Important Dates

*Vocab quiz Monday 2/1

* No school Tuesday 2/2

Teachers Institute Day

*District 66 Spelling Bee Thursday 2/4

Classroom Chatter

Mrs Csorba and her adorable son are doing GREAT!

The class is so excited for her and we can't wait for the day

they come for a visit.

It has been a great week getting to know all of the students.

They are a wonderful group! If you need to contact me ,

my email is Mrs. McHale mmchale@ccsd66.org

Spelling

L. 19 is the unit we are working on next week. We will not have a pretest on Monday because of the shortened school week. We will be working on -or words. Test is on Friday.

English

We are continuing Expository Writing (Expository Writing defines,

describes, explains and gives information). This week we will be focused on finishing our rough draft .

Reading

Vocabulary Quiz on Chapters 5-7 in Stone Fox is on Monday.

This week we will be finishing the book with chapters 8-10.

Vocabulary list for these chapters will come home Monday.

We will also be watching the movie Stone Fox.

Science

We are learning how the earth and moon interact and we will be finding out "What is our Solar system". Cosmic Capers came on Wednesday ..we learned a lot and fun was had by all!

Social Studies

We are working on chapter 9 and learning skills on budgeting and managing our money.

Math

We will continue our unit on Geometry. We learned about Radius, diameter and circumference along with congruent and symmetry. This week we will learn about shapes in motion and problem solving using logical reasoning.

Week of January 25-29

Important Dates

*Vocab Quiz Monday 1/25

*Cosmic Capers Wednesday 1/27

*Spelling Test Friday 1/29

Classroom Chatter

If you haven't heard from your child by now, today (Friday) 1/22 will be my last day. I was sad to announce this to the class Thursday. I will be in touch via email with updates and pictures once Baby Csorba is delivered. Thank you for all your well wishes and support. We are very excited to start this new chapter in our lives!

Congrats to Emmanuelle! She was the runner up in today's 3rd grade spelling bee. She will participate in the District's spelling bee 2/4/10!

Spelling

L. 17 is a review unit of Lessons 10-16. There isn't a pretest this week. The test will be on Friday. A practice test will come home Monday.

English

We will continue with expository writing. Last week, we learned what expository writing and the parts of an expository composition. We then focused on writing HOOKS...which is the attention getting sentence. This week we will focus writing the introductory paragraph.

Reading

We will take the quiz on Chapters 1-4 vocabulary. This week we will be reading chapters 5-7. The vocabulary list will come home Monday for the words in these chapters. The quiz will be next Monday.

Science

We are still in chapter 10 lesson 1. This week we will discuss seasons. Scientists from High Touch High Tech are coming on Wednesday for our Cosmic Capers in-school field trip experience. It'll be "out of this world!"

Social Studies

We will begin chapter 9 on economy.

Math

We will be taking a mad minute in x12. We will continue with our geometry unit. This week we will learn about circles (circumference, radius, and diameter), congruent and similar figures, symmetry and slides, flips, and turns.

January 18-22

Important Dates:
* No school Monday 1/18 MLK
*Friendly Letter Quiz Tuesday 1/19
*Culture Days 1/20 & 1/21
*Spelling Test Friday 1/22



Classroom Chatter

I am very happy to announce that Mrs. Marge McHale will be taking over for me while I'm on maternity leave. The students met her last week when she came in for the day. She is very excited to be a part of our Prairieview family! I know you will be happy with her!





Spelling
L. 16's words are 1+1+1 words that end with and -ed or -ing. Remember, 1+1+1 words have one vowel, one consonant after the vowel and one syllable. When these words need an -ed or -ing ending, you double the final consonant before adding -ed or -ing. There isn't a pretest this week due to the shortened week. The test is Friday.

English

We will be finishing up our Friendly Letters. Students need to fill out the envelope they received Friday to mail to the person they wrote their friendly letter to. Please include a stamp so we can mail them too!

We will work on expository writing this week. We will begin with writing hooks. Hooks are the attention getting sentence we want to start our papers off with.

Reading

This week we will begin reading the novel, Stone Fox. We will be completing journal response sheets after every few chapters. Students will have a vocabulary quiz next Monday 1/25. The list will come home Tuesday. There are 10 words from the first 4 chapters they will learn.

Science

We will begin space this week.

Social Studies
We look forward to our culture days on Wednesday and Thursday of this week! We also will be watching the movie An American Tail as our culture/immigration unit in chapter 3 comes to an end. By chance, does anyone own this on DVD? Can you send it in? Thanks in advance.

Math

We will begin ch. 11 geometry this week. Students will also be taking a mad minute in x11.

Week of January 11-15

Important Dates:
*IOWA testing this week 1/11-1/13

*English test 1/13

*Spelling test 1/15

*Cosmic Capers money due 1/15

Classroom Chatter

This week students will be taking IOWA tests in reading and math. Like everyday, students should get a good night's rest and eat a good breakfast!

A very BIG thank you to all of my students and parents for throwing me a baby shower Friday afternoon. It has been so wonderful having a terrific group of students and parents to work with. It is going to be VERY DIFFICULT to say good-bye soon for my leave. I will plan on coming in for a visit with baby, once I recover, to introduce him or her to the class! I also will plan on emailing the news too!

Spelling
L. 15's words are spelled with -ing endings. There will be a pretest on Monday. The test is on Friday.

English

We will be taking the unit 4 Adjective/Adverb test on Wednesday.

Reading

We will be taking IOWA tests this week (Monday-Wednesday) during our reading (and math) block. We will spend the rest of the week working on writing extended responses.

Science

This week we will begin our study on Space. It's going to be "out of this world!" Space is chapter 10 in our science books. We also have Cosmic Capers on Wednesday 1/20.

Social Studies

We will be finishing up chapter 3 this week with lesson 4. Students should be turning in their plan sheet for their culture day on Monday. Culture day is scheduled for 1/20 and 1/21. Students have already been assigned their date.

Math

We will be taking IOWA's in math this week. We will finish up our graphs. The ch. 4 test is scheduled for Friday. We will be taking a mad minute in x10's this week.

Week of January 4-8

Important Dates:
*Spelling test Friday 1/8

Classroom Chatter
Happy New Year! I hope 2010 brings you all happiness and good health! 3 weeks until my due date.... 1/23/10. I plan on working up to and maybe even past my due date unless baby comes sooner! My leave officially starts February 1st.

Hot Lunch: Please be advised that as of January 4, 2010 there will be a price increase in the student hot lunch program. The price of hot lunch will be $2.50 per meal.

Roller Skating: The children will be rollerskating in gym class in January. Mrs. Stainman is looking for parent volunteers to help tie up some laces throughout the day. If you would like to volunteer for this, please contact Mrs. Stainman at tstainman@ccsd66.org.


Spelling
L.14's words are irregular past tense. There will be a pretest Monday. The test will be Friday.

English
We will resume our adjective/adverb unit. We will learn about adverbs this week. We also will learn how to write a friendly letter. Expository writing begins this week as well.

Reading
We will begin a new story, Lost and Found. We will work on the reading skill sequence of events. There will be a vocab quiz Thursday. The list will go home on Monday. It will be in the reading folder. Information about the next book report will come home this week too.

Social Studies
We will continue with chapter 3 lesson 3 this week. Information about Culture Day will come home this week too. This project will be in lieu of a chapter test.

Science
We will begin our next unit of study the following week.

Math
We will continue with chapter 4 this week. We will learn about stem and leaf plots, probability, outcomes, and problem solving with graphs. We also will continue working on our graph projects in class that we started before break. This week's mad minute will be x9's. Next week we have IOWA testing during math. The chapter 4 test is scheduled for Friday, 1/15.