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!