Gotta Keep Reading!

Check out this video made by students about reading to the tune of "I Got a Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas!!! As the title states....."Gotta Keep Reading"! I showed the students this video Monday before we set off to build are Read to Self Stamina! They did incredible!!!!

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!

Brine Shrimp - "Sea Monkeys"

Sadly, our brine shrimp did not make it through the three day weekend. I showed the students this video during class about what they would eventually look like. They thought it was so cool and decided we needed to have it on our blog page. So, here you go.

Cadet Pride and Books Coming Home

I hope you enjoyed your three day weekend with your family and friends. Mine was great except I would have loved it even more if it were a little warmer. Oh well... we can't be picky can we? :)

There has been a lot going on in 3B that I am excited to share with you. The students are into a super routine and working hard. Have they mentioned anything about Cadet Pride? Cadet Pride is showing that you are caring, respectful, responsible, and trustworthy. It involves all students K-8 working on appropriate behavior. When a student is caught demonstrating Cadet Pride, he/she is given a ticket to put in their class bucket. When the class gets 100 tickets, they get an ice cream party and extra recess. Well....we did it!!! We reached 100 tickets last week and had our ice cream party last Friday. The students were so excited and eager to have ice cream, with toppings of course! I was very proud of them as well. Now we have to set a new goal and decide what our reward will be. Great to see the students working so hard on demonstrating Cadet Pride everywhere in the building. Keep it up 3B!

Science is also a big hit as we have a "mystery object" in our classroom. Students made hypothesis on if the "mystery object" was a seed or an egg. They will find out today that it is called "brine shrimp". Pretty cool. Sadly, a lot of ours died over the weekend but we are able to view some on the internet as well as borrow some from another teacher. There will be more visitors arriving as part of our science unit on plants and animals....What will they be????

As a start to our day, the students are involved in a "Morning Meeting". The Morning Meeting revolves around four components: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message. I will be sending an informational note home about the different components. The main purpose of a morning meeting is to welcome everyone and let them know, and feel, like they are an important part of our class. It was the favorite part of the day with my class last year, and I can tell my 3B family this year is enjoying it. Today we did a greeting called "Shoe Greeting". Ask your 3B child about it and see what they say.

Some students have been asking about when they will be taking books home to read. I told them I would go over that this week. There are so many routines and things to cover that we did not get checking books out for home. We will this week. Today we made it to 23 minutes for our Read to Self stamina! That is great! I can tell I have a class or readers, which I am very excited to see.

I have also introduce a keyboarding website to the students that we will be using to build our keyboarding skills so the students eventually type a little faster. 3rd grade teachers are expected to introduce keyboarding so I found an online site to use. Some students have tried it at home, as I have introduced it and modeled it in the classroom. If your child wants to give it a try at home, the site is http://www.freetypinggame.net. Remind them to put their eyes on the screen, fingers in the home row, and try not to look at fingers. They are so excited to try it and I love their eagerness!

Enjoy your week. Hopefully summer isn't quite over yet!

This Week's Favorites

Madison: My favorite was having ice cream for Cadet Pride tickets
Kacey: I liked the ice cream also
Rachel: Ice cream as well
.Kailyn: Ice cream
Libby: Ice Cream
Jamie: Ice Cream party.
Erika: Same as above.
Reece: Me too!
Angelina: Same as me.
Emma: Science project of Mystery Objects
Lee: I liked the ice cream for Cadet Pride.
Colby: Ice Cream as well
Jada: Ice Cream party.
Everyone else loved the ice cream party as well except:
JD: I liked our art project.
Austin: Recess
Hailey: I liked having guidance for the first time.
Matthew: I liked math today doing Name Collection Boxes
Miss Tweten: Mine was reading "The Best Part of Me" and starting our writing project.
Mrs. Kerian: I enjoyed the whole week as we worked hard on Cadet Pride responsibilities. Keep it up!

Great First Full Week!

I hope your 3B student shared all the great activities we worked through last week - mixing liquids, taking digital pictures, math stations. It was a busy week but great one! I am pleased with the routine the students are getting into and their attitudes about school. Wonderful! Keep it up 3B! I thought I would just comment on a few activities we completing last week.

As I just mentioned, students kicked off science with an activity looking at the inquiry process and what scientist do. We first started off with a question to solve, then made an hypothesis, which the students learned was an educated guess. After that, we decided the procedure of our experiment and then conducted it to make a conclusion. The first question I guided them through was if cranberry juice, Diet 7-up, and blue Gatorade would mix or layer if poured on ice. Many students were surprised to find that it layered. So the next part of the activity was for students to work in groups, set up their experiment and work through the process to determine if all liquids would do the same thing when poured on ice. It was super fun! We found that some do and some don't based on sugar content and density. While it was not important for students to totally understand the rationale, the meaning behind that activity was to help students understand what scientist do everyday. This will set the stage for the many hands on activities we will be doing throughout the year. As one student said, "This is cool!" I agree.

I will be sending a parent note home soon explaining the structure of our literacy. Look for that sometime in the next week or so. Thus far, we have had many mini lessons on what is reading, how to pick books, and what good readers do. If you ask your child what reading is, hopefully they stand on a chair and scream "Thinking". I hope that does not get them in trouble as we try to add excitement in as many areas as possible in 3B. The class has built their "Read to Self" stamina up to 11 minutes, which is fabulous, and I hope to see that continue to build. "Read to Self" is one of the components of the Daily 5, a part of our literacy structure. Ask your child to explain what "Read to Self" looks like. We have been reviewing what it looks like and doesn't look like. Funny how they love to volunteer to model the incorrect way to read to self. Quite a site! This week we will continue to build our stamina, do some assessments, and work into the component of "Work on Writing".

Our specials are in full swing. Remember to send tennis shoes with your child on Monday and Friday as well as return library books on Friday.

Students have also been shown some online math activities on my web page that they enjoyed last week. If your child is bored or looking for something to do at home, get on my web page and go to the math link. There are a ton of online games your child can play to reinforce his/her skills.

Thanks for a great start to the school year. Enjoy your week!

The Best Part of our Week

Rachel: I liked the math stations today.
Kacey: I liked the layering liquids science project
JD: I liked the stations today.
Emma: I liked the liquids in science.
Madison: I liked the group activity of "Where's My Chicken?"
Jada: I liked when we played the chicken game.
Matthew: I liked math stations
Lee: I liked science this week.
Austin: I liked sharing our paper bags and guessing who it belonged to.
Kailyn: I liked the bags also.
Hailey: I liked doing read to self.
Annaleigh: I liked recess.
Kryslynn: I liked science.
Jamie: I enjoyed PE
Angelina: I liked recess.
Colby: I liked playing Star Wars at recess.
Reece: I liked science with the liquids.
Erika: I liked the story about Wodney Wat.
Libby: I liked our group activity.
Alex: I liked math stations today.
Mrs. Kerian: I liked watching the students use the digital cameras to take pictures for math.
Miss Twetten: I enjoyed doing the paper bags and learning about something interesting about the students.

Hot Start to First Full Week

I hope that you enjoyed the weekend - even if it was extremely hot! Looks like our week will start out that way, but then it will hopefully cool off. I love hot summer days, but I'd be okay with the temperature dropping a little bit. Last week was the first week I have ever had students say they did not want to go out for recess because it was too hot! I'd like to think that maybe it was because we were just having too much fun in the classroom.....

I'm sure your child has told you about some of the activities we did the first two days of school. There are always those "expectations and behavior" activities you have to go through with the students, but I really think it is important to teach those in a way that involves the kids and mix it up with other team building activities. So, while we did have to go over some "beginning of the year" things, we did have some fun getting to know each other as well. I can tell that I am going to enjoy this bunch of 3B students!

Thank you to those parents who send snacks for us to "munch on" the first few weeks of school. The students and their tummies were grateful! It is a hard transition from summer to a full day of school so we do appreciate the extra snack in the afternoon. In connection to that, I thought I would comment about our lunch. 3rd grade students, in the past, have gone to lunch and noon recess with kindergarten through 2nd graders. This year, 3rd graders are eating lunch and having noon recess with 4th and 5th graders. Because of that, students in 3B do not eat lunch until 11:50/11:55. That is over a half hour later for the students than when they ate last year so it will take some getting used to. Just remember to encourage your child to eat breakfast in the morning as it will help he/she stay focused during the morning hours.

I hope you had a chance to enjoy the pictures from Open House and the first days of school on my previous blog. I showed it to the students and they were so excited to see themselves on the internet! I will continue to post more pictures and video throughout the year.

Highlights of the week to come involve getting into the Daily 5 for literacy, using digital cameras in math to explore numbers, exploring the inquiry process of science with a liquid layering activity, and building a deep understanding that we are ALL writers and authors. I am also going to try to introduce an online keyboarding activity for students to work on keyboarding skills so they can prepare to type on their own blog pages. As you can see, we will be busy as well as have fun along the way. More information will also be sent home soon to share information about the Daily 5 and our first math unit. Keep your eyes open for that coming home in your child's "Important Papers" folder. Remember that this folder goes back and forth between school and home each day.

Thanks for a great start to the year. Remember that if you have any questions or concerns, please email me or call me as we are a team.

Enjoy the week and stay cool.

Excellent First Day and Open House!

I was so glad to see everyone made it to Open House last night! I could tell when the night was over what a wonderful bunch of students I was going to have! I was so excited I could hardly sleep!

3B had a great first day of fun activities, laughs, as well as covering some of the "must do" discussions for the first day. We started out the day getting to know each other through an activity on the smartboard where the students actually go to throw a koosh ball at the smartboard....yes, THROW something at the smartboard! It was a fun way to get to know one another and start the day! We also put some "yummy in our tummy" by enjoying some Skittles. Little did they know, when they took their Skittles they would have to tell me something about themselves based on how many Skittles they had (for example, six Skittles meant tell me six things). Everyone loves a treat once and a while. The students went on a scavenger hunt through the room, which are included in some of the pictures, as well as ended the day with a quick activity with all 3rd graders. Each child should have brought home a copy of our "wordle" today in which they shared words and activities about our first day! As you can tell from the wordle, it was a fantastic day. (But I know many will be a little tired tomorrow.)

Enjoy the pictures of Open House and our first day! I am excited for our school year together!

Welcome Back To School

Hello everyone! It's almost time for school! Are you excited! I am very, very excited!!!!! This is where parents, family, friends, and students can look for information I post about our day or week, as well as share pictures! There is also a spot for parents, friends, and yourself to comment. So, if you would like, become a follower of this blog page and keep current on 3B events.

Can't wait to meet you at Open House! Don't forget to check out the book fair! I will be posting your pictures from Open House soon!