Thursday, November 19, 2009

Week of November 23-27

Important Dates:
*Verb Test Tuesday 11/24
*Thanksgiving break 11/25-11/27
*Parent Teacher Conferences 11/30-12/2
*YEARBOOK ORDERS due 12/1
*Report Cards Tuesday 12/1
*Cancer family gifts due Tuesday 12/8

Classroom Chatter
I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe, and DELICIOUS Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my awesome 3rd grade class and what's to come in January...BABY! Enjoy your time with your family!
Conferences will be held the week of November 30th. I'm looking forward to meeting with you all at our conferences next week. Report cards will be coming home on Tuesday. Please keep them at home and just sign and return the envelope the report card come home in. Thanks.

On Friday, information went home about Prairieview's Holiday service project. Each year, Prairieview runs a service project around the holidays. Our effort will benefit a family that has a member with cancer. Each classroom at Prairieview has a family that is in need at this time.

This year our class has a very special family.

Our family includes:
-Mom
-Dad
-8 year old girl (cancer patient)
-9 year old sister
-4 year old sister
-3 year old sister
-11 year old brother
-19 year old brother

Sadly, the 8 year old girl has cancer. Not only does this family struggle with the stress of treatments and illness, but they are less fortunate than us financially too. In order to make this a special holiday, we have "adopted" them. If you are interested in sending in a NEW, not used, present for any one or more of the family members, that would be appreciated. You may send a "family gift."

Directions:
*Please wrap the gift

*LABEL the item with a POST-IT saying what it is (so I know what you bought and then I will remove the post-it)

*Use a name tag sticker and write who it is for (example: Mom, 8 year old girl, 19 year old brother)

Some ideas for NEW (not used) gifts include, but are not limited to: age appropriate games/toys, books, crafts, puzzles, winter hats/gloves, socks, bath and body, perfume, jewelry, candles, kitchen accessories, picture frames/albums, gift certificates, gift baskets, slippers, etc.

Gift cards to consider:
Jewel, Best Buy, Kohls, Wal-Mart, Target, Toys-R-Us, K-Mart, Sears, JC Penny, Carsons, Chili's, TGIFridays, Subway, McDonalds, Burger King, etc.

Thank you in advance for your support and generosity!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Spelling
No spelling this week.

English
We will be sharing our turkey stories we wrote last week. Look for these wonderful stories to come home. Have your child share them with your family! Gobble! Gobble!


Reading
This week we will be reading A Turkey is for Thanksgiving. We will do some activities with this story.

Don't forget to be working on book reports. November/December's book report on a non-fiction story is due Thursday 12/17.


Math
We will be taking the mad minute for x5's on Monday and Tuesday if need be. We will be doing some problem solving and turkey math this week.

Next week after break, we will start x6's. We also will spend the week working on problem solving and learning how to write written responses using t-charts.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Week of November 16-20


Important Dates:
*Science test Wednesday 11/18
*Spelling test Friday 11/20
*Trimester 1 ends Friday 11/20
*English test Tuesday 11/24
*Thanksgiving break 11/25-11/27
*Yearbook orders due Tuesday 12/1


YEARBOOK: Now is the time to place your orders. Yearbooks are $10.00 and the deadline for your orders are Tuesday, December 1, 2009. NO ORDERS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER THIS DATE! Please make checks payable to Lifetouch. Please make sure your child's name, teacher's name, and grade level are marked on the order form. If you have multiple children with orders, please fill out an order for each of them. Yearbook orders went home on Thursday, November 12th and there are only a few extras. Please try not to lose them. If your child loses the order form, all you need to do is send in an envelope with the following information on it: "Yearbook order", student's name, teacher's name, and grade level along with a check made payable to Lifetouch for $10.00. It is very important that you put this information on the envelope; Lifetouch does not know who your child's teacher is. Prairieview Yearbook orders are not paid for at registration!

On Monday, I will be sending home parent conference confirmation sheets. Please return it to school promptly in case any conferences need to be changed. Thank you. I look forward to meeting with you all in a few weeks!


Spelling
This week's words will be Thanksgiving words. There will not be a pretest this week. The test will be Friday. This week's assignments will not be in the spelling workbook. I will provide the assignments.

English
We will finish up our verb unit. Our test is scheduled for Tuesday 11/24. We will begin turkey stories.

Reading
We will be talking about similes and metaphors this week. We will use them in our turkey stories. We will be reading some Thanksgiving stories about Thanksgiving from a person's point of view. Students will be writing turkey stories from a turkey's point of view. We talked about author's point of view when we read the story, The Keeping Quilt last week.

Science
We will take the chapter 4 test on ecosystems test on Wednesday 11/18.

Social Studies
Chapter 12, lesson 2 teaches us about community leaders. Dr. Tiede is a community leader. As we all know he's our Superintendent of our schools. He is going to come into our classroom and talk with us about his role as Superintendent. We look forward to his visit!
Math
We will finish up chapter 4 on multiplication and division with a test on Friday 11/20. We will be taking the x4's mad minute this week. I do plan on taking the x5 the following week, which is only a 2 day week. I'm confident that with the x5's, students will pass the test on Monday or Tuesday. If they need a 3rd day to get their 5 points, I will give it to them after the break.


Friday, November 6, 2009

Week of November 9-13




Important Dates:

*Downers Grove Field Trip Tuesday 11/10

*No school Wednesday for Veterans' Day 11/11

*Spelling Test Friday 11/13

*Vocab quiz Friday 11/13



Classroom Chatter
We had a great time at our first Marble Party on Friday! Great job earing those marbles with good classroom behavior!

Don't forget we have our Downers Grove field trip on Tuesday from 9-2. Parents, if you are not a chaperone, but would still like to meet us for lunch, please do! We should be at Girodano's by 11:45 for lunch. Hope to see you there. Don't forget your child may bring $5-$8 to spend at the local shops after we eat lunch! We look forward to a fun and rewarding day. Hopefully, we'll have good weather too.



As we reach the Thanksgiving break, many units are coming to an end. That means tests! I am planning on testing out of science and english before the Thanksgiving break. We will hold off on the Downers Grove test until after the Thanksgiving break.



Spelling

L. 11 words are spelled with double consonants in the middle. There won't be a pretest due to the shortened week. The test will be Friday.



English

We will continue with the Verb unit. I plan on finishing this unit and having the verb test the Tuesday 11/24 before Thanksgiving break.




Reading

We will be reading the story The Keeping Quilt. We will be talking about author's viewpoint. Students will have a vocab quiz on Friday. The list is in their reading folders.




Science

We will finish up chapter 4 and learn how ecosystems can change. The chapter 4 test is scheduled for Wednesday 11/18.




Social Studies

We will start finishing up our Downers Grove unit by learning about local governments in our social studies textbook. We will be looking at Chapter 12- Your Local Government: Lesson 1 this week. Lesson 1 teaches up about how local governments provide services to communities.



Math

We will finish up chapter 4 with division these next 2 weeks. We will be taking the chapter 4 test on multiplication and division on Friday 11/20. Students WILL be allowed to use their multiplication box to help them, since we are still in the process of mastering our math facts. We won't test on x4's until the week of 11/16.