Sunday, September 30, 2007

Week of Oct. 1-5

Important Dates:

*Goo, Glob, & Guts Wed. 10/3

*L.1 Reading Quiz Thurs. 10/4

*September Reading Party Thurs. 10/4

*Spelling Test Fri. 10/5

*Hemisphere Quiz Fri. 10/5

*Spirit Day Friday 10/5




Classroom Chatter
We will be having our inschool field trip on Wednesday. A scientist from High-Touch High-Tech will present to the class Goo, Glob & Guts. Ask your child about their experience!


We will have our first reading party at lunch on Thursday with Miss Carlstrom's class. Students who have read for 28 days in the month of September will be able to come to our party. I will do a final folder check Thursday morning. Please send in a Rated G movie if you have one. Maybe even a Halloween video?? Thanks


Spirit day is Friday. This week's spirit day is to wear green for this month's Character Counts pillar, Respsibility.



Spelling
L. 5's words are plurals of vowel + y words. The list is in the spelling folder. Please keep the list in the folder. The test is Friday.


English
This week we will be doing an expository writing essay to learn how to write in paragraph form. Our papers will have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Each paragraph will be indented. Students were asked to bring in 3 favorite things in a brown paper bag that represents them. Students will be using these items to help create ideas for their paper.



Reading


We will continue working in our ISAT reading book. We have been ripping out the completed pages and saving them in our reading folder in our binders. There will be a short quiz on Thursday covering the concepts learned. Please review the pages in the reading folder to prepare for the quiz. We also will begin our first chapter book. Students will be reading the book, Hey, New Kid. We will read together in class. We also will be completing journal responses after each chapter. The first 6 chapter's responses we will do together. The rest of the chapters will be done on their own for a reading grade.



Science

We will begin our next unit in science on Health. Students will be learning about ways to stay healthy and how to make healthy choices. We will begin with lesson one that teaches us about the food guide pyramid and making good food choices.











Social Studies



We will finish up the hemipshere unit. The study guide went home today. It is in the social studies folder. The quiz will be on Friday. We will review the answers to the study guide on Thursday. Please review the sheets and the Map Essentials book to help prepare for the test.




Math

We began chapter 2 at the end of last week. We learned about fact families and estimating numbers by rounding to the nearest ten or hundred. This week students will be doing some problem solving with exact numbers vs. estimated numbers. We also will be adding two and three digit numbers. We will take a checkpoint at the end of the week for a grade. We won't begin mad minutes for multiplication until we begin chapter 3 on multiplication. However, this doesn't mean your child shouldn't start studying flashcards. Multiplication and division flash cards were on the supply list for third grade. They are to be used at home to study. I would begin by pulling all the cards that are multiplied by 2. When those facts have been mastered, pull all the cards that are multiplied by 3. Keep practicing the rest of the facts in this order.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Week of Sept. 24-28

Important Dates:
*Johnny Appleseed's Birthday Wednesday 9/26
*Science Test Thursday 9/27
*Spelling Test Friday 9/28



Classroom Chatter
We will be celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday on Wednesday. A note about the day's activities went home today. Don't forget to send in an apple on Wednesday, sliced, peeled, and cored for our applesauce. If anyone can send in bowls, spoons,
or apple juice, send me a note or email. Thanks!


Next week we will be having an "in-school" field trip. Students will experience a Goo, Glob, & Guts presentation in our classroom next Wednesday. This is a great way to end our Human Body unit in science. A note about this experience went home today. The cost is $7. Please have your child's money turned in by Friday.


Our school is participating in a contest. Each classroom is competing for a pizza party and extra recess. All the students need to do is turn in Box Tops for Education and Tyson labels which are used to earn money for our school. The classroom with the most collected wins. A note about this fundraiser went home on Friday. It was a green sheet in the binders. Thanks in advance for your support.


A special thank you to Tim Pan for donating items to our treasure chest. Also a special thank you to Payton Froats for donating some books to our classroom library! Your generosity is always appreciated!


Spelling
Lesson 4's words are spelled with s and es. The pretest was today. The lists are in the students' spelling folders. The test will be on Friday.


English
We took the Unit 1 test today. I hope to have the tests graded by tomorow. I will pass them back and go over the answers with the students. Next week we will begin our first writing unit on a narrative essay.


Reading
We finished up being introduced to the reading strategies we will be working on all year. This week we will begin working in our reading workbooks. This workbook introduces reading concepts that we will use throughout the year and that will be on the ISAT tests in the spring. Lesson one teaches us about word analysis. Students will be working with prefixes, suffixes, affixes, base words, sounds, letters and compound words. We will be working on the lessons in class. We will rip out the pages as we go through the book. They will be kept in the reading folder to study for a test.

Science
Thursday in the human body test. Wednesday, we will go over the science study guide that went home Friday. It was assigned to be completed as homework and is due on Wednesday. Please make sure it is in the science folder for Wednesday. Students will also be working in groups making a model of the human body.


Social Studies



We will begin the last part of our map skills unit. Students will learn about the hemispheres of our world. We will learn about: the 4 hemispheres, Equator, Prime Meridian, & what continents are in which hemispheres.



Math
We will be having our first test tomorrow. A study guide went home last week. We also began subtraction mad minutes this week. Next week we will begin learning about multiplication and taking a mad minute on x2's. A multiplication packet went home last week of the facts. Students should be studying daily. Times twos are easy. Any number times two is just doubled. Students will have a minute and a half to finish 26 problems. We will move on to x3's the following week and so on.






Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Week of Sept. 17-21


IMPORTANT DATES:

*Early Dismissal Tues. 9/18

* OLSAT test Wed. 9/19

*Picture Day Thurs. 9/20

*Continents & Oceans Quiz Thurs. 9/20

*Spelling Test Fri. 9/21

*English Test Mon. 9/24

*Science Test Thurs. 9/27

CLASSROOM CHATTER

Don't forget there is an early dismissal Tuesday at 11a.m.

Can anyone Pitch In and Help? I'm still in need of a few items for our classroom. Any donations are greatly appreciated! I am in need of paper plates. I am always looking for Treasure Chest donations all year long. Don't forget to check out the dollar isle at Target or the Dollar stores.

Thank you to my mom, Patty Wills & Morgan Meyer who brought in some items for the Treasure Chest. Thank you to all who already donated items at the beginning of the year!

Please start studying for the upcoming tests. Study guides are sent home as a "guide" to help the students. Please review all notes in the folders and the textbook.

We also will be taking the OLSAT (Otis Lennon Scholastic Achievement test) on Wednesday. To prepare, just make sure you child gets a good night's sleep and a good breakfast. Just like every other school day!!



Spelling

Lesson 3's words are spelled with ou. We took the pretest today. Students who received 1 wrong or 100% on the pretest will have a new set of words for the week and a list of the daily assignments. Please keep the spelling list and the daily assignment page in their spelling folder. Thank you. If your child has 2 or more wrong on the spelling test, they will be working with the list from the book plus the five extra words I've added. These are not "bonus" words and they need to study them. This list is in their spelling folder and should come to school everyday until I have the class put it in the To Be LEFT at Home folder on Friday. Their work will be in the spelling book with homework on Tuesday and Wednesday and an ABC order sheet on Thursday. Spelling tests be on Friday.

English
We will finish up Unit One, The Sentence this week. Students will learn about run-on sentences. We will be taking an in-class unit review for a grade. They will be allowed to use their textbook and any notes. A study guide went home today. It is in the Language Arts folder. The test is scheduled for next Monday, 9/24.

Reading

This week's reading strategies we will focus on are: monitor/clarify, summarize, and question. The monitor/clarify strategy is when we reread, read ahead, and use illustrations to understand the text. Summarizing retells the story by the main, important events. The questioning strategy is when you ask yourself questions about what you are reading and what you want to know about the text. We also began TFK, Time for Kids last Friday. I usually do TFK's on Fridays. Sometimes students will have 10 multiple choice questions to answer for a grade after they read. They will always be allowed to use the TFK to help them with their answers.









Science
Students will be finishing up learning about the human body. We will learn about the digestive, nervous, respiratory, and cardiovascular(circulatory) systems this week. A study guide will come home at the end of this week. This study guide should be completed over the weekend for homework. It will be due on Tuesday and I will go over the correct answers. The test is scheduled for Thursday, 9/27.


Social Studies
We will finish up continent and oceans with a short quiz on Thursday. A study guide went home on Friday. Have you seen it? It is in the social studies folder. Students do not have to memorize the correct spellings of the continents and oceans. There will be a word bank to help them spell correctly.

Math

We will begin this week by exploring patterns. We will then work on rounding numbers. Finally we will finish up with bar graphs and taking a checkpoint at the end of the week. Students should begin studying for the Chapter 1 test. It is scheduled for next Tuesday, Sept. 25th. Students also will be taking addition mad minutes this week. They took a practice one last Friday. They have to complete 40 addition facts in 2 minutes time. I will be giving a mad minute on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of this week. All students should pass out of addition mad minutes by Friday. To pass out of a mad minute, means to get a 100%. We will move on to subtraction next week.

ALSO... I have decided to only require a parent signature on graded work that is a C+ and below. Thank you.











Thursday, September 6, 2007

Week of Sept 10-14

Important Dates:
*Directions Quiz Tues. 9/11
*Spelling Test Fri. 9/14
*Book Orders due Fri. 9/14


CLASSROOM CHATTER

It was a pleasure talking to all the parents last week at Curriculum Night. Thank you for taking the time to come and meet with me.

Book orders went home today. They will be due by Friday. Please send in a check for your order(s). NO CASH, PLEASE. One check will do for multiple orders.


SPELLING

Lesson 2 words are spelled with oa. We took a pretest today. The test is scheduled for Friday. The list is in their spelling folders.

ENGLISH

We will continue with Unit 1 this week. Students will be learning what a subject and predicate is of a sentence. The subject tells us whom or what the sentence is about. The predicate tells us what is happening in the sentence. Please review subjects and predicates at home. This can be difficult for the students.

READING

We will be reading some books as a class to work on reading strategies. The following are some examples of what we'll be reading. My Lucky Day to learn more about predictions and Two Bad Ants to practice inferences. Students will also be make definition cards of each strategy. At the end of this week or early next week, these cards will be brought home for students to use when they read at home. This will reinforce the reading strategies we work on at school.

SCIENCE

We will continue with our study on the human body. Students will be learning more about the muscular and skeletal systems and how they work together.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We will take a short quiz on directions on Tuesday. Then we will begin the next part of our map skills unit by learning about the continents and oceans of our world.


MATH

Here I will be writing about math for my math group. To read about what your child is doing for math, you will have to visit your child's math teacher's blog. You can do this by going to our District website: http://www.ccsd66.org/ , click on Prairieview, click on 3rd Grade, then click on your child's math teacher's name. Their blog will come up. Find the teacher's math section to read about what your child will be doing in math class.


This week, we will continue with chapter one, Place Value. Students will be comparing numbers, exploring exact vs. estimate with problem solving, and millions this week. We will also be taking a checkpoint for our first grade. Each chapter has 2 checkpoints per chapter in the textbook. Students will be allowed to look back in the book to help them if need be.