Remember To Be Responsible!

Another week has quickly approached. I can't believe that it is October next week. Time goes so quickly. The students are amazed on how fast the day goes, let alone the month. I guess that is a good sign that we are busy as well as having fun.

My day started out a little disappointing as many students in 3B forgot their homework. They were to bring in a book in which they practice "reading the punctuation", a strategy we have been practicing to build our fluency. Sadly, almost half the class forgot their books. A reminder note was send home last Friday......so I think you understand why I am disappointed. Because this was homework, our "Character Counts" slips will have to be completed by each student who forget as they demonstrated lack of responsibility. I hope this isn't the sign of what the year will be like.....I know it won't! Let's just remember to try and be responsible students....we can do it!!!!

Your child should have brought his/her word works list of words home as well last Friday. The list shows how your child did on his/her word works test Friday. If there was a word or words highlighted on the sheet, the students missed that word(s) on the test. I was very pleased how well the class did as a whole. This shows me they are taking all five days of our word works very serious and using each mode of learning focused on. This week we are focusing on the sounds /ar/ makes. We called this one of the "Bossy Rs". Look for your child's list of words to be brought home Tuesday. I have enclosed pictures of some of the activities students do during the week with their words.

Tomorrow we will be having our first math assessment. There is no reason to study for this assessment so don't freak out on me looking for materials sent home to study. It is over a review chapter. There are two components to the assessment: an oral/dry erase board assessment as well as a written assessment. Hopefully I will be sending your child's assessment home by the end of the week with an informational sheet attached explaining the ratings.

My student teacher, Miss Twetten, is only with us 3 more weeks before she moves on to kindergarten. I just wanted to let you know that she will be teaching math and science the next 2 weeks (with my supervision of course). She needs to do some lead teaching as part of her student teaching. Up to now, she has been leading the Morning Meeting the last 2 weeks to start the day. I will still be in the room, participating, and monitoring the students as well as her teaching. I just wanted to let you, the parents, know.

Finally, I wanted to make you aware that your 3rd grade child will start the district assessment test called MAPS this week. The students took this assessment online last year and will be taking it again this year. The assessment is done in the fall as well as spring, with the hope of growth being shown. We will start by taking the MAPs test for math this Friday. We will then be taking science, language, and reading next week. I know we can't help it if our children get sick, but please try to schedule dentist or doctor appointments around these assessments. It is harder for the student to make them up than have them here taking it with the rest of the class. Also be sure your 3B child gets plenty of rest and eats a great breakfast. Thanks for your cooperation and understanding!

I have also posted two pictures of students showing great reading stamina with Read to Self! Great job 3B!

Have a great week! We have more science critters coming so I know we will!

Read to Self Stamina -Wow!!!!

Happy Monday! I hope that everyone enjoyed the beautiful weekend! Let's cross our fingers that we have many more like that!

Last week was a great week for 3B as we had lots of wonderful activities and a super discussion about September 11th. I hope you had time to look at the Wordle the students all created about keywords connected to September 11th. If you did not, you can always check it out on the side of my blog page. We watched some great videos, read a super book, and did some writing about heroes to pull together everything we learned and talked about. The students were so eager to learn more as well as caring and empathetic. I hope they had a chance to share some of our learning with you.

We were also busy in science planting our seeds for our next visitors. Wonder what they will be? Students did an excellent job being scientist and using their eyes to go on a science hunt last week outside in the butterfly garden. We were looking for various plants and animals so that we could do a comparison of the two. I have some great pictures to share that I hope to post this week. Students were surprised to see how many "critters" they could find in the butterfly garden. This week we will be creating an ant farm as well as anxiously awaiting our next visitors? HMMMMM?????

I am also very pleased with the progress students in 3B are making with their Read to Self and Read to Someone in literacy. We have built our Read to Self stamina to 30 minutes and our Read to Someone stamina to 15 minutes!!! Wow! Excellent. Today I will be introducing another part of the Daily 5/literacy component and that is Word Works. Some people like to call it spelling, but it is a different routine than the traditional spelling. With Word Works, students are involved in various activities throughout the week that focus on different modes of learning (hands on, oral, visual, etc.) Today your child picked his/her words off a focus word list that the class created. He/she will be bringing those words home on Tuesday. While it is not necessary that you study the words at home, I have found that some parents like to see what words the students are working on and review them at home. So we will be sending the list of words home Tuesdays. Our focus this week is using the "silent e" rule with words to make the vowel long and say it's name. Our Word Works tests then are always on Friday, part of the 5 day routine. If you have any questions or concerns about Word Works, feel free to send me an email or call.

Within literacy, I just wanted to let you know that I am completing some individual assessments this week and will hopefully be starting guided reading next week sometime. Along with guided reading and various mini lessons, I will be starting individual conferences with students on their reading strategies and goals to work on while reading. As you can tell, we are a busy class.

Book Orders....the students are anxiously waiting for them. I am sending our first set of book orders home today. If you decide you would like to order some books, please return the order form with your 3B child by Friday. You can send cash or a check. If you are writing a check, please add all orders (if ordering from more than one book order form) together and make the check out to me. I order the books online so that they arrive quicker and use my credit card to make the purchase so if the checks are made out to me it is a lot easier to complete the order. There are many wonderful books in the book orders!

My last comment is not a positive one. It appears as if my digital camera has been taken by someone in 3B. The students have been taking digital pictures for various activities so it is often in use. Well, last week I set the camera on my desk when students were coming in in the morning. After the students arrived and I greeted them, I realize the camera was gone. This all happened in about 20 minutes time. I discussed it with the class and many saw it on my desk but no one seems to know where it went. If you have time, please discuss this with your child and see what he/she says. It saddens me to know someone in 3B would steal something that did not belong to them. We also lost a bunch of pictures we had taken for a book we are creating so now we have to take them all over. Bummer huh?

Have a wonderful week!