Parent/Teacher Conferences Tomorrow
Just a reminder that we will be beginning this round of parent/teacher conferences tomorrow after school. I am pretty booked so I will have to keep our conferences to the 15 minute limit.
As for news from the classroom, we are continuing working on geometry skills and vocabulary. In social studies we are finishing up our work on suburbs. After this chapter we will take a break from communities to learn about government and American symbols for a short unit. In English we are tuning up some fine points about mechanics and integrating these skills into our writing. In reading we are reading a realistic historical fiction piece called Leah’s Pony. Take a listen below:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Here is the work for the day:
Updated Classroom Calendar
Just to let everyone know, I have updated our classroom calendar to include parent teacher conferences, our popcorn sale, and the school carnival. Please take a moment to check it out.
Dodeca~HUHHHH???
Today in math class we began a new unit on geometry. In this unit we will be defining 3 and 2 dimensional shapes. We will also be diving into different classifications of triangles and quadrilaterals. Today we build many 3D shapes paying special attention to vertices, faces, and edges. It was quite a fun thing to do! Feel free to download and print off some of our 3D shapes to make at home by clicking the link below.
On Monday I will take a snapshot of my grade book to make progress graphs for parent teacher conferences. These graphs will show your child’s performance over time relative to themselves, and the graphs will show how your child is performing compared to the typically learning third grader. Our district report card will cover how your child had done achieving curricular benchmarks. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Can’t wait to see you all at conferences!
Science Test Tomorrow!
Just a reminder that our test on plants will be tomorrow. We will be able to use our books and guides. We should be pretty practiced, but it would not hurt to read over some of the vocabulary again tonight.
Great work on your play performances today! I was really impressed by how well each of you know your parts. The cooperation and collaboration was also a joy to watch. Wanna video? I’ll add one soon!
Here is the work for the day:
Hired or Not, Round 2 – Shinker-Doo
Today in math we played another round of “Hired or Not” where the kids had to solve on massive problem. Today’s problem involved outfitting my Shinker-Doo team with all of the equipment they need to compete professionally. See the problem below:
Congratulations to the kids who got hired: Hannah, Nick, Jack, Brianna, Joe, Mike, Marissa, Sam, and Anna. You are actually the first third graders ever to be hired! Either you kids are getting smarter or I’m becoming a great teacher! It’s probably the former. 
Great job this week, kids. We will be continuing our last chapter of multiplication next week before we get into some graphing.
Valentine’s Day party pictures will pop up on a site soon! Have a great weekend!
Below are pictures of the students who won today’s little contest:
Valentine's Day Party Tomorrow!
Remember to read Lon Po Po tonight for your test tomorrow. Also, we will be having our spelling test on double consonant words. Head on over to SpellingCity.com to practice your words!
On to the fun news. Our Valentine’s Day party begins tomorrow at 2:00. All parents are invited and more than welcome to have fun with us. We will be sharing our valentines, so please make sure that your box and valentines are ready to go. I, personally, cannot wait for the treats!
By the way, my daughter even got into the “Pants on the Ground” thing, too. Thanks Joe and Caden!
// < 
Just a reminder about our Valentine’s Day Party at 2:00 on Friday. Please be sure to have a mailbox and your Valentines all set to go. I know mine will be. All parents are welcomed to attend.
You will notice that there is not a lot of work on our planner below.The reason for this is that we took some of our school’s SMART Goal assessments and mid year language arts assessments. We will continue assessing the mid year material until we are finished. In the afternoon we did science, math, and social studies. We will be taking a test on square numbers and factors of 6, 7,and 8. Head on over here to practice some facts.
Also, here is a movie from our last counseling class with Mrs. Lehman. We were practicing following directions and listening attentively using a fun dance. Enjoy!
//
Valentine's Day Update/Class List
Our Valentine’s Day party will be next week Friday at 2:00 pm. All parents are invited to help us celebrate. Mark your calendars! Our party will consist of some treats and a game or two but will mostly be handing out our Valentines to our classmates.
So, I am asking all of you to make a shoebox sized Valentine’s Day mailbox to bring in next Friday, along with a little Valentine card for each of us in the classroom. You can download a class list of first names here. If you have any questions, feel free to email me!
Download by clicking the link here: [Download not found]
Here is the work for the day:
Pants on the Ground
We will behaving an open book science test tomorrow on forces and motion. We will also be having a reading test. Below is our book for the week (Coyote Places the Stars), feel free to read along.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
As we were walking between buildings yesterday, I heard behind me one of the funniest things I have heard as a teacher. Some of my students were singing the infamous American Idol hit of season 10 “Pants on the Ground”. It was one of those moments where I had to stop and shoot a video of it. Lot’s of fun!
// < 
Grade Book Update, Math Probabilities, Conferences, and See You on Tuesday!
Monday is a teacher work day, so you all get to stay home. I will be here working diligently!
Click here to see pictures from Family Reading Night on our elementary school’s web site.
Also, I realized that I had not been publishing the grades for our work with adjectives and adverbs. I also noticed that I had not been publishing our work in multiplication. I apologize for this, did not realize that that information was not coming up for you. So, head on over there and check out those grades!
Notes for our scheduled parent/teacher conferences are coming home today. Parents, be sure to ask your child to hand it to you when they get home. Please email me if you have any concerns about the scheduled times.
Lastly, in math we practiced our multiplication facts by doing some dice rolling games and plotting our results. We had to roll the dice, find the sum of the roll, multiply the sum by a factor (determined on the sheet), and plot the results. As a class we competed 75 sheets. I, then, took the winning result off of each sheet and graphed it with the class in a large group. We discovered that the 1/1 and the 6/6 were pretty rare, while the middle sums/products were the most common results. Good luck in Vegas! Here is the large group class graph we made (click on the graph to see it larger):
Have a great weekend!
read moreSpirit Week is Next Week, Schedule Below:
Next week is Spirit Week. We will be celebrating our school pride by having a fashion week. Here is the schedule:
1/26 1950′s – Leather, rolled-up jeans, poodle skirts, bowling shirts, gloves, big dresses
1/26 1960′s – Hippies/Bell-bottoms, fringe vests, peace signs, flowers, headbands
1/27 1970′s – Disco/platform shoes, mini skirts, high boots, bell-bottoms, head bands, wrist bands, trucker hats
1/28 1980′s – Punk, big hair, spikes, mullets, mohawks, jelly shoes, leg warmers, exercise gear, zipper pants
1/29 1990′s Grunge, oversized sweaters, ripped jeans, flannels, designer shoes, baby doll dresses.
I have updated our Coming Events area in the sidebar. Please take a look there for events coming up in the next month. If you would like to know other dates of events coming further in the future, take a peak at our classroom calendar.
Parents – Please take a moment to check out your child’s grades in our Online Grade Book. As I was uploading them today, I was very impressed with many of the overall scores. I am very proud of how well we are doing in multiplication. Our transition into cursive is going well, also. There will be some adjustments as we pass through the next two weeks, but things are going pretty smoothly.
Here is the work for the day:
Last Day with Science in Residence
Today was our last day to learn from our Science in Residence scientists from UW-Oshkosh. Today was spent in a large group in the gym learning about chromatography, cleaning pennies with different materials, the Stroop Effect, modeling our solar system, and determining acids and bases by their tastes. Here is about a 12 minute video of us from each of the different centers.
While you are at it, don’t forget to head on over here to view all of our movies from this school year! We are collecting quite a few of them.
Next week we will get into full swing in math class by jumping right into multiplication concepts. We will explore multiplicaiton concepts through both models, symbolic models, and written equations. We will be learning about rural communities in social studies. In reading we will be studying a few traditional fables and sayings, trying to find the wisdom in them that their authors intended. Adjectives will be our focus in writing for the week, too.
Have a great week and I will see you all on Monday!
// < 