Save the date!

We are planning an evening event for third graders and their parents on the night of Wednesday, January 16 from 6 - 7pm. We will be sending out more information about this soon, but for now, please save the date.

I will no longer be giving addition and subtraction math fact quizzes. It is time students should be practicing multiplication. I have introduced the 0s, 1s, 2s, 5s, 9s, and 10s facts. Last week your child came home with flash cards they made in class for the 9s. Please practice these with them. Multiplication math fact quizzes will begin in January.

This week in school...

We are busy learning all about the structure of non-fiction and how text features are there to help us comprehend what we read. We are able to read about many different topics, but have been focusing on articles that have been written about ancient Egypt!

In social studies this week we will learn about the ancient Egyptian religion. Specifically, we will learn about various gods and goddesses and what each one represented to an ancient Egyptian.

We continue to learn new multiplication facts in math. Patterns in multiplication will be our focus this week. We'll discover that when 2 is a factor all of the products are even. When 5 is a factor our products will all end in a 5 or a 0 depending if the other factor is odd or even! We'll also discover the many patterns that we have with our 9's facts! Please begin practicing multiplication facts with your child, especially the 9s. They all understand the 0s, 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s, and the more we practice them, the more automatic they will become. The 9s should be your focus this week and into next.

We'll expand our vocabulary by learning about synonyms and antonyms.We'll discover when we should use words like colossal and massive instead of big.

We are reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo together and we are learning about how authors use foreshadowing to alert readers that something may happen. We're having a lot of fun discovering how many "hints" our author is providing us as to what may come next! We're reading strategically and we're noticing how if we're not carefully reading we may miss important information! I love seeing the "lightbulbs" go off as we read together this complex text!

I have enjoyed all of my parent conferences thus far and look forward to my final batch this week! I apologize for not being able to stick to my 20 minute time frame! I'm finding that I just have so many great things to say! I will do my best this Thursday considering I am booked solid all afternoon! Thank you all for your continued support.

A sneek peak to our upcoming week...

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving with your families. I know I'm thankful for each of my students and their families. I couldn't do what I do each day with your children without your continued support.

How fast our time is flying by! We have completed our character study in guided reading groups and are now moving into one of my favorite units...Non-fiction! If you have any children's non-fiction magazines such as Ranger Rick or National Geographic Kids that you would like to share with the class, please send them in. We will be immersing ourselves in non-fiction for the next month and learning how the structure of non-fiction helps us as readers understand what we're reading. This week we'll look closely at how reading fiction and non-fiction differs and how titles and subtitles organize the information.

This week we'll learn about and name various homophones. We'll discover how these words sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. We'll use these homophones to write complete sentences utilizing appropriate mechanics.

In math, we're understanding multiplication as it relates to addition. We're discovering how we already know some of our facts! We'll begin looking at arrays and how we can draw arrays to help us when multiplying. We have begun using our array cards to help us fill in our multiplication chart. We're noticing patterns with our facts and how these patterns help us understand what multiplication really means.

We continue to have our weekly addition and subtraction fact quizzes. We have been taking these quizzes for nine weeks. Congratulations to those students who have passed all four quizzes! Please note that these quizzes will end in 3 weeks in which we'll then need to turn our attention to multiplication facts.

In social studies, we're learning about how ancient Egyptians lived and what they valued. We're understanding how different Egyptians contributed to their civilization based on what craft they chose, such as weaver, potter, scribe, farmer, sculptor, etc.

This week your child will be introduced to a new online resource that I am just becoming familiar with. It is called scootpad. Scootpad allows me to have the students practice various skills taught in both reading and math. I can see if there is a particular skill or topic they may need to revisit based on how they progress through questions asked on scootpad. As we all become more familiar with how this works, your child may work on this online resource at home.

I have enjoyed meeting with you for our parent/teacher conferences thus far and look forward to the upcoming meetings both this week and next!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

I look forward to meeting with all of you at our upcoming parent/teacher conferences!

November continues...

What a beautiful start to this week as I am working diligently on report cards!!! We will continue with book groups and focus on how characters change. Writing conferences will take place on our personal narratives. We'll learn how multiplication is repeated addition. We'll discover how the ancient Egyptians lived and we'll also spend time learning about myths and actual events that took place during the first Thanksgiving. I look forward to meeting with all of you in the upcoming weeks to discuss your child's progress!

November News

We have wrapped up many units! Pollination has come to a close, adding and subtracting greater numbers will be finished early this week, and personal narratives are reaching their completion.

This week we'll continue looking at character traits and then moving on to series books in which we'll discover how characters change from one book to another in a particular series. We will finish Because of Winn Dixie and I must say how impressed I am with all of their deeper thinking! We have had many fantastic discussions about why the title is what it is, how Opal has changed throughout the book and what has caused this change.

In math we will take an assessment on adding and subtracting greater numbers and then will begin multiplication by the end of this week! Please continue to review addition and subtraction facts. We are entering our sixth week and with more facts on the horizon, I'd like to have these quizzes end soon!

We will begin turning our focus to social studies and taking a short break from science. We'll begin looking at ancient Egypt, while also looking at some modern cultures, specifically Argentina.

The time has come to begin cursive handwriting! I know many students are extremely excited about this. I have asked the students to not write anything in cursive until we have finished learning all of the lowercase letters and then the uppercase letters. This may take us a few months! Feel free to begin responding to their Friday letters in cursive so they become familiar with reading cursive. I hope you have seen a tremendous change in your child's Friday Letters. They are showing such growth and understanding of what is included in a paragraph. We'll continue to practice paragraph writing and begin to focus on mechanics! We need to be consistently using capitals and periods and understanding when we have written a run-on. This will be our focus this month.

Hurricanes and Halloween!

What an exciting upcoming week this is shaping out to be! We have been working very hard writing paragraphs and personal narratives, delving deeper as we read by looking at characters and how they change, studying pollination, adding with regrouping, learning about the dictionary, adjectives, and the presidential election!

Our plan this week is to wrap up Because of Winn Dixie in reading workshop and our character trait unit. We'll look at how Opal has changed from the beginning to the end and what cause that change. We'll also be looking at our characters in our book group books to identify how their actions and what they say tells us a lot about our character!

We'll draft our personal narratives and begin revising and editing them so they're ready for publishing! We'll also continue to write paragraphs so that developing topic sentences, writing detailed bodies, and composing an effective closing sentence becomes easier with practice!

In math, we'll begin subtracting greater numbers. We're all doing well with the process of adding greater numbers. We all need to continue to practice our facts! We have been having our weekly math fact quizzes for a month now. This week I'll be sending home subtraction fact sheets every night to practice.

Let's not forget that we'll also have some fun activities related to Halloween! We'll be having a small Halloween party on Wednesday at the end of the day. Here's to a safe and fun week!

Much to learn!

                                     The Elsmere Fire Department came for a visit.

I wonder who this is???




This week in 3P...
Reading: Continue with character study...looking deeper at the text to identify character traits based on character dialogue and actions.

Writing: Begin drafting the memory we'll take through the writing process.

Math: Adding Greater Numbers with Regrouping. Please continue to practice addition and subtraction facts at home. We're going into our fourth week of math fact quizzes and we should be moving towards the completion of our 4 quizzes with 100% accuracy.

Science: Continue to observe our plant through its life cycle. Hopefully we'll be able to pollinate our plants with bees this week!

We have learned about the basic parts to a paragraph and your child wrote a full paragraph in this past Friday Letter! I hope you saw a remarkable difference in the quality of this letter compared to those in the past. This week we'll continue to practice writing paragraphs and you'll see more than one paragraph in their next letter!
We'll continue to look at the dictionary and learn about the importance of guide words and how they allow a user to navigate through this resource.
We plan on getting together and meeting our First Grade Buddies this week!

October 15 - 19...

There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in our school day to accomplish all of the fantastic learning activities I have planned for your child! It always amazes me how in depth our conversations become during this month. You truly have some deep thinkers, which enhance all of our discussions!
What to expect this week...
In reading we will continue our character discussion with Because of Winn Dixie. Your child is able to name a characteristic that describes a character and then give a specific detail from the text to support this. We will begin to choose a characteristic and continue to find multiple evidence of this specific trait. I had planned on beginning book groups last week, however, they will begin this week!
Our personal narratives are coming along! We are in the "try-it" stage. They sit for a mini-lesson, hear a story by a mentor author, and then "try" the specific skill that has been taught with their own piece. We are beginning to write with such detail!
In math we'll continue estimating and begin looking at estimating differences. We will begin discussing addition and subtraction equations, discuss reasonableness and have a math chapter test towards the end of the week! Be sure you continue to practice math facts at home. We are entering our third week of math fact quizzes and should all be moving from 10s and 11s.
This week we'll begin to discuss the upcoming election and learn about each candidate and their running mates. Any conversations you have with your child at home will enhance ours here in the classroom!
Our plants continue to grow nicely! We will be observing the growth spurt and learning about each part of the plant and discussing photosynthesis.
Here's to another fantastic week!

The short, but busy week ahead...

Hard to believe we just celebrated the Columbus Day holiday! We have had such a wonderful start to October and I'm looking forward to another great week. Our focus will continue to be to work as a class community by actively listening, respecting each other, and always doing our best.

This week we'll continue our character trait unit of study during reading workshop with Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. We are beginning to understand our main characters in depth through the amazing conversations we're having about our reading! We're understanding how they feel, what they're thinking, and how they're acting. I am impressed with how we're all delving in the text to help prove the trait we've chosen to describe each character. As your child reads independently at home, have them give you a trait to describe their character and ask them to prove it! We'll begin book groups to further our study of character in small groups.

In writing, we'll continue personal narrative and choose a final topic to take through the writing process. We'll learn how as writers it is most important to show and not tell about the significant times in our lives we've decided to write about. These significant times include maybe our first time we did something, or the last time we did something, or a time in which we realized something important. I encourage you to speak with your child about this and offer some assistance if they share with you that they're having difficulties coming up with a topic.

We will also begin paragraph writing this week. We'll learn about the three major parts to a paragraph and look at them in detail. We'll practice writing paragraphs together and eventually students will be asked to write paragraphs about various topics independently. Paragraph writing is an essential skill for third graders.

In math we'll continue the topic of rounding. We'll be using rounding to estimate both sums and differences. We have learned a rhyme to help us when we round that you may want to review with your child:
Find the place.
Look next door.
5 or higher, add 1 more.
(Stays the same).
We'll take our second addition and subtraction math facts quiz on Friday. Be sure you're continuing to review these facts with your children. We'll be moving onto multiplication very soon!!!

Our plants have sprouted and are growing at a rapid rate! This week we'll focus on making observations and charting and graphing the growth of our plants.

We'll continue to review singular and plural nouns this week and begin looking at comparative and superlative adjectives.

Falling into October...

Hello families! October is upon us! We have many new things happening in our classroom this week. This week is Farm to You Week and the Regional Food Bank will be doing a presentation in our class on Tuesday afternoon discussing pollination and germination. A perfect presentation to kick off our pollination unit in science! On Monday we will be planting our own seeds to learn about and watch the life cycle of a plant. In social studies we will begin to look at the geography of South America and use our knowledge of a compass rose to navigate through this continent. In reading workshop, we will begin an in depth study of character. We will use the text Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo to learn about how understanding characters are the key to understanding a text. We will collect memories in writing workshop for our personal narrative.  Singular and plural nouns will continue to be our focus in word work. We have learned three important rules so far and will learn three more this week! We are moving on to a new topic in math. This week we'll be focusing on addition properties and subtraction strategies and rounding to estimate sums and differences. We will also take our first math fact quiz on Friday on both addition and subtraction facts with 10s and 11s. Look for your child's first math chapter test to come home this week on Place Value for you to view, sign, and return for me to keep for my records.
 

We're off and running...

Wow! Hard to believe school just began three weeks ago! We have accomplished many things in our short time together. This week will be just as busy! In math we will finish Place Value and take our first math chapter test at the end of the week. During reading workshop we will continue book talks with a partner and learn how to write about our "reader's voice". We will also set up guidelines for our reading workshop so we can do our best reading and writing without being distracted by others. In writing workshop we will begin a unit on "Personal Narrative." We will begin collecting significant memories from our lives to write and share with each other. Our noun study continues with singular and plural nouns and how there are different rules associated when changing a singular noun to its plural form. A quiz will be given later in the week on the rules adding an s, when to add an es, and when the noun is both singular and plural (for example: sheep, deer, etc.).

A note about spelling: This past Friday, your child came home with their first spelling list for this week. Their homework Monday night will be to write each spelling word in a sentence. We will begin this assignment together in class and they will have to finish it. A list of spelling guidelines will be glued to the inside front cover of their spelling notebook. Please review these guidelines with your child! Their spelling test will be this Thursday.

Reading Log and Current Events:
Your child's first reading log is due tomorrow. They should fill out the title, author, minutes read, and have you initial for each day on the reading log. They are required to read 5 out of the 7 nights and can write "OFF" on the two nights they take off. Please note: Last week we had Monday off from school so we didn't start the log until Tuesday. I told them all that Monday was a "free night off" and so the calendar they're handing in tomorrow could have 3 nights off.

Our first Current Events Calendar for the month of October came home last week. The requirements for the assignment is written at the top of the calendar. We did a sample current event together as a class on an article titled Wild Thing, which was about a Dutch artist who makes beach animals in hopes to preserve the sand from the rising ocean water. We also viewed a video. Click on the link if you'd like to see the video I shared with the class: Strandbeest
I have included links to current events resources that are kid friendly on the sidebar of the blog. Please let me know if you have any questions.

And lastly, a thank you to Mrs. Kate Kloss, our first MYSTERY READER! Mrs. Kloss read Smile a Lot by Nancy Carlson. It was a fun book with the lesson to always remember to smile a lot, even if things don't always go your way! We also learned about one of Mrs. Kloss' hobbies which is letter boxing! I'm sure many of you already heard all about it! I know we all were intrigued.

Our 4 day week!

Hello parents! Hope you are enjoying this beautiful fall-like weekend! I wanted to take a minute to thank all of you for attending Open House this past Thursday evening. There were a lot of topics covered during that time, so please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I'm excited that all of our Mystery Reader slots filled up and look forward to this starting!
This week is going to be a busy one! In reading we will learn about our "Reader's Voice", the voice we hear in our head as we're reading that tells us we've read something funny, interesting, sad, or confusing. We will also begin to have book talks with a partner discussing this reader's voice.
During math we'll expand our place value concepts to larger numbers and look at number lines. In writing we'll discover how writer's get their ideas and look to some mentor authors for examples of this. Our social studies discussions will focus on North America where we'll decide the hemisphere it's located in, the countries that make it up, look at the placement of the Equator, and review a compass rose. During word work our focus this week and last was on the difference between common and proper nouns. We will have a short quiz this Friday.
This week our first Reading Log will come home as well as our first Current Events calendar for the month of October. Be on the lookout for these two important pieces of paper! Don't forget to send in the Friday Letter tomorrow. Take care!

Off to a great start!

Hello! I hope you all are enjoying this weekend. We have completed our first week and are off to a great start! Yesterday your child brought home a Friday Letter notebook. Inside this notebook is their first letter to you about what they experienced in school during this first week. Attached to the inside front cover is a letter to you explaining the many purposes of this Friday letter. I am requesting that you respond in a letter format back to them each week. You may respond on the same page under their letter, or on the next page. I thank you in advance for your responses. It is my hope that this increases your child's communication with you about their time in school and at the end of the year, they will have an entire notebook filled with memories from third grade!
We have a busy week ahead! Last Thursday we made globes and we will be painting them early this week. In addition, we'll learn some vocabulary associated with maps and globes. In reading, we'll learn how our classroom library is set up, how to choose appropriate books, and how to write what we're thinking as we're reading. In math, we'll be expanding place value concepts to numbers in the thousands. We will soon be having weekly addition and subtraction math fact quizzes. Please be sure you are practicing these facts with your child.
I look forward to seeing all of you at Open House this Thursday, the 13th, at 6:00pm.

First Day of School!

We had a terrific first day of school! I'm looking forward to such a fun and exciting year ahead! It was so nice to hear about all of your family adventures over the summer. If you have not had a chance to send in a picture from the summer, please do as soon as possible. We will be doing a writing activity with these photos in class. Your son/daughter brought home their steno pad which will act as their assignment pad for the year. It is my hope that they asked you to sign it. I sent home a blue letter yesterday explaining this and if you have any questions about it please feel free to contact me! I will be explaining this process further at Open House next week. Here's to another great day in 3P!

Parent Letter

Hi Parents! If you would like to email me your responses to the letter I sent about getting to know your child, feel free! My email is lpeters@bcsd.neric.org. Again, I thank you for your responses and look forward to hearing from you!

Welcome!

Welcome to our class blog!

I am very excited that you will be in our class this year! I have an exciting year planned for you! I will be using this blog on a weekly basis to communicate about what is happening in our classroom. I hope you enjoy your final weeks of summer. I look forward to meeting you on Tuesday, September 4th from 3:00 - 4:00pm. During this time you can come and drop off your school supplies, check out the classroom, and catch up with your friends! I hope you enjoy the last weeks of summer!