Valentine's Party News
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!
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Announcement – Two Downloads/Sticky Post
This post will stay at the top for a week so that you can download these two items.
[Download not found] [Download not found] read moreI Will Be Out With A Sick Nadia Tomorrow
Just to let all you students and parents know, I will be out tomorrow taking care of Nadia. When I picked her up from daycare today she was wheezing and did not want to play. She also has had a cough for a few days. When we got home she was crying and definitly not doing well. So, I will be taking care of her. Our substitute will be leading you through
- discovering onomatopoeia in reading
- our last spelling activity for the week before our test
- doing our last English review on adjectives and adverbs
- discovering missing factors in multiplication problems
- reading about cities
- diagraming a plant cell
Do your best work, kids. I will be looking at all the work you have done on Friday morning.
P.S. Here is a funny picture of Nadia from a few weeks ago when she discovered a gum ball machine with fake teeth inside. Of course I had to buy them! See you soon. 
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:
Nothing New, Just Some Friday News
Today’s reading test went very well. As a class 20 of us got A’s, and our class average was a 95%. We did equally well on our spelling test on homophones. Great work, kids!
The only other comment I have is for parents. If you log into the grade book you can see whether I have a record of you returning the parent/teacher conference form. Please take a moment to make sure that my records are right. Thanks for your time on this matter. As of now I have 19 or 25 appointments all set to go.
That’s about all for now, I’m off to find some fish tacos! Have a great weekend!
read morePants 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.
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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!
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Marchionda Minutes Podcast: You, Me, and Bradley
In this week’s episode of the Marchionda Minutes podcast we hear from Bradley. We learn of his favorite subjects in school, and what he has enjoyed learning. We also learn about his birthday presents from a week ago, along with some advice on how to survive a mountain lion attack. Click here to see the podcast. Click the player below to listen to it.
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.
Parents – please be sure to send back the parent/teacher forms confirming your date and time of our parent/teacher conference. As of right now 12 of 25 have been confirmed. Thanks!
Here is the work for the day:
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 moreiPod Touch Tools for the Classroom, Education, and For Fun
Many of the students in my room now have iPod Touches and are interested in using them in the classroom, or educationally. Here are a few pick to get you started. Click on the pictures to open up a direct link in iTunes.
Math Drills Lite is a free application that has a very simple job. Using this program you will be able to practice your math facts in a fun, digital way. Different strategies are used to solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.
SumFun+ does the same thing as Math Drills Lite, but has a nicer graphical interface. SumFun+ also keeps scores so you can challenge others and keep track of your progress. SumFun+ is $0.99.
This next game is my faorite, and it is on sale right now for $0.99. It is called Grade 3 Math. Grade 3 Math is a great way to practice many areas of fundamental third grade math skills in all curricular areas. It is a lot of fun and is $0.99
Flash to Pass Free is another math fact practicing tool that is free. This is a simple tool that seems to be one that does one thing well, flash cards with third grade math facts.
Word Search Unlimited Free is a great, fun series of word searches that build vocabulary and spelling skills. Circling words on the touch screen is great and simple to do. Oh, and it is free!
Next is Thesaurus. Thesaurus in not only a thesaurus, but also a dictionary and a guide for synonyms and antonyms. It is free, but has a down side. It needs an internet connection to get the information. Great for at home, but not for at school.
Dictionary! is a great tool for the third grade classroom. It is a lot larger in size than Thesaurus, but all the words are on the device, no internet connection needed, and it is free!
Finally, USA State Capitals is another game to practice your geography. This game is free and works in a flash card mode. The graphics are nice and each state flag is represented as you go through the game.
Apart from these some of my favorites are:
Awesome Note/Awesome Note Lite
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader
X-Plane (there are many of them, call cool!)
read moreMerry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Marchionda.org!
I just want to share a very quick Merry Christmas with all of you. I hope all of your holiday celebrations are full of fun and relaxation. Below is a gallery of photos from last Tuesday and our classroom holiday party. My biggest thanks and appreciations go out to Ryan and Michael’s moms for helping organize the wonderful time we all had.
I also want to say a quick, heartfelt thanks for all of the wonderful gifts and treats sent in on our last day of school a few weeks ago. I feel undeserving of such thought and care. You made my break!
Report Cards Came Home Tonight
Sorry about the late post. This morning at school, before the kids came, my hard drive began to fritz out. So, I shut down and ordered a new one along with the tools to migrate all my data over. That meant that I had to teach with chalk and markers – strange thing. I take for granted tools like Photoshop, Notebook, the internet and web browsers, and my tablet. We managed and had a fun day doing so.
Report cards came home today. Be sure to look them over. I apologize for not sending home graphs of your child’s progress like I had said at conferences. With this new system, I am still figuring out how to translate the data to meaningful graphs.
Have a great night, everyone!
Snow Day Tomorrow! NO SCHOOL!!
Well, kids, it looks as if you have a day off. I just found out that our school district is canceling all school days for tomorrow. Have fun and be safe! See you on Thursday!
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