I am always amazed how fast the week can fly by. Of course this week it didn't help we had a snow day on Monday, then I was home with a sick child on Tuesday.
Math-In
math last week we started to learn how multiplication is related to division. With this we looked at he parts of a division problem and stared reversing our multiplication fact to answer problems dividing by 2, 3, 4, and 5. Reading- In reading last week we read A Tree is Growingby Aurthur Dorros.
Leaves, sap, bark, and roots all play a part in nourishing trees through
seasonal changes and years of growth. This week our story had informative
explanations and sketched views of trees, forest
life, and animals. We discussed how to determine tree growth cycles by the
layers of cambium forming the growth rings. We also looked at the passage of water, the
production of flowers and seeds, the autumnal color change, and the
microscopic and larger animal life supporting and supported by trees through text, captions, labels, and excellent
diagrams. This week we took a look at root words.
Writing- Last week we used our Language Arts time to take a practice Cognitive Abilities test. We will take the actual tests this coming week. Please make
sure your child has plenty of sleep and eats breakfast in the morning.
This is good advice for every school day, but extra important on testing
days.
Social Studies- Everyone is in various stages of their research reports. We range from creating our research posters, to working on our reports, to being completed with our reports and continuing our hard work on our ABC books. The students can not wait to share their projects with you at conferences.
Upcoming dates:
Friday, February 28th- please have your child wear their red FMI t-shirt on Friday this week instead of Wednesday. Tuesday, March 4th- I will be gone to Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting
Tuesday, March 11th- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30
Thursday, March 13th- Conferences 3:45-7:30
Friday, March 14th-Friday, March 21st- No School- Spring Break
Hopefully, you received my email on Friday. Since conferences are student-led, I am not opposed to having more than one going at the same time. It may just mean you need to wait a little while to talk with me. I do have these set up in 30 minute blocks with up to 3 conferences running at the same time. This will be something new for me also. If you have children in other building who have conferences on the same day, please take that into consideration when signing up. Student-led conferences generally take a little longer. When it is your scheduled time, please just come in and get started.
A paper copy of the sign-up sheet will be coming home next week with your child's report card. If you prefer to fill out the paper or just email me with your choice of times, I will do my best to make something work. Thanks for helping me try something new! :)
Report cards should be coming home this week. I will create a page at the top of the blog about our current grading rubrics if you have any questions about scores. As always, if you do have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Our Valentine's Party was a lot of fun, and rather loud. I am sure you could hear us on the other side of the building. :) We had a lot of fun playing the Minute To Win It Game of "Face the Cookie." After that we played a relay game with candy hearts. My video wasn't great as I was too close to capture everything, However, I did take a picture of the fun that was left over. :) To end our party we ate our snack and looked through our Valentine bags. I know I disappointed a lot of kids when I wouldn't let them eat the candy in their bags. Hopefully this created a few less tummy aches. :) Thank you to everyone who helped or donated items for our parties this year. You are the ones that make the memories and the fun happen!
Math-In
math last week we finished up our fraction unit with some additional conversations and practice with equivalent and improper fractions, then a few Common Core fraction assessments.
Reading- In reading last week we read The Albertosaurus Mystery: Philip Currie's Hunt in the Badlands by T.V. Padma.
This week we also took an in depth look into the suffix of -ly and how it relates to behaviors.
Writing- Last week we took a break from our ABC books to write a story called, "If I lived in the rain forest..." First, students created a T-chart to examine what they might see, taste, touch, feel, or smell in the rain forest. After coming up with some ideas, the kids wrote creative stories. These will be shared with you at conferences.
Social Studies- This week we continued to used our social
studies/ science time to work on our Rain forest Research project. We
have taken notes about our animals, are working on creating
informational posters, as well as writing a multi-paragraph report about
their animal.
Upcoming dates:
Monday,
February 17th- I will be gone to complete my wonderful glucose test,
followed by a dentist appointment. The students will have a chance to meet Ms. Bredman, my long term sub in May. :)
Saturday, February 22nd- Happy Birthday Morgan!
Tuesday, March 4th- I will be gone to Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting
Tuesday, March 11th- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30
Thursday, March 13th- Conferences 3:45-7:30
Friday, March 14th-Friday, March 21st- No School- Spring Break
Monday, March 24th- Happy birthday Allie!
Calendar Changes:
Monday, April 21st- Snow day make-up day, Students will need to be in attendance
Ok, so I guess it is more like alligators, and piranha, and anacondas.. oh my! Our class, as well as the entire 3rd grade are in full rainforest mode. We are diving deep into the different layers to learn all kinds of various rainforest facts about plants, animals, people, and products we get from the rainforest. The kids could not be more engrossed and I am loving every minute of it. It is amazing to watch them eat up all this knowledge and beg for more. Expect to see a lot of rainforest things coming soon.
Thank you for your cooperation with having your child wear the "moveable" watch last week. We will complete this research for the PE grant a couple more times this year I believe. There are a few that did not make it back to school. If you see something like this please send it back as soon as possible (you will also get an email from me if it is missing).
Cursive licenses are starting to make their way out the door. If your child has not yet earned or received theirs it is not to late. We just need to work on some of their letters yet. :) Also, if your child is not in my room when we work on cursive, but would like to take the packet home to complete, please let me know.
Math-In
math last week we continued to talk about fractions. We discussed how different fractions can be added together to equal one whole. We also discussed comparing fractions and what makes and equivalent fraction.
Reading- In reading last week we read Judy Moody Saves the World by Megan McDonald.
We only read a small piece of chapter one and chapter two as part of our Basal. However, the third book in the Judy Moody series finds the spunky third-grader in save-the-world mode. Then a class environmental preservation project inspires a new mission. But it's not long before Judy discovers that saving the world isn't easy, whether she is trying to convince her father not to drink rainforest bean coffee or her mom to dispose of a rubber toilet plunger.
*This week I added something new to their reading quizzes. Not only are the completed independently, but we are starting to transfer our answers to a bubble sheet. I want to get
them use to it before Iowa Assessments. This is probably the best group of transfer skills I have seen in a while, especially for the first time. I am so proud of them!
Writing- We are using this time to work on yet another research project where we are learning and taking notes to create an ABC book about the Rainforest.
Social Studies- This week we have used our social studies/ science time to work on our Rainforest Research project. We have taken notes about our animals, are working on creating informational posters, as well as writing a multi-paragraph report about their animal. Eventually, we will work on taking our information and turning it into a few PowerPoint slides to share with you at conferences.
Upcoming dates:
Thursday, February 13th- Valentine's Party
Friday, February 14th- No School
Saturday, February 15th- Happy Birthday Eden!
Monday, February 17th- I will be gone to complete my wonderful glucose test, followed by a dentist appointment. I am very excited! :)
Saturday, February 22nd- Happy Birthday Morgan!
Tuesday, March 4th- I will be gone to Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting
Tuesday, March 11th- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30
Thursday, March 13th- Conferences 3:45-7:30
Friday, March 14th-Friday, March 21st- No School- Spring Break
Monday, March 24th- Happy birthday Allie!
Calendar Changes: Monday, April 21st- Snow day make-up day, Students will need to be in attendance
Even though it kept getting pushed back, we have completed 100 days of school together. Thank you so much for allowing me these days to get to know and love your children. I am AMAZED at all of their growth and absolutely love coming to school everyday because of each and everyone of them. I can't believe how fast time flies, and now I am starting to feel the butterflies about leaving them early at the end of the year.
Today, midterm reports are coming home. Yes, there is only a few weeks before we write grades. Snow days and delays caused assessments to take a lot longer than planned. Sorry! I am going to run through our weekly schedule and what we have done during this time this week. Monday- Another day off, again because of the extremely cold weather and wind. For reading, we started our morning off with the first part of our Unit reading test on Tuesday. Again the students were completely on their own for this. If they needed help with a word, I of course helped them. :) We completed the second half of the unit reading test on Wednesday. Thursday the students were given more information about our big project over the Rain Forest. To introduce our unit the class listened to a very creative and expressive (I used many different voices) reading of The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. Today, the kids looked at research projects, PowerPoints, and reports written by previous students. Afterwards they had a chance to chose their top three choices of a Rain Forest animal to research.
In Daily 5 and read through a Reader's Theatre script of the book A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. This is a story about being true to yourself. Camilla Cream loves lima beans, but she never eats them. Why? Because
the other kids in her school don't like them. Camilla Cream is so very,
very worried about what other people think of her that she's about to
break out in stripes!We will complete multiple readings of not only our script, but also the story and look at many different components of the story. These will include fantasy versus reality, cause and effect, inference, external and internal character traits, sequence of events, retelling versus summary, as well as take an indepth look at some great vocabulary words found in this story.
In Language Arts, we continued talking about plural nouns (more than one) and singular possessive nouns (has an 's, something belongs or is owned by something or someone). After daily language, the students were introduced to a large project, one of many starting this week, their ABC Rain Forest Book. Students will be researching things in the rainforest for each letter of the alphabet and compile all their notes into a book, complete with a dedication and copyright. For RTI, the students are continuing to work on their multiplication facts. Each day they will take a one minute time test over whichever factor they are currently working on. They are trying to make their way through our multiplication table. They started with x1 and will work their way up to x11 or x12. Each day also includes a review of strategies and working on one of our factors. Please help at home with flashcards or using the multiplication monsters that were sent home.
In Math, we are continuing to learn about fractions. We have learned and reviewed the numerator and denominator, parts of a fraction, parts of a whole, and placing fractions in order from largest to smallest. We have also started to look at finding fractions on a number line and building fractions to be equal to one whole. Today, we are relating 100's day to fractions and decimals.
Social Studies has continued in our atlas. We have learned about the seven continents (North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica) and the five oceans (Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, Indian, and Southern). Wednesday, we took a look at how to read a map, a graph, and a map key using the natural resource oil. On Thursday, we looked at where in the world you would find the United States, then where within the United States you would find the state of Iowa. We will take a short break from our atlases next week to work on animal research for our reports.
Of course today is the 100th day of school, although we do not celebrate like we used to at the elementary buildings, we still found time to enjoy 100 minutes of reading while enjoying 100 pieces of snack mix. :)
Upcoming dates:
Wednesday, February 5th- 1:15 Dismissal
Thursday, February 13th- Valentine's Party
Friday, February 14th- No School
Saturday, February 15th- Happy Birthday Eden!
Monday, February 17th- I will be gone due to various appointments all day long.
Saturday, February 22nd- Happy Birthday Morgan!
Tuesday, March 4th- I will be gone to Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting
Tuesday, March 11th- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30
Thursday, March 13th- Conferences 3:45-7:30
Friday, March 14th-Friday, March 21st- No School- Spring Break
Monday, March 24th- Happy birthday Allie!
Have a great weekend! I am hoping Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on Saturday and it will be an early spring!
Oh my goodness, this is only January and I don't know if I ever remember having so many no school days. This year most are not even snow related, brr! I don't know about you, but I am ready for the temperatures to hover around 20 or so, then turn to spring. Is it bad when temperatures in the 20's and 30's feel wonderful?
*I am going to apologize, life has gotten me a feeling a little behind. With my husband being a tax accountant, we have been spending our weekends and weeknights getting the nursery ready. Since it will be only weeks (when the girls and I finally see him again), before this baby arrives. Days off from school have really thrown off my schedules at home and school. I LOVE having days with my girls, and I usually have my nieces also. The four of them are amazing, however as you can imagine, having a second grader, kindergartner, 4 year old, 3 year old, and a tired pregnant lady in one house, a little actual work gets completed on these days.
To make a long story short, with days off and late starts in our schedule assessments ran behind. I am attempting to finish up my midterm reports and will try to get them to you this week.
Math-In
math last week, we started learning about fractions. We have discussed the meaning of fractions, vocabulary terms for fractions (numerator and denominator), determining fractions as parts of a whole, as well as parts of a group. We created a fraction flip book and will make fraction flip cards. This will help us work our way into learning about how to find fractions on a number line, equivalent fractions, mixed fractions, and turning fractions into decimals to the tenth and hundredth.
Reading- In reading this week we read An Extra-Good Sunday by Beverly Clearly.
In this anthologized excerpt from "Ramona Quimby, Age 8," Beezus and
Ramona are expected to prepare Sunday dinner as punishment for
complaining about Saturday evening's dinner. This story walks through how they work as sisters to make a dinner from their parents using the ingredients they can find in their kitchen.
Writing- This week we spent time reviewing our cursive letters and filling out our cursive license application.
Social Studies- This week we continued using our Map Champ Atlas in Social Studies.
Lessons completed this week were:
Monday: No School
Tuesday: We had guidance with Mrs. Shields
Wednesday:
-->
“What
is a globe?”
Thursday:
“How
are maps and globes different?”
-->
Friday:
“Which
are continents and which are countries?”
-->
*We will take a brief break from our atlas to work on Rain forest research and reports.
Upcoming dates:
Wednesday, January 29th- Happy Birthday Caden and Timmy!
Friday, January 31st- 100th day of school (however, all the snow/cold days keep pushing this back!)
Wednesday, February 5th- 1:15 Dismissal
Thursday, February 13th- Valentine's Party
Friday, February 14th- No School
Saturday, February 15th- Happy Birthday Eden!
Saturday, February 22nd- Happy Birthday Morgan!
Tuesday, March 4th- I will be gone to Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting
Tuesday, March 11th- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30
Thursday, March 13th- Conferences 3:45-7:30
Friday, March 14th-Friday, March 21st- No School- Spring Break
Monday, March 24th- Happy birthday Allie!
Calendar Changes: *I will keep you posted as it keeps changing Monday, April 21st- Snow day make-up day, Students will need to be in attendance Friday, May 30th- Full day of school, no early out Monday, June 2nd- Full day of school, no early out
Tuesday, June 3rd- Last day of school, 1:15 Dismissal Stay Warm!
Yeah for having a full week of school. This allowed us to get things starting to feel a little more normal of a typical day in 3rd grade. It also meant a lot of work to complete and learn! :)
Math-In math this week, we continued to talk about the perimeter (the distance around an object, think about something like a fence). We also have talked about the area of a polygon. This is how many square units are inside the polygon. Then of course with measuring a polygon, we needed to discuss and learn about what makes up a polygon. A polygon is a closed figure (no open spaces), which has all straight sides, and where the sides do not cross.
On Monday, the students even had a chance to have a little fun with perimeter and area work with the help of Cheez-it crackers!
On Wednesday we learned about polygons, and completed a polygon sort.
Reading- In reading this week we read Aero and Officer Mike by Joan Plummer Russell.
In this story we learned about the partnership between Corporal Mike Matsik and his
K-9 partner, Aero. They have been partners for
four years. This story gave us a chance to observe them on duty working as
one. Aero can anticipate Mike's every move and watches or waits for Mike's commands. Aero's incredible
senses of smell and hearing, his speed and strength, his pure canine
instincts extend and expand Mike's abilities as a police officer. But
when Aero is off duty, he can be as gentle and friendly as a family pet. We discussed the author's purpose of this story was to inform us of what it is like in the life of a K-9 police officer. On Wednesday, we had the chance to compare and contrast a police dog with a therapy dog. We had a visit from Jack, a 7 month old chocolate lab therapy dog, and his owner, Nicki White. Nicki explained the difference of a service dog and a therapy dog. The service dog assists one person to help them or their job, while a therapy dog assists multiple people just by making them happy and calm. The kids all loved having the chance to meet Jack. I took a quick picture when they were in Mrs. Clark's room. Sorry, I was too busy listening to her stories while she was in our room! :)
*This will also the first week students will start to take their reading quiz completely independently. We shall see how this goes, but I want to get them use to it before Iowa Assessments. In February we will also add the skill of transferring our answers to an answer sheet for added Iowa Assessment practice.
Writing- We brainstormed a list of things that could happen to a snowflake for our writing "If I were a snowflake, I would...." For a little added inspiration we watched a short video featuring Olaf from the Disney movie Frozen.
We also finally had a chance to work on cursive. Hopefully, we will be finishing up our letters soon and will fill out our "cursive application" to get their "cursive license" and be free to use all the cursive they want in class.
On top of that, we completed some winter activities to review some of the language arts work we have already completed this year.
Social Studies- This week we continued using our Map Champ Atlas in Social Studies.
Lessons completed this week were:
Monday:
How
do communities make the goods we use? After the lesson we talked about what a consumer is, how we are all consumers, and created a small lab book of different goods or services a consumer might buy or use.
Tuesday:
What
view does a map show? This included a discussion about viewing a building from the ground, from a birds-eye view, and from directly above.
Wednesday: How are colors used as map symbols? For example, why is Flordia orange on the map, while Mississipi is pink?
How are
colors used as map symbols?How are
colors used as map symbols?”
Thursday:
How
do maps show natural features? We discussed how a dessert, wetland, lake, river, ocean, and various other things might be represented on a map.
Friday:
How
do maps show cultural features? This would include how a map show interstates and highways.
We even had a chance to check out some fun social studies videos!
Countries- "Tour the World"
States- "Tour of the States"
States- "The Nifty Fifty"
Upcoming dates:
Monday, January 20th- No School (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), Professional Development
Wednesday, January 29th- Happy Birthday Caden and Timmy!
Wednesday, February 5th- 1:15 Dismissal
Thursday, February 13th- Valentine's Party
Friday, February 14th- No School
Saturday, February 15th- Happy Birthday Eden!
Saturday, February 22nd- Happy Birthday Morgan!
Tuesday, March 4th- I will be gone to Grant Wood AEA all day for a PBIS meeting
Tuesday, March 11th- 1:15 Dismissal, Conferences 1:30-5:30
Thursday, March 13th- Conferences 3:45-7:30
Friday, March 14th-Friday, March 21st- No School- Spring Break
Monday, March 24th- Happy birthday Allie!
Calendar Changes: Monday, April 21st- Snow day make-up day, Students will need to be in attendance Friday, May 30th- Full day of school, no early out Monday, June 2nd- Last day of school, 1:15 Dismissal Have a great weekend!
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)