my class, and such thoughtful and helpful parents. I really couldn't thank you enough for all you do for your children, and to help our classroom.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Science- Space Research

This week for science we finished up our space unit with a fun research project! The kids were placed into small groups and each given a topic (a planet, constellations, black holes, meteors etc.). Then they had to read a few books on their topic, pull out the most important details, and write each detail on a notecard. I am always so amazed by their ability to work together and delegate tasks!

 

Once the research was done, it was time to make posters! They had a lot of freedom with this, so it was really fun to see how each of them turned out. Each group created a title, wrote down their ten facts, and added some kind of visual aid.

 

They turned out great, learned even more about space, and it was a great way to practice skimming for important details and communicating as a team! We hung each poster in the hallway for the rest of the school to enjoy!

November 18- 22

Announcements:

This week will be our last week of 2 week swim! Remember next Monday is our once a month swim!

Make sure your child is reading at least 20 minutes a night, and if they finish a book you can look up the AR quiz number at home and send it with them so they can get those points!


This week we will be reading William's House. We will be focusing on using context clues to draw conclusions and asking questions to better understand what we are reading.

In grammar we will be learning about plural possessive nouns.

Our spelling words this week are:

father
chapter
other
alphabet
watch
English
weather
catch
fashion
shrink
pitcher
flash
athlete
trophy
nephew
northern
establish
emphasis
hyphen
challenge

In math we will be finishing up Unit 3, working on a practice test, and will be taking our Unit 3 test on Monday, November 25. Your child will need to complete the study problems in their math book that will be sent home on Friday.

Have a great week!

Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day!

Thank you for providing our class with addresses of veterans you know so that we could send them thank you letters! It was so nice for our class to be able to discuss the importance of the military and the many sacrifices that they make for our freedom.

As a third grade we made Veteran's Day posters to show our support for our veterans, check them out at school or at Grumpy's downtown!

Thank you to all of our armed service men and women- presently serving and past!!!

November 11-15

Thank you to everyone who made it to parent/ teacher conferences! It was great to get to talk to all of you about your wonderful children!

Announcements:
This week we begin our two week swim. Make sure your child has their swimsuit and towel! This also means our language arts time in the afternoon will be a little bit shorter, so any extra studying your child can do at home will be very beneficial!

This week in language arts our main story will be Tops and Bottoms.

We will be discussing the genre of fantasy and folk tales, and focusing on determining the author's purpose and predicting.

This week in grammar we will focus on singular possessive nouns (dad's, corn's, tonight's etc.).

Our spelling words this week are words with spl, thr, squ, and str blends.

splash
throw
three
square
throat
strike
street
split
splurge
thrill
strength
squeak
throne
strawberry
squeeze
squid
squander
arthritis
instrument
strategy

Some of these words are pretty tough! Make sure you are studying them nightly, and remember to check out www.spellingcity.com for extra help.

In math we will being finishing up subtraction, and moving into adding and subtracting money and determining when to add or subtract.

Have a wonderful week!

Centers- Singular and Plural Nouns

During our language arts time on Wednesdays I have implemented grammar centers. By this time they have seen me teach the material, and we have had multiple opportunities to practice it together. I also can tell which area each child would benefit the most from having additional instruction in. During this time, they rotate to 4 centers, 3 of which are at an independent level to give them extra practice. Each group also meets once with me to target an aspect of language arts that they need the most support with.

These centers have been very helpful not only in giving me a chance to meet with each student in a small group, but they have also been helping our class with various aspects of teamwork as they all complete the tasks at each center together.

Extra bonus: Most of the kids really look forward to this part of the week!

The past two weeks we have been working on plural nouns. One of the centers we did was concentration, where the students had to match each singular noun to its correct plural form.

 We also did an activity in our groups where I gave them a singular noun on a card, and they had to correctly write the plural form on another card. Once they were matched they could draw one picture of the word on the singular card and more than one on the plural card, to demonstrate they knew the difference between singular and plural. They turned out great, and have been a great reference tool to have hanging in our classroom while we are writing.

November 4-7

First off, a big shout out and thank you to the parents who helped with our Halloween party!! The games and crafts were so fun, and the treats were delicious. I had multiple kids tell me it was the most fun class Halloween party ever, and I couldn't have done it without you! So THANK YOU!!!

Important Reminders:

Parent Teacher Conferences are this week! I have been and will be sending home reminders, so if you haven't heard from me regarding your time, let me know!

This week we will be doing a few projects for Veteran's Day, including painting a large flag to show our support for our troops on Wednesday. This is a good day to wear painting clothes (clothes you don't mind if they get stained).


This week in reading our main story is "Prudy's Problem and How She Solved It".

We are working on determining the main idea and supporting details, and organizing our thoughts into strong paragraphs (with introductions, transitions, and a conclusion).

In grammar we are focusing on irregular plural nouns. These include nouns that change into new words when they become plural (child/ children), nouns that end in -f and change to -ves endings (leaf/ leaves), and nouns that are the same in plural and singular form (sheep/sheep).

Our spelling words are:

sunglasses
homework
haircut
popcorn
railroad
snowstorm
earring
scarecrow
blueberry
butterflies
lawnmower
campground
sandbox
toothbrush
thumbtack
earthquake
scrapbook
courthouse
whirlpool

The focus is on compound words, so it would be really beneficial to help your child notice the individual words that make up the compound word.

In math we will begin subtraction using borrowing, and other models for subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers.

As always, keep reading 20 minutes a night and filling out those reading calendars!

See you all on Thursday!

October 28-31

Happy Halloween Week!

This week we will be having our Halloween party on Thursday from 12:45- 1:50. Thank you SO much to the parents who have been working hard to plan our party! Just a reminder that if your child wears their costume to school, they may not have face paint or masks on.

This week in reading we are reading A Day's Work and focusing on character traits (especially visualizing the character to determine their important traits) and singular and plural nouns. Our new spelling words are:

handle
trouble
simple
people
middle
table
little
gentle
poodle
pickle
noodle
saddle
juggle
uncle
riddle
example
throttle
obstacle
miracle
muscle

Practice that -le ending!


Reminders:
No school on Friday!
If you haven't scheduled your parent/ teacher conference, please make sure you do that this week!
Pizza Hut reading calendars are due at the end of the month, and everyone should be working toward 25 AR points by the end of this week!

Thank you!

October 22-25

I hope you all had a wonderful Fall Break!

This week we have our once a month swim on Thursday, October 24.

We will also be taking our Chapter 2 math test on Monday, October 28. Please have your child study by completing the More Practice section at home over the weekend (pages 120-123). They do not need to turn these in to me. If they can successfully complete these pages, they should have no problem on the test!

Our new spelling words are:

finish
pilot
even
wagon
music
silent
rapid
female
lemon
pupil
focus
robot
tulip
camel
salad
resident
spinach
climate
tradition
innocent

Saturn- Friday Science

This week it was time for the gaseous planets! My group studied Saturn.

Our challenge was that we were engineers, who had design a spaceship that could take us to Saturn either as tourists or as scientists. First they learned some basic facts about Saturn so that they would know what we needed to consider as we created our ships. Then they sketched their designs in groups so they would have a map of what needed to be built. This was the time to make sure they had considered all the problems- How would they keep their astronauts from freezing since Saturn is almost -300 degrees? How and where would they land? How would they gather things to take home and study? How would they propel their spaceship all the way to Saturn?

Then it was time to build! They came up with some pretty creative solutions using the different materials provided, and did a great job presenting them to their classmates. I was very impressed! Here are a couple examples:

Mercury- Friday Science

Today during our science Friday time we studied the solid rocky planets closest to the sun. In my group we learned about Mercury!

First we learned a little background knowledge about Mercury to help us with our cool projects. Then we used that information to create an acrostic poem. I was very impressed with their creativity and word choice! Here is a sample:

Then we created some bubble art! Since Mercury is covered in craters, we created this effect using bubble painting. We mixed dish soap and paint, blew into the paint using straws to create bubbles, then dipped our papers in the paint. This is a really fun and easy art project, but if you try it at home know that it can get a little messy, and make sure your child has goggles or glasses on to catch any splatters! They ended up looking like this:

I love the way they turned out!