Pizza and Reading!!! YUMMY!

Looks like we have a great week ahead of us as the sun is out and the forecast is great!  The students have a busy week so it will be nice to have sunshine to perk everyone up.

We started MAPs testing last week, the first test being math.  I was so impressed with how hard everyone tried.  Wow!  This week we will be taking science on Monday, reading on Tuesday, and language on Thursday.  The test are all at 1:15 in the afternoon except on Thursday, which is at 8:45.  Please be sure your child is at school on time that day because we will be starting our tests as soon as everyone is ready.  I appreciate the parents switching appointments around so that students are not missing these tests.  It makes everything a lot easier so thank you.  Give your 3B child an extra hug each night this week because some of the questions on these tests are pretty hard!  They have been troopers and giving their best!!!  Very proud of my 3B kiddoes!

3B has caught the bug...yes, we have a little bug floating around....and it's not the bugs we have been studying in science.  Lots of students sniffing, coughing, and feverish....including the teachers.  Please encourage your child to get lots of rest, drink plenty of water, and wash their hands as much as possible.  I have already refilled our hand sanitizer bottle 3 times and decided to purchase a big one because of how fast we are going through them.  If you would be willing to donate a bottle of hand sanitizer, we would greatly appreciate it.  We know it will be put to good use!!!

Last Friday we also finished our first math assessment over unit 1.  There are a few people who need to finish the assessment, so please look for your 3B child to bring his/her home by the end of the week.  I will also be sending home a letter explaining the assessment and the ratings that go with it.  I am pretty sure most of you are familiar with (B) for beginning, (S) for secure, and (D) for developing as that is the same ratings that were used in 2nd grade.  By the end of the week, I hope to be moving into unit 2 on addition and subtraction facts.

October kicks off Book-It!!!!  This is a reading incentive program sponsored by Pizza Hut that a lot of students find pleasure in....who doesn't like Pizza Hut?????  A calendar will be sent home with your child October 1st stating the goal set for him/her based on minutes of reading.  Your child should record the amount of time he/she reads at home and return the calendar at the end of each month for their Pizza Hut coupon.  While I hope that all 3rd graders are reading at home, I do not require all students to participate.  This is a totally optional activity that runs each month October - March.  BUT.....and yes it is a biggy....those students who do participate all six months will celebrate by having a pizza party with me!!!!!  I will be supplying the pizza and drink in April for all the students who reach or surpass their reading goal ALL six months. Those that do not participate, will eat lunch in the cafeteria as usual with a different teacher.  So, I hope that you encourage your child to read and participate......now....GET READING!!!!

I also wanted to let you know that I will be starting guided reading this week.  3B has build our stamina up in read to self, read to someone, word works, and work on writing that we are ready to get rolling.  I have done various writing and reading assessments on students, held individual conferences, and am ready to begin guided reading.  Based on the spread of levels in our classroom, my goal is to meet with every student every day, but that may be through guided reading or individual conferencing.  The students are eager to start guided reading....so am I!!!!!

Hopefully your little scientists has shared all our findings and information about our insects and critters.  We now have aphids on our plants, fruit flies, an ant farm, daphnia, and damsel flies.  Friday we put the daphnia with the damsel flies.  This morning, many of the daphnia were gone!!!! Wonder what happened????? The students will soon find out. :)

Have a great week!

Wow! What are Daphnia? Take a Look!

The students were so excited today in science as we had a new visitor. So far we have done insects and land animals. Today we had our first water animal called a daphnia. The students were amazed that they looked transparent and you could see their digestive track AND eggs!! It was also very amazing that the daphnia have antennae that look like tree branches. Very cool!!! I thought I would share a picture of them so you know what they look like as well. The students also learned what an "exoskeleton" was, as daphnia have them. Do you know what that is???

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!

On the Hunt for Words

Today I read the book Max's Words to the class. The book is about a boy who wants to start collecting things like his older brothers, and he decides he wants to collect words. He ends up cutting single words out of magazines, newspapers, etc. until his room is covered. He then finds out that if he puts the words together, he can make wonderful sentences that lead to a super story. The class was so excited about it that we decided we wanted to start collecting words and see what we can create with them. So the students decided they would like to start cutting out individual words, all different kinds, shapes, and colors, to bring in. We will see how many we have by next Friday. If we need more, we will go for one more week. If not, we will see what kind of story we can create......simply from the power of words. (A valuable lesson for writers). So, please remind your 3B child to do his/her part hunting and cutting out words that can be brought in each day. I will have a container that they can put the words in every morning.

Thanks for your cooperation and support. This is a wonderful activity that pulls together our discussions about how writers get ideas and how words/sentences can be powerful (besides a little review on making descriptive sentences). The students are very, very, excited!

Have fun!

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!