Theme 4: Animal Habitats

We are starting our new Reading Theme: Animal Habitats. We will be reading about puffins, seals, dear, and animals in the desert. Each student will choose an animal that interests them for our Animal Research Paper. We will work on some of this in the classroom and some of it at home. This week our story is about an amazing little bird called the Puffin. They live mostly in the northern areas of the world. The puffins we are learning about live in the country of Iceland. Did you know not very much of Iceland is covered with ice? They have four seasons just like us. I think you will love the story.

Our spelling list focuses on the vowel + /r/ sound you hear in bare, bare, hare, hair, etc...



hair
care
chair
pair
bear
where
air
scare
pear
bare
fair
share
buy
could
flair
farewell

Keep Reading and bringing in your Reading Logs.

MATH:
We are finally there!! We finished our quick unit on repeated patterns; turns, flips, and slides; and building onto a pattern. Now we are ready for Multiplication or repeated addition!! The students have been waiting for it all year. It is a long unit. The students will be practicing and repeating multiplication through the 10's. This is required on our State Standards and will be tested on the spring ISAT.

Social Studies:
Study of the Inuit people their customs and ways of life.

Housekeeping:
Monday, January 25, 2010: Early Release PLC
Wednesday, February 3, 2010: 100th day of school!
Monday, February 15, 2010: President's Day

Question of the Week:
Please use a thesaurus and list 5 synonyms for the word "say"

We had a great AR Celebration!!

We decided to have our "Matilda" party in connection with our AR celebration. The girls braided their hair; we spelled d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-y; we ate chocolate cake; Mrs. Shore braided her hair and Mrs. Graham dressed up like Ms. Trunchbull; and noone got thrown in the Chokey! The students traded all of their tokens in at the auction for various prizes and treasures. We will start new tokens on Tuesday, January 19, 2010. They will be the color of blue. The best way to earn tokens is to bring your AR reading log back every day and follow all of the class rules.

Report cards will be sent home this Wednesday. The 4th six-week grading period started on Monday, January 11, 2010. Each student has new AR goals for the next 6 weeks. Keep reading and studying your math facts. Multiplication starts in one week. How glorious.

The story for this week is a comparison between two adventure stories:

Fugitive on Four Legs and Dinosaur Bob and the Family Lazardo. It is a short week because of the Martin Luther King Holiday. Skills to be reviewed are Past and Present time, prefixes -un, -dis, and -non, homophones, and use of the Thesaurus. The spelling list for the week is a review of the past 5 spelling lists. The words are as follows:

sound

crown

word

her

crack

orange

hear

our

also

girl

dark

clear

squeeze

second

here

new

soft

turn

north

skin

gym

jeans

hour

knew

lawn

officer

scurried

insect

seen

scene

This week in Math we are working on finding repeated patterns in geometric shapes. There are three lessons in this unit and a unit test on Friday. Make sure you pay attention closely this week, we have a lot of information to cover.

Last week we learned about Martin Luther King. This week we will start our Arctic and Inuit Natives Unit. The students will be learning about a region of the world that is unfamiliar to them. The land of the Polar Bear and the Inuit. This is a great unit of study about some more of our Native American people, their culture, traditions and way of life.

Have a GREAT WEEK. We hope you enjoyed your Holiday. Mrs. Shore and I think we have one of the brightest third grade classes of all time. We sure enjoy our students and what we do.

Question of the Week!

What was the name of the motel where Martin Luther King was shot. What city and state was it located in? (This is a three-part question!!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

What a great 2-week vacation. I hope all of the boys in our class got my postcards from my Holiday vacation. I have a treasure for all of the girls when we get back to school on Monday. Now we are back to school for some great fun and learning!!







Housekeeping:

• AR deadline: last day is January 8, 2010. The students need to be at 100% of their goal by this date.
• End of the third six-week grading period: January 8, 2010
• January 11, 2010: Winter IRI starts
• January 11, 2010: PLC Early Release
• January 18, 2010: No School: Martin Luther King Day

Language Arts:

The story we will study this week is Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolan. We will concentrate on making predictions and also focus on words ending in -y and -ly. The spelling list for this week is as follows:

• large
• gym
• skin
• quick
• picnic
• judge
• park
• jeans
• crack
• orange
• second
• squeeze
• rock
• job
• courage
• insect

Math:

The students are right on track in our Math Unit. We will be concluding this Unit at the end of next week. For the next several days we will be looking at tables and graphs to find information to help us solve problems. Keep up the good work. On January 18th we will have a quick week learning section on shapes and how they can be moved (flip, turn, slide). On January 25, we will start our Multiplication Unit--Hooray! the kids can hardly wait.

Social Studies:

One week of study will be dedicated to Martin Luther King and his life and goals. After this week, we will begin our Arctic Unit and study the Inuit Native people, their customs and way of life and we will get involved in the Iditarod in March. It will be great fun!

Question on the week?

What is the largest and smallest state in the United States? (Remember to consider all 50 states).