Big Events Week!

I wanted to touch base to remind you of some events this week. This week kicks off our first Lower School Reading Week at Shorecrest. On Monday, the children will get to enjoy the author who actually takes the pictures under the water that he uses in his books. On Tuesday, is our character dress up day. The children are allowed to dress up as one of their favorite book characters. I have discussed with the children that this is different from Halloween and they are discouraged from being a Harry Potter or a Darth Vadar type character. They will wear their "character dress" to school on Tuesday morning. If they can wear it over their normal school clothes, that's great. But if not, please make sure they bring appropriate dress code clothes to change into after town meeting. All the children will travel to town meeting as their character for all to see along with the book that demonstrates the charcter if possible. The younger children will more than likely parade into our classroom areas after the town meeting so we can get a closer look. I know this will be fun for everyone. On Wednesday, we will have a schoolwide "drop everything and read" time in the morning. I have asked the chilren to be thinking about a book they can bring to school to read at this time. On Thursday is our Reading Festival after school. If your child signed up, we will begin our workshops promptly at 3:15 and go to 4:20 with dismissal by 4:30.

We will continue our discussion of the biography project and begin work on an in class project on penguins. This will reinforce research skills and how to paraphrase information.

We will attempt to complete chapter 5 in math. We are still working on decimals and I don't want to push this skill too quickly as it is one of the harder skills of third grade. Please continue to practice and review multiplication tables. We will have a 10's, 11's, and 12's quiz this week.

If you have not turned in your Grandparent or Special Friend form, please do so by Tuesday so we can prepare for our special visitors on Friday.

Talkative Tuesday!

The children were quite chatty today. I suppose being swept out of their desks at 8:20 this morning to go watch some very cute and funny skits on Friendship contributed. We then later went to the Science Lab to make the mystery solution in the ziploc bag called Oobleck. They are allowed to add to it with corn starch only and change its color as long as you know about it. It can make a mess. We have begun our study of the three states of matter. This experiment helps to prove that matter may appear and begin in one state and then change to another state when a solution is formed. Great fun was had by all!

Tonight they need to study for their Beringia quiz. They have some index cards that we began on Monday that goes along with chapter 3 in the Social Studies book. The word is on one side and the definition on the other side. This is a strategy that fourth grade uses to help with vocabulary and other concepts. So we thought we would begin getting them used to this strategy. I have asked them to ask you to help in two ways. First, you read the definition and see if they can give you the word. Then you call the word and see if they can explain to the best of their ability what that word means. Tomorrow on the quiz they will have the words written for them so they don't have to worry about the spelling. They will be asked to fill in the blanks using their context clue strategy to help them.

Study multiplication tables 10's and 11's for a practice quiz.

Tomorrow is spirit day! Yea Shorecrest!

Please make sure that the map work and spelling homework that they were to do last night stays in their homework folder. We will get to that first thing in the morning.

They need to practice their lines for the play. We will be coming together as a grade soon to practice the lines. Encourage them to use expression and louder voices when speaking. That way they will be prepared when they get on stage and have to remember other things besides their lines.

Please make sure you contact me if you have not scheduled a conference. I have sent out a few emails confirming times, but have not heard back. Please check your emails. I don't want to leave anyone out or have anyone show up at the incorrect time and take more time out of your day. Thank you!

Motivating Monday!

The children came to school motivated to work today, and that we did! We accomplished a great deal.

Tonight they have only one assignment that requires writing. They are to group the spelling words into ir, er, ur, ar groups. They can decide which groups go first and so forth as long the words are grouped together according the spelling of the r-controlled vowel.

The children have a Wordly Wise Quiz tomorrow. They should have their workbooks and index cards with them. If you could read the definitions a couple of times and have the show you the matching index card, they should be find for the quiz.

Another big multiplication timed test is coming up tomorrow on the 7's, 8's and 9's. I gave them a couple of practice sheets to use at home if they wanted you to time them.

I have distributed the new baggy books. Some children are on the second book. The children that received a baggy book today, I told them they could turn them in on either Wednesday and Thursday, knowing what the homework load looks like over the next couple of days.

Keep reading the biography books. I told the children that they really need to have completed the reading by the end of the week with their notes so they can spend the following weeks putting the notes together into flowing paragraphs. I am giving them class time in the mornings once they have completed the morning work to read in their biography as well.

Please make sure you check out the letter from Marie Confident on E-bytes before it goes away. Quite lovely! I am so proud of my children with their big hearts and generous spirit.

We will beginning our new literature study, Stone Fox. This is the novel that I told about at our first open house night at the beginning of the year. It's the book that I always cry at the end. And now that I have my own puppy, I may bawl hysterically. The children always love this book and are intrigued by the character dynamics and the courage of the main character. We will read and discuss it chapter by chapter and they will often have comprehension questions to answer at home for homework. In this study, they will design a map of the sled race according to the details given in the book. In conjunction, we will begin our study of the Iditarod that is beginning soon. We will choose our own musher and follow his along with he and his dogs.

I need the children to begin thinking about the book character that they are going to dress up as on Tuesday, February 2. I am going to discuss this further in the classroom this week, but I wanted you to know that this is not quite like Halloween. I did tell the children that Harry Potter was off limits. They are to be creative in choosing a book character that has appealed to them either in a story or book. They must come to school that day with the book in hand that represents their character. This will be a fun day for the children of the Lower School.

Please make sure you contact me this week to schedule a conference if you have not done so already. I have one morning time of 11:05-11:20 available and the rest are afternoon times starting at 1:00pm.

Have a great week!

Fabulous Friday!

We have had a very productive week even though it was a four day week. Make sure you look in their homework folders for the Biography Project Guideline sheet. You will need to sign the bottom portion and return to me on Monday. That way I know that you have seen the children's responsibility. Right now they should be reading the book that they checked out of the school library and taking notes. We have reviewed this skill in class. This is going to be the hardest part for them as this is truly the first time they have done project like this in third grade. We have discussed the importance of writing sentences in their own words and not to copy from the book. As they are reading, they are to focus on the questions that I gave them on the guideline. However, I did tell them to also take notes on interesting facts that they think will add detail and interest to the report. These facts can be an additional paragraph at the end of the report. I did tell them once they read the book and would still like to add more information, they are allowed, with your permission, to use the internet for information and pictures. We have discussed the usefulness of index cards in taking notes. They are allowed to read their biography and take notes in class. Then they will have me to field questions. The report is due on February 8. I didn't want them to feel too overwhelmed and I really want them to do a good job and put a lot of creativity into the cover.

Please check E-bytes. There is a lovely letter from our school nurse, Marie Confident. She specifically thanks our class along with others for the idea and execution of collecting items for the people of Haiti. On Wednesday, we sorted 6 large trash bags along with at least 10 smaller bags filled to the brim of clothes, shoes and blankets. Thank you to all of you for helping make this a reality for the children. They certainly had their hearts in the right place!

Next week, we will continue our focus on the 8's and 9's and move on to the 10's, 11's, and 12's. The children seem motivated to earn their stickers and be "done" with multiplication. Then onto division!

Please make sure you check the email I sent out about parent conferences on February 24. Several of you are already signed up. It would be great if we could get all the times set by Wednesday of next week.

I am thrilled that so many children signed up for the Reading Festival workshops on February 4. It should be a fun week with the activities that we have planned during the day and the afterschool workshop on that Thursday. Read Read Read!

We are writing our last Personal Narrative on Monday. I did ask the children to think about one more small and special moment that they would like to write about. Today I introduced them to rubrics and how they are used to assess writing. I will be using rubrics with their writing and so I thought it would be valuable to look at paragraphs that students had written and how they had been assessed using a rubric. You will want to ask them about the paragraphs we discussed today and which one they thought was the best example.

In reading, we spent some time discussing what an obstacle is and how it effects characters and events in a story. Please ask your child about the story we read in our reading book entitled, Building Bridges and what obstacles the characters faced in that short story.

The baggy books that are coming home are focusing on Author's perspective or what we also call point of view. Make sure that they read the story carefully. It is great for them to read it independently and orally to you if time allows.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

It's Tuesday Again!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable long weekend. The children have been a little sluggish but overall seem ready for another week of learning.

Thank you to all of you for contributing to our clothes drive for the people of Haiti. We have quite an assortment of clothes and even shoes. Mrs. Confident, the school nurse, and I will get these items to her church on Wednesday. Our hearts go out to everyone in Haiti.

We have a full week this week. One of the highlights is that the children will spend 45 minutes visiting the band room and getting acquainted with the various instruments in a band. Shorecrest had its Winter Concert last week and so the children are excited to learn more about the band.

The Spelling words this week deal with long and short vowel sounds with single or double consonant letters in the middle of the word. Of course this effects the pronunciation of the word. The children are coming home with two lists. One that is written in cursive and one that is the result of classwork today. It organizes the words into long and short vowel sounds. They should practice not only spelling the words, but pronouncing the words as well.

We missed our normal library time on Monday so we went today. I asked the children to check out a biography. I will be reviewing the project associated with this book in the next couple of days. For now, I just wanted the children to concentrate on reading the book. You may want to take a look at the book and see if there are any sections that you would be able to help your child understand more in depth. I did tell the children that when it comes time to write the report, that they may also rely on the internet for research, with parental permission. I will send home the project with questions that they will need to answer in the report along with the due date and cover requirements. They can use their biography book as a part of their nightly reading until they are finished with the book.

The children will have their verb tense quiz tomorrow. The reading quiz took longer than anticipated. They will be asked to write the past tense and the helping very have and has tense.

I hope to have the program parts in the childrens' hands by the end of the day tomorrow. They have been told "who they are" but they do not have the lines yet. I will tell you that there is a great deal of singing and so I have tried to impress upon the children that they have more than just one or two speaking lines. The songs tell an important story as well.

The practice 9's test will be tomorrow as well. I hope they have had a chance to visit the website that I sent home last week. It has some really good math games that are very appropriate and great for review and reinforcement.

Terriffic Thursday!

Twirling Tuesday!

With Picture Lady this afternoon, we did not get a chance to pass out papers. Consequently, the children will not get feedback on the verb tense quiz until tomorrow. Thus, I will not give an additional quiz on this till next week. I will ask them to take this home and study the verbs that they missed. I will encourage them to write the 3 tenses at least 3 times each as practice.

Tomorrow they will have an 8's times table quiz. Along with their use of flash cards, I wanted to share with you a free website that the children can access, with your permission. If you go to funbrain.com you will see math games. Click on that section and you will see various games that the children can play to reinforce math skills. They can compete against themselves and even make a chart out of their progress. The one that I would like them to practice at home right now is the Math Baseball. Click on multiplication and away you go! However, the game on place value would be beneficial as well as we are reading numbers and manipulating numbers into the millions this week. Check out the math homework tonight. We started it in class in hopes that when they got home, they wouldn't have any trouble. Interesting census facts that led into a great class discussion about the US Census.

Today we revisited a conversation that we had had as a class at the beginning of the year. We talked about short and long rubberbands in the make up of one's brain. The long rubberbands are things that you are seemingly good at or need very little practice. The short rubberbands are those things that one has some difficulty with and may interfer in one's learning process. The children made a list of both. Then they chose the top three items for each category. They are to come home tonight and share this list with you. They are to ask you for your feedback. They are to think about ways that they can stretch their short rubberband. You may have some good suggestions as well. Tomorrow, we will begin a writing piece based on this idea. We are considering this writing our New Year's Resolutions.

We will be treated to a Winter Band Concert tomorrow at 1:00pm.

I did ask the children to get in the habit of checking our class blog, if they haven't already. This will help instill a sense of responsibility and that can be in charge of themselves for certain things such as reading a blog daily and making sure that they are prepared for the next day of school.

Magical Monday!

I wanted to share a few things with you regarding the homework tonight. First, the children have their spelling words. You will notice that there are 3 spelling patterns with this list. (ai, ought, aught) At the bottom of the list, you will find the dictation sentences for the test on Friday.

We didn't have a chance to complete the 7's timed multiplication test today. We will dive into that first thing in the morning. The children will want to review the 7's tables again tonight.

You will want to ask your child what the 9's trick using fingers is that we learned while reading in our class novel today. I told the children that I am not encouraging them to use their fingers to solve the multiplication problems, but if they do get in a bind, that they have a strategy to help themselves. Also, ask them why Wilson likes going to Josh's house.

They have their first assignment in the new history book tonight. In case they need some help, I thought I would give you a few hints. We worked on a couple in class hoping that this would sustain them until they got home. In each part of the History wheel, there is a main idea. In fact, they have underlined these main ideas in the book so that they can find them easily. They are to write a supporting detail based on what they read in that paragraph that would answer the question why or what makes that an important statement. OR, how would one explain that statement to someone who has not read the history book. I have told the children that I am allowing them to actually copy a sentence from the paragraph if they have trouble. This is all a new and difficult skill for them to paraphrase large amounts of information. This is a goal for the remainder of the year and I don't want to discourage them now in the very beginning. So let them copy the exact sentence if need be.

You will notice that the homework and classwork assignments will require the children to write more details which will create the demand for the to read the details more closely and not just read the piece for the overall meaning, as we have been working on the first part of the year.

Thank you in advance for your help and support at home with this.

Freezing Friday.. Part 2!

Update: The math quiz is on the 7's, but there will be a few of the others from 0's to 6's on the quiz as well!

Freezing Friday!

Well, it certainly was a good day to have warm bedroom slippers and a cup of cocoa. The children did an excellent job of reading and they seemed to enjoy having the freedom of lounging while they read. Thank you to all of you for helping me get the word out and making sure that your child was prepared. I have to admit that that was the first time in 28 years that I have forgotten to prepare the children prior to an event. Can I blame it on the puppy? Smiles! Picture were taken and I hope to get our event into E-bytes, If not, I will certainly add a picture or two to my blog next week.

Please make sure that your child reviews the 0's -6's for Monday. They will have a quiz on just the 6's with a few of the others thrown in. I will also be sending home another stack of graded papers on Monday. Among these are the Verb Tense Quiz that the children took before the holiday break. I need for them to review the ones that they continue to have trouble with at home. I will be giving another quiz on these verbs at the end of next week. They need to practice the spellings as well. Although that initial grade will count, the children will have an opportunity to improve upon their grade.

Next week, we should settle back into our normal schedule though we do have Guidance, Picture Lady, and the Winter Band Concert. You will see more reading and writing homework coming home. Please encourage the children to continue to read at least 15 minutes nightly. If you can, please take time to allow your child to read aloud. Many seem to be a "little rough around the edges" today while reading our class novel/literacy study. I think they are just out of practice.

I hope you all have a nice weekend.. wish for flurries! The children are so hoping!!!

Wacky Thursday!

Please check your emails tonight. I had to send out an SOS. Thank you for all your help. The last two days our schedule has been out of whack which proves that even teachers need consistency, especially old ones like myself. The Warm Up to a Good Book is still on. Please see the email to know what your child can bring to school tomorrow.

You will want to ask your child about the performance they witnessed today. It was quite remarkable. You may also be asked tonight at the dinner table what the Stone Age is. Get ready!!!

Tomorrow the children have the following responsibilities:
Spelling test with dictation
Math Home Link- I did tell the children that they didn't have to cut out the numbers on the sheet if they didn't want to.
Magic Activity Booklet is due

I did give the children two Brain Teasers today. One teaser is for math and one is for reading. They are encouraged to do at least one. You are allowed to help give hints, but don't give them the answers.

Hold On To Your Sweaters!

This week our theme is Magic. Personally, I think that some Mr. Winter's magic is responsible for these cool temperatures lately. I have not discussed this with the children yet, but will do so tomorrow and explain all the details to them. But on Friday, I would like to take a break from the regular reading time to "Warm Up to a Good Book." It is seldom that Florida provides the appropriate atmosphere to do this, so I thought I would take advantage of it. On Friday, the children will be asked to bring a book from home to read. It must be a book that will sustain their interest for at least a period of 20 minutes. Along with their book of choice, they are not only allowed to bring a thermos of either hot chocolate or cider, but they may bring their bedroom shoes to school and wear them around the room during our reading time. I am not sure yet the exact time, but it will be some time in the morning so the thermos will remain warm. This will be great fun!!!!

We began Lesson 7 in Wordly Wise this week. We skipped Lesson 6 because the next lesson has a story entitled Abracadabra, again in keeping with our magic theme this week. The children also have their dictation sentences for the week. The two homophones that are used often in these sentences are to, too and two as well as they're, there, and their.

We began reading in our new social studies book yesterday. You may want to ask your child the importance of learning and studying our past, history.

They will have a multiplication quiz tomorrow on 0's - 6's. They can begin earning stickers on their multiplication chefs. I did tell the children that if they earn 5 stickers, they no longer have to keep taking these quizzes unless they want to .

Our new math unit has returned to place value, but into the tens and hundred thousands. I will be sending home an additional challenge this week as well.

We are also gearing up for the third grade program. Third grade is embarking on a new program entitled The American Dream. The third grade teachers are working this week on assigning parts. The children should know which characters they are and have their lines in hand by the first of next week. It will then be their responsibility to learn their lines as soon as they can. There is a great deal of singing in this program along with the speaking parts. Thus, each child is a major contributor to making this program a success.

Happy New Year!

I do hope that everyone had a fun and relaxing holiday season. May all your New Year's wishes come true!! We all deserved some time off and the temperatures this week will make us all feel like it's truly winter. I have to admit I am rather excited about the weather. You will want to make sure your child comes to school with either a sweatshirt or sweater and then a coat that they can wear outside at recess. Perhaps it was our snowflakes that we made prior to the holiday that brought us these temperatures! Smiles!

I had a fabulous holiday. I spent some time with my mom prior to the Christmas in Virginia and then returned to Florida for a quiet but lovely Christmas Eve and Day. For New Years my husband and I, along with friends, went to Cabbage Key for a couple of days. We rang in the New Year by dressing up to the theme of the "groovie" sixties. The boat ride back was a little chilly, but great fun was had by all. One of the highlights of my holiday season was the arrival of a new Hensler addition, the four legged kind. Mr. Hensler and I are the proud parents of an 8 week old Golden Retriever named Bennett. I have attached a picture to the blog for the children to see.

I have to say that though my holiday from school was wonderful, I did truly miss the children. As always, they will come back seeming much older. Developmentally, they are now truly third graders. Along with that comes a heightened expectation both in their working relationships with their classmates and the quality of work that they produce. Later on in the week, I will send out an outline of curriculum that we will begin. But this week, the children can expect to begin work in their social studies book and complete and add to the personal narrative writings that we have been working on. This week, I will send home a little project on magic. I am going to reveiw this activity with the children and they will have a week to complete the assignment.

Please double check their school supplies. Many of the children are in need of new pencils, especially red marking pencils with erasers. You may also want to clean out homework folders. I do have a few sets of papers that will be coming home this week that is work from prior to the holiday.

If you have any concerns about your child, please don't hesitate to contact me to schedule a conference. It will be great to see the children on Tuesday. Make sure they get a good night's sleep on Monday night. I myself need to reset the body clock.