Snow Pants and Boots...a Must for Recess!

The associates at recess have shared with the teachers that many students are going out for recess without their boots or snow pants.  Students know the "expectation" that if they do not have their books AND snow pants, they can not go off the cement area.  Sadly, the teachers have been told many students are trying to sneak off without their boots and snow pants anyway.  Therefore we are letting all parents know the expectations as well so that they can discuss this with students as well.  We will review the expectation with the students once again as well.

Students MUST have boots and snow pants in order to leave the cement area at recess.  This includes chasing balls off the cement or various other games in which the students need to run off the cement for a moment.  No boots and snow pants means no going off the cement for any reason until further notice.  Even when it looks like there is not a lot of snow, there usually is mud, and we do not want that brought into the classroom.

So please remind your 3B student to wear his/her snow pants and boots every day until further notice.  Thanks for your help!

Student Led Conferences

Just giving everyone a heads up that conferences are coming up next month.  Information about signing up online, as we usually do, will be sent home soon.

3rd grade students must attend their spring conference with parents as these conferences are student led, meaning the student themselves will be leading the conference with parents and myself listening and commenting.  The students are aware of this, a little nervous, but I have promised them we will practice a ton and be ready to "wow" our parents that evening.  It only makes sense that the student we are discussing be present as well to share all the great things he/she has been doing as well as goal areas to work on.

So, just a early notice that students must attend conferences in the spring with their parent(s).  Look for more information to be sent home soon.

Multiplication and Division Madness

Students have been introduced to solving multiplication and division story problems in our math curriculum.  They are using strategies to determine if they are multiplying or dividing as well as various ways to solve a problem to better understand it.  With this, we have reviewed multiplying by 0, 1, 2, 5, and 10s.  These are the basic facts that students should have a pretty good grasp on at this point. Now it is time to get moving on the others.

Our math series does not put a lot of emphasis on practicing multiplication and division facts during class time.  It is expected that students will work on these outside of class (as well as continue building and reinforcing their addition and subtraction facts).  With that being said, I just wanted to send a reminder to students to keep practicing their facts at home.  There are many activities on my blog page for students to work through to build their facts as well as Moby Max and First in Math online sites.  Students have their passwords and login information to work through these sites as well on their own.

We will be setting up a reinforcement/incentive for students to work on their multiplication facts at home.  Look for information about that to come home by the end of the week.  Until then, students have homework every night of reading and working on facts!  Please encourage them to do so and work them!

Mrs. P's Writing Contest....Winner Announced

Well...we did not win but I am still very proud of my 3B students!!!  Making the final 5 in the nation for her writing contest is something to be very proud of!  We received a package from Mrs. P last week with a certificate (we placed 4th in the nation), a letter from Mrs. P, a comment page from the judges about our story, and $50.00 worth of gift card money to buy new books for our classroom!  So even though we did not win "the grand prize", it was a lot of fun and the students should be proud.  I think they all now see how writing can be very fun!!!

We Made the Final Five!!!! Yeah!!!

As many of you know, we entered a writing contest a while ago with Mrs. P, the author and television star we skyped with a few months ago.  We waited many months to find out how we did.  I think the article attached shared why we are so excited....

We can't wait until the 15th!!!!   (For those who can not log on to my blog page, we made the final 5 across the US!!!  We find out the 15th if we are the winner. We are all very excited just to be in the final 5!!!)

New Semester....Crazy Weather.....New Learning!

I hope everyone loved their holiday break!  It was great to hear all about the students' Christmas celebrations and what they did when they did not have school.  It was also wonderful to have such big hugs when they returned to school and told me they missed me!!! So many were glad to be back at school, which was wonderful to hear!  I missed them as well.

I guess Old Man Weather thought we should not have a full week of school when we return.  A blizzard and so much cold weather!!! Burr!!!! While the week is suppose to start out chilly, it sounds like we should be able to get outside by the end of the week.  We hope! At least we did get some activities done inside, and the students were wonderful, remembering all their Cadet Pride and working hard!  I was totally "wowed"!

While we only had three days of school last week, we did get started on various activities.  We also spent some time reviewing the Daily 5 in literacy, the Daily 3 in math, and Cadet Pride throughout the school.  Students maintained their stamina in all parts of the Daily 5 so we are ready to get back at  guided reading this week.  We are using a new "guide" to make sure that we hit all parts of the Daily 5 throughout the week.  Students will use the guide pictured below to monitor their choices for the Daily 5 throughout the week and then turn it in.  I think it will help the students continue to be responsible in their choices.

We also reviewed perimeter and area, which we were working on before the holiday break. Students made "Perimeter People" (which we also used to review area).  Everyone worked so hard and did a super job creating paper people out of 1 inch squares of construction paper.  This week we will be jumping into unit 4 in math after taking a pretest.

The students were also excited to start learning about writing with dialogue.  To begin this process, we are starting with understanding that dialogue is communication between people.  We started writing comic strips!!!  This week we will be moving into using that dialogue to write it with proper punctuation in stories.

As you can tell, we are busy as usual.

The sad part of the week was that the Big Blast was cancelled again.  Bummer!!!  The administration decided they will now hold the Big Blast sometime in March.  Let's cross our fingers that works out.

End of December Reminders

Hard to believe the end of December is fast approaching.  I wanted to send a few reminders before the 19th is here.

1.  Please remember to have students reading at home.  As I have mentioned before many times, students in 3rd grade do not have a lot of homework but are expected to be reading at home.  With that, remember that students can participate in the Book It program encouraging reading and earning a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut.  November calendars were due last week and December calendars can be returned on the 19th or after the first of the new year.  Keep reading!

2.  3rd grade students should have brought home their recent math assessment over unit 1 last week, adding and subtracting large numbers.  With that, there was a note from me and a review packet sent home.  If you did not see on and you are a parent of a 3rd grade student, ask them about it or contact me.   Continue to keep reviewing addition and subtraction of large number.

3.  We are finishing up our literacy unit next week focusing on the strategies and skills of text structure, predicting, summarizing, contractions, compound words, and recognizing figurative language uses of similes and idioms.  Our theme has focused on science so it is a nice way to cover science across the curriculum as well.  We will do a quick assessment right before the break and return ready to start theme 3.

4.  Our current math unit is on measurement.  While measuring to the nearest inch and half inch appear simple for students, measuring to the nearest 1/4 inch is more challenging for many.  We will continue to work on this as well as move into perimeter and area before the break.

5.  This week we are interrupting social studies to do some coding for the Hour of Code, which starts today. I will be posting information about that during the week as well.  Next week we will wrap up our social studies unit on Communities with a project based assessment.

6.  Parents, please remember to send boots and snow pants with your 3B student even if there is not a lot of snow outside.  Students are coming in wet from recess when they don't have the necessary clothing and then have to sit all afternoon in wet clothes.  The playground is pretty muddy and wet so boots are appreciated.

As always, we are busy in 3B!

We Have a Visitor! Meet Clark!

Students were shocked Friday afternoon when they returned from music to see a visitor in our classroom.  While I was at a meeting, an elf decided to join our classroom leaving us a message and a book to read.  We were all surprised to look up and see an elf swinging in one of the paper lanterns from our ceiling!!!

After reading the book, we learned that we had to give him a name. The name the class voted on was Clark.  We also learned that we can not touch Clark as he will return every night to Santa's village to report if the students in 3B are naughty or nice.  Hmm....Wonder what he will tell Santa?

We are excited to have Clark join our class. Hopefully he has nothing but wonderful things to share with Santa about each and every one of us!

Bubble Bonanza!

STEM stands for "science, technology, engineering and math".  If you have not heard of it before, you will now and continue to hear about STEM as it is a big push in schools right now.  While we use technology, science, and math in class, not always to we recognize that many professions use STEM skills as well.  Our goal is to expose students to various skills needed to enter professions that utilize STEM.

Last year, the 3rd grade teachers were awarded a STEM grant in which students explored bubbles as well as engineered various wants for different tasks.  This year, we continued the Bubble Bonanza with a full day of bubbles.  Students were asked to complete many challenges such as make a wand to make the largest bubble, make a want to make the smallest bubbles, the most bubbles, etc.  Various materials were provided and lots of discussion happened throughout the day.  A big question students first needed to determine was what shape was the bubble if the wand was not a circle.  We found that no matter what shape of the wand, the bubble always turned to a circle when it came out.  Interesting!

We will continue with the STEM activities, as well as many others, throughout the year.  Here are some pictures of the beginnings of our Bubble Bonanza.

Thank You Mrs Johnson!

Toni Johnson, Avery's mom, visited us in 3B last week and shared information with the students about eating healthy.  She shared facts about good sugar and bad sugar as well as how to make our own flavored water.  It was very interesting, and we appreciated her coming in to teach us about eating healthy.  Everyone needs a reminder once and a while.  We loved the flavored water!