Weekly Update

Good evening,

Parent teacher conferences are underway! Even though 15 minutes flies by, I am grateful that I get to sit down with each one of you and discuss your child's progress! This truly is a great class and I love how excited they are about plants and multiplication.... even during the week of challenge course in gym and  Halloween! Please see the posts below for pictures of Ability Awareness Day, our continents projects, and our explorations as botanists in our outdoor learning space. Fun times were had this week!

Reminders:

• If you have not already done so, please send the permission slip and money for the field trip to school when possible. If you have offered to chaperone the trip, I will be following up with you after conferences. 
• Please send your child to school in regular clothes on Thursday. The class will change after lunch for the Halloween party. There are guidelines for costumes (no scary masks, blood, weapons, etc.) so please call the office if you have questions. 
• All Halloween treats must be approved by the nurse before the day of the party. 
• The Halloween party is scheduled from 2-3 P.M. 
• There is NO SCHOOL on Friday (Halloween). Enjoy! 

Here is what we are learning about this week:

• Reading- beginning non-fiction unit (learning about bats this week!)
• Writing- informational writing (how to organize and include text features)
• Spelling- tests will be in another week... lots of activities lately have interrupted our time
• Math- introduction to multiplication (start practicing facts, see blog for sites!) 
• Science- plants unit (parts of a plant, plant needs)

I hope you enjoy the pictures! If I do not see you at conferences or the party, I hope you have a great week. Happy Halloween! 

We are third grade botanists!

This week, we took advantage of the 84 degree weather and went outside to explore plants. In science, we are beginning a unit on plants and even got a Venus Fly Trap to study! Students were very eager to use their magnifying glass and record their findings in a journal. We decided we were going to collect bugs to feed our fly trap!

Continents Projects in Social Studies!

Last week, we wrapped up our unit on continents and communities. Students each got to share their choice of a poster project or a Google Slideshow. Some students even brought in pictures or money to enhance their presentation! We had a lot of fun and learned so much about the continents!

Ability Awareness Day 2014

On Friday, 3rd-5th grade students participated in Ability Awareness Day. Several guest speakers presented on various topics in third grade ranging from service/guide dogs, speech disorders, visual impairments and physical disabilities. Our class especially loved the service dogs! Check out the pictures below and be sure to ask your child what he or she learned!

Weekly Update

Good evening!

Report cards are finished, expect them in your e-mail inbox sometime this week! If you do not receive your child's report card, please contact the office and they will be happy to assist you.

Last Friday (October 17), was a FUN day! We had a Halloween themed party to celebrate our published narrative writing pieces. Please check out samples of student work below. We had a great discussion of what we learned and even looked back on our writing at the beginning of the school year. We could not believe how much we have grown as writers in such a short period of time!

After our celebration, students traveled to rotations around the school. They listened to a story, watched a short video, enjoyed ice cream from the ice cream truck, and got to enjoy the SUNSHINE! It certainly had been a while since the sun had been out! It was a very fun day.

This week, we will be having another special activity day called Ability Awareness Day. On this day, students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades learn about specific disabilities. The focus is more on what people with these disabilities are ABLE to do. Stay tuned for pictures from this event.

Important Reminders for the week: 

• We will have a math test over Chapter 3 on Wednesday. A study guide will be coming home on Monday and Tuesday. Feel free to have your child study these materials, their math vocab cards, or use the online textbook resources. Please encourage your child to continue to practice math facts! There are sites on the class blog devoted to this if flashcards are not available. 
• We will have a social studies test over chapters 1 and 2 on Friday. I had no choice but to have them in the same week! Expect a study guide to be coming home on Tuesday/Wednesday.
• Parent teacher conferences will be held the week of October 27th. Please refer back to this sign up if you need to review your time. I look forward to meeting with you! 
• Our classroom Halloween party will be held on October 30. There will be no school Friday (Halloween). This is a conference compensation day for teachers. 

What we are learning about this week: 

• Reading- taking eValuate, studying how one character's actions affect others
• Writing- begin informational (non-fiction) writing unit
• Spelling- continue daily group activities. Tests will be next week and will be listed on the calendar.
• Math- wrapping up our subtraction unit, taking math eValuate, taking pre-test for multiplication unit! 
• Social Studies- wrapping up our unit on landforms, continents/oceans, and communities

I hope this blog post was helpful. I am interested to know how many people read these when I post. If I can be communicating with you in a more efficient way, I would rather do that! Thanks for reading! Scroll down for pictures pertaining to our Buddy Day in October and our Blue Ribbon Celebration!

 

Weekly Update

Good evening,

Our class has been very busy learning about narrative writing, subtraction, continents and landforms, and analyzing characters from our stories. A progress report was sent home with your child on Friday. Since this week marks the end of first quarter, I wanted to give you an update. I will not be sending home another progress report for a few weeks with report cards coming home soon. Please let me know if you have any questions.

If you would like to help out with the Halloween party, please contact Laura and Scott Goddard. I will send their contact information in an e-mail so you can coordinate with them! The party will be on Thursday, October 30th and we hope you can attend!

Here is a look at what we are learning about this week:

Writing- publishing our narratives, small writing celebration on Friday!
Reading- character analysis, reading assessments given to confirm reading levels
Spelling- groups 2-4 will have a test and all groups will be given new words
Math- 3 and 4 digit subtraction and subtraction across zeros
Social Studies- presenting our continents projects and learning about types of communities (this unit will carry over into 2nd quarter)

Important Reminders:

1. Friday, October 17 will be an 11:40 early dismissal day. Teachers will be working on report cards. Lunch will not be served. Please let me know in advance if there are dismissal changes.

2. If you have not signed up for a parent-teacher conference using Sign Up Genius, please use this link to do so:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f044caaa823a75-mrs
 
3. Reading logs are due every Monday. Last week, all 24 students brought theirs back signed and filled out correctly. We need to make sure that each student is reading for at least 110 minutes a week, and this means for 30 minutes on weekends. This is very important and will help our grade level meet our monthly goal of 80% or better (reading logs being complete).

Lastly, we will be taking both eValuate tests this week. These have been very hard and we are adjusting to the new language on these tests (similar to the new language on the math papers). I am confident that we will keep getting better each month. :)

Have a great week!