Week of October 31st

I love these kids!

Marissa has received an "Eagle Eye" card TWICE now! She is such a sweet, helpful girl!

On Wednesday we celebrated Avery's birthday. If you know Avery, you should count yourself as lucky. She is kind, helpful, sweet, funny, and as cute as a button!

Annika was our amazing Star Helper this week. Her she is making some candy corn arrays! I love when math and treats go together ;)

I am loving the fall colors in view from our playground. Isn't Fall just the best?!

Evan was rocking a stylin' new haircut!

Easton and TJ were twins on Monday! And they didn't even plan it!

This week in reading our genre is Historical Fiction. We will be reading "The Castle on Hester Street," "Next Stop, America,' and "Sailing to America." Our essential question is" Why do people immigrate to new places?" We will work on the skills of predicting, determining theme, choosing precise nouns, and some different figurative language skills (similes, alliterations, and onomatopoeia). Our spelling this week will focus on words with long e sounds.

In math this week, we will continue on with Chapter 4. So far, we have worked on mastering multiplies of 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 3, and 6. This week will get a little trickier, as we will work on multiplying with 7, 8, and 9. We have been making flashcards in class, so feel free to "quiz" your child at home. Our goal is to be able to recall facts quickly and fluently by the end of the year! As always, thank you for all your support at home!

In Social Studies, we will be learning about why and how immigrants came to America, which will go along nicely with our Wonders readings! Also, we will continue to discuss and learn about the election process in the United States.

In science we will do a couple of fun, engaging STEM activities related to Halloween. 

Remember that report cards will come home on Tuesday. The first quarter, you will not see a lot of G's or 3's, because we are still fresh into the year and still have a lot of growth to make (behaviorally and academically). I truly look forward to meeting with each of you at conferences and discussing your child's third grade year. These 27 people are so dear to me and each have such strengths that they add to our classroom. Thank you for raising such wonderful human beings and sharing them with me each and every day.

Upcoming Events: 

November 1st: Report Cards sent home

November 2, 3, and 4: Noon Dismissal (parent-teacher conferences)

November 8th: Spirit Day (Wear red, white, and blue; bring $1 donations to the Quiet Waters program in Bozeman)

November 10th - Veteran's Day Program

November 10th - Tech Night for Parents - 6:30-7:30

Have a lovely weekend!

Code Word = Hello, Second Quarter :)

Week of October 24th

I hope everyone has a lovely four day weekend! Please remember to return your reading logs on Monday! If you are bored over the long weekend, remember you can log on to ST Math, Front Row, Xtra Math, or Typing Web for some extra practice!

This week in reading we will start Unit 2 in our wonders series. Our essential question this week is: Why is working together a good way to solve a problem? The FOLKTALES we will read this week are "Roadrunner's Dance," "Anasi Learns a Lesson," and "Deltona is Going Batty." The skills we will work on are: making predictions, determining thre theme, using context clues, antonyms, and plural nouns (change y to i). This week's vocabulary words and definitions:

In math we will begin Chapter 4, which will dive deeper into multiplication. Student's should now have a good grasp on different ways to represent multiplication problems: drawing arrays, making equal groups, using a number line, skip counting, repeated addition, and the commutative property. Chapter 4 will focus on multiplying with different factors. For instance, lesson 4.1 work on multiplying with 2. At this point, students do not need to know their facts quickly or fluently. However, they should have a strategy for HOW to solve any multiplication problem thrown at them. In a couple of weeks, we will start working on really mastering the facts quickly/fluently. Chapter 4 should really help students to start recalling facts with more ease. I am impressed with their knowledge already - it truly is amazing to see the growth that third graders gain in math! Be on the look out for the multiplication flash cards we will be making in class. This will be something that students can be working on for a few minutes every night at home. 

In social studies, we will continue to work on learning about the different Native American tribes and reservations in Montana. In science, I am hoping the glider parts will have arrive so we can start building and testing our gliders! Students should be able to identify the three main parts of a glider: fuselage (body), wings, and horizontal stabilizer. 

Thanks to everyone who sent in pictures of everyday arrays!

Code Word =  Folktale

Week of October 17th

I have one sick little boy and a computer that's not cooperating, so I'll make this short and sweet!

Remember that's there's no school Thursday and Friday and that Wednesday is a half day.

Code Word = arrays 

Happy birthday, Laurel! We all sure enjoyed those yummy cookie-dough treats! And I sure love your fun personality and having you in our classroom! 

Travis is perfecting his name in cursive... Isn't it just beautiful?!

Eden was pretty excited that Laurel brought her some special gluten-free treats! :) Thanks, Laurel and Kristie! 

Grant always out-does himself at the end of the day. While most kiddos are busy talking/socializing, he is ensuring the room is left spotless. Thank you, Grant, for being a role-model classmate!

I adored Jenna's shirt: "Be someone who make you happy." 

Easton remembered that Bennett wanted a squirrel for his birthday, so he brought this into share with the class. Thanks for the laugh, Easton!

I also happened to love this shirt Easton sported on Monday. This is going to be my new motto when someone asks for an icepack ;)

My was sporting a Halloween outfit from head-to-toe. Quite being so cute, Mya!

I love Ellecia's shirt: "I am a girl. I am smart. I am strong. And I can do anything."  Love, love, love that gender role stereotypes are constantly being shattered nowadays. When I was in middle school, I seriously remember being told that it was okay that I wasn't confident in math, because I was a girl and girls weren't strong in math. These girls would laugh at such nonsense! We know that if we put our minds to it, we can achieve it (regardless of our gender)!  

Week of October 10th

We survived the week... barely! This was our "roughest" week yet (behaviorally). To be honest, I am struggling to find an effective way to curb the amount of chatting that is occurring during my instruction and during out reading rotation time. The constant chatter is making it difficult for me to teach, as well as difficult for other students to learn. Hopefully we will be back on track next week, as I have seen their fabulous potential in previous weeks. I'm sure this last week was merely a "hiccup" along our journey this school year. Anyways, please talk to your child to see if his/her thoughts regarding our classroom noise (and to ask if they may be part of the problem ;)).

Here is a picture of Tyler and his geiko, Simon!

This picture doesn't do justice to one of our classmate's cool eye. He has an eye that is multi-colored. Ask your student if they know who it is!

I loved Dylan's shirt: "Sing the song in your heart."

Travis is quite the artist! I always love to see what he creates!

Our essential question in reading this week is: How do landmarks help us understand our country's story? We will read the stories "A Mountain of History," "A Landmark Street," and "A Natural Beauty." All the stories this week will be the genre of expository texts.  We will work on the skills of: asking and answering questions in a text, main idea vs. details, multiple meaning words, and compound words. All of our spelling words this week have long o sounds.

Here are this week's vocabulary words and definitions:

In math, we will continue on in Chapter 3: Understanding Multiplication. Last week we worked on making equal groups, using repeated addition, and skip counting to solve multiplication problems. This week we will work on some problem solving strategies with multiplication, modeling with arrays, understanding the commutative property of multiplication, and multiplying with zero and one. 

On Friday we celebrated Sam's birthday with a treat and a craft. Sam is such an intelligent, hard-working, funny young man. We are lucky to have him in our class! Happy Birthday, Sam! 

On Monday we will celebrate another amazing student: Laurel!

 It also happens to be my Bennett's birthday, which makes me blink and wonder how these cute kids grow up so fast. The past three years have simply FLOWN by! Slow down, time!!! 

Bennett's birthday requests: a chocolate donut, a pet squirrel or rabbit, a real tractor, and a drum set. We'll see what he gets (hint: only one of his wishes will become a reality) ;)

Code Word = Chatty Cathy