Week of December 17-21

Important Dates:
*Social Studies Test Tuesday 12/18
*Bowling Test Tuesday 12/18
*Science quiz Wednesday 12/19
*Bowling Thursday 12/20
*Spelling Test Friday 12/21
*Polar Express at the Tivoli Friday 12/21


Classroom Chatter
Ms. Stainman needs parent volunteers to help tie roller skates during PE classes for third grade. She needs help the week of January 8-January 22. You can come as many or as few of times as you want and can go into any other class or your child's own. We have gym from 1:35-2:00 everyday. You can email her at tstainman@ccsd66.org if you are interested. Thanks for your help.


Thursday afternoon, 3rd grade will go bowling for PE. Students are allowed to purchase snacks at the snack bar. You can send your child with money to school Thursday to make a snack purchase. Students need to make sure they wear gym shoes to school that day. They'll be bowling in them.


Friday we are off to the Tivoli to see Polar Express as a school wide field trip. Remember to bring a sack lunch. We will be eating before we go to the movies.



Spelling
This week we will take a break from our spelling workbooks. Students will be studying Egypt words this week. There will be a list of 10 Egypt spelling words. No pretest this week. The test is on Friday. The list is in the spelling folder. Students will have spelling activities this week to practice their Egypt words.



English
We will spend this week writing holiday stories. They will be similar to our wonderful turkey stories. Students will be writing a Holiday story from a Holiday character's point of view. Look for them to come home by the end of the week to share with the family over the holidays! These will not be for a grade.


Reading
We are continuing reading and learning about Egypt. Students will finish up reading our Eye of Egypt books. Students will be learning about time lines to help understand how long ago Ancient Egyptian times were. We also will be learning about hieroglyphics and writing with them.



Science
We will finish up with activity 6 on the space shuttle There will be a short quiz on Wednesday. Wednesday's quiz will cover activities 2-6 in the space book. A study guide and notes will go home on Monday. They will be in the science folder.



Social Studies
We will finish chapter two with a test on Tuesday. The study guide went home last week. It is in the social studies folder.



Math
This week we will work on ordered pairs with graphs and take a checkpoint. We will spend the rest of the week working on a graph project. Students will be taking x7's in mad minutes this week.



Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. See you next year! :)

-Mrs. Csorba

Week of December 10-14

Important Dates:
*English Test Wed. 12/12
*Spelling Test Fri. 12/14
*Spirit Day Friday-Wear Prairieview Shirts
*Movie Night Friday 12/14



Classroom Chatter
*I was so touched by the generosity and thoughtfulness of those of you who donated to our adopted family. We collected gifts along with Mr. Trinco's class for a family of 7 children and a mom and dad. EACH family member will receive several presents to open! How cool is that?!


Here are pictures I took of our presents we collected. Again, thank you all so very much!








*Don't forget Friday is Prairieview Spirit Day. Wear a PV sweatshirt, T-shirt, or our school colors to show your school spirit!

* A Six Flags Reading Log will be coming home on Monday. Your child's 20 minutes of reading can also count towards this. Students who read for 6 hours will earn a free admission to Six Flags Great America. They are due FEBRUARY 22, 2008. This is optional, but I highly encourage everyone to do this, especially since you already read for me AND it is a FREE ticket!

Spelling
Lesson 15's words are spelled with -ing. The test will be Friday. The list is in the spelling folder.


English
We will finish up our Verb unit with a test on Wednesday. We will then work on writing a holiday story till we break for winter.


Reading
We are continuing with our Egypt unit. Students will learn about the steps of making a mummy and work on sequencing skills. We also will learn about Queen Cleopatra. Students will practice self questioning and inferencing skills as we read about her.



Science
We began our space unit. Last week students met Borg and Zard. They are aliens that helped up figure out which way is up. This week students will learn about gravity, weightlessness, and the space shuttle.



Social Studies
We will learn about what an urban community is this week in lesson 3. We will be reading about Chicago to help learn more about urban communities. We will be taking a test next Tuesday 12/18 on Ch. 2. Look for a study guide to come home this week.


Math
We finished up chapter 3 on multiplication and division. We will continue multipliation mad minutes this week. Students will be taking a mad minute on x6's. We also will begin chapter 4: Using Data and Probability. This week students will be collecting and organizing data, making bar graph and pictographs, and understanding and reading line graphs.

Week of December 3-7

Important Dates:
*Adopted Family gifts due Wed. 12/5
*November's Reading Party Thurs. 12/6
*Spelling Test Fri. 12/7
*Spirit Day Friday 12/7Wear RED for Caring
*Movie Night slips due 12/11
*Movie Night 12/14


Classroom Chatter

Parent-Teacher Conferences: Thank you all for your time and support during last week's conferences. It was great to meet with everyone and have a chance to discuss the students! If you have any questions or comments regarding your child's progress in school, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or voicemail. Thank you!



All items/gifts need to be turned in by Wednesday for our holiday service project. So far, our class has collected two gifts for the mother, and 2 Target gift cards and a gift for the 4 year old girl. Please help if you can! Whatever you can give would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again for helping make this family's holiday a little more bright!
Here is the family information again:



*Cintorion (cancer patient) 2 year old boy

*Caron 9 year old boy

*Cinnica 6 year old boy

*Cinniqua 5 year old girl

*Cinni'ya 4 year old girl

*Darion 6 year old boy

*baby boy 1 month old-no name yet

Mom

Dad


*Bowling: A permission slip has been sent home about our gym field trip to the bowling alley. We will be going bowling in the afternoon on Thursday, December 20th. There is no cost for this trip, but you may send a little money for your child to purchase a drink or snack from the snack bar. Please send the permission slips as soon as possible. Thank you!



*Reading Party: Those students who have completed reading 28 days for the month of November are invited to attend this reading party. Look for more details to be sent home regarding lunch for the party. Thank you!



Spelling:
Lesson 14 is this week. These words are irregular past tense words. The lists are in the spelling folders. The test will be on Friday.



English:
This week we will learn about irregular verbs and contractions. We will finish up the unit next week with a chapter review. The test for verbs is scheduled for Wednesday 12/12. Look for a study guide to come home by the end of this week.





Reading:
Walk like an Egyptian! We are continuing to work on our Ancient Egypt unit. The students have read and learned about the importance of the Nile River. This week we will read about the Egyptian afterlife, mummies, and pyramids. We are continuing to practice various reading skills as we find facts and opinions, compare and contrast present day and ancient Egypt, and find the main idea and details within the book.



Science
We will begin our next unit, Space. We will be learning about space through our hands-on experiments. Students will be completing a space booklet for each activity. I will provide supplemental notes and study guide information. I plan on completing the first five activities before we break for the holidays. There will be a short quiz covering the concepts from these activities in 2 weeks. The quiz is tentatively planned for 12/17. The first lesson teaches us which way is up. Students will use aliens, Borg and Zard to help them learn which way is up!!!



Social Studies:
We will begin lesson 2 this week. Students will learn what an suburban community is as we visit Levittown, New York. We will compare this community to our communities of Downers Grove, Darien, and Woodridge. We will be finishing up chapter 2 before we break for the holidays. I plan on testing out of chapter two the last week of school before break. (12/18 is tentatively planned for the Chapter 2 test).



Math:
We will finish up chapter 3 this week. The test is scheduled for Friday. Students will be taking a checkpoint Thursday for a grade. They will be allowed to use any notes, the book and their multiplication boxes to help them. They will NOT be able to use anything for Friday's test. Students have been introduced and taught all multiplication and division concepts that they will need for Friday's test. If your child does get stuck on a multiplication fact, remind them that they can use repeated addition to help figure out the answer. We will be taking x5's in mad minutes this week.