Last week before the Holidays!!

Housekeeping for the week:

• Monday, December 17, 2012: Early Release/PLC
• Monday, December 17, 2012: AR Goal...need to be at 63% by the end of the week.
• Thursday, December 20, 2012: Dad, Dudes, and Donuts from 8:00-8:30 in the cafeteria.
• Friday, December 21, 2012: Class Christmas Party from 12:30 to 1:15
• SEE YOU ON MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013!! Have a great Christmas break!!

Reading/Language Arts:
This week we are going to write a FANTASTIC FANTASY story. We read a story last week called Dogzilla. It is a favorite of most third graders. This week we will be creating a sequel to the story as the kids get to use their imagination.

The spelling list for the week focuses on frequently misspelled words. I almost spelled one wrong when I was making this list!! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!

• and
• said
• goes
• going
• some
• something
• you
• your
• friend
• school
• where
• myself

Technology: The students are working on some pretty cool PowerPoint presentations. They are doing a fantastic job. This week we are working on adding bling and transitions.

Math:
We finished up a pretty large unit on graphing, story problems, ordering numbers, and money. The students took a Unit test on Friday. It was four pages long. It was a lot to remember. This week we begin a very speedy unit on shapes and patterns. It is a four-day Unit with a Unit test on Friday. We have patterns that grow and patterns that shrink. When we return home from Christmas break, we will begin multiplication.

Science:
For the last week of Science, we will continue to complete Science learning activites and experiments on force and machines. The students have really enjoyed this Unit and all of the activities we have been able to do in class.

Questions of the Week:
Guide Words:
1) Which word would fit on the dictionary page if paint and pants were the guide words on the page? 

• purple
• pink
• path
• patch
• panda

2) How many syllables are in the word: auditorium?
3) Jemma has 36 fish altogether. 14 of the fish are goldfish. How many of the fish are Betas? If she got 21 more Betas, then how many Betas would she have? How many fish would she have altogether??   This question has many parts!!

Christmas Program Week

Housekeeping for the week:
Monday, December 10, 2012: Christmas Program dress rehearsal.
Monday, December 10, 2012: Early Release/PLC
Tuesday, December 11, 2012: 9:30 and 1:30: Christmas Program
Wednesday, December 12, 2012: 9:30: Christmas Program
Thursday, December 13, 2012: Guest Author Visit (Obert Skye)

Language Arts:
This week, we begin a new Reading Theme called INCREDIBLE STORIES. Our first story is about a dog that lives in a volcano and comes to terrorize a city full of mice. The name of the story is DOGZILLA. The spelling words are as follows:

• clown
• lawn
• talk
• sound
• cloth
• would
• also
• mouth
• crown
• soft
• count
• law

We continue to work on Mountain Language Skills. The toughest skill is Dictionary Guide Words and the one word that fits between them. We have to remember, it's just like ABC order and the first and last word are given to us. We just have to figure out the one word that fits between the guide words.

Math: All of the third graders at Ellis have been working on graphing skills and finding the missing information by either adding or subtracting. Today we begin bar graphs with information and missing information. We will be creating our own graphs throughout the week. Please, continue to work on your addition and subtraction skills.

Science: Hooray!! Our class loves Science and the fun centers we have been doing on Mass, Motion, and Sound. Keep up the good work on your Science investigations.

Question of the Week:
1. Show the possessive for the following sentence:
The fluffy kittens paw had a thorn in it. (one kitten)
2. Make these singular nouns into plural nouns:

• strawberry
• fairy
• church
• brush
• fox
• man
• knife

HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON!!

Housekeeping:
This past week Ellis Elementary was very successful with its Food Drive. We have one more week to continue bringing food for less fortunate families in the Pocatello Valley.
Monday,December 3, 2012: Early Release-PLC day
Monday-Friday: Ellis Food Drive
Friday, December 7, 2012: All 4 third grade classes will practice their Christmas songs.
Monday, December 10th: Music Performance Rehearsal
Tuesday, December 11th: Christmas Holiday Performance
Wednesday, December 12th: Christmas Holiday Performance







Language Arts:
Room #1 is wrapping up Theme Two: "Traditions". We will start Theme #3 next week. We are doing a genre study this week and we will focus on Trickster Tales. We will read and listen to 3 great stories each with a trick at the end. It is always a fun week. Please continue to have your child read each night and complete their homework each week. The new AR Goals have been set and we are off to a flying start. All the students in room #1 have reached their AR goal for the last two grading periods!! GREAT!! Following is the spelling list for the week:

• join
• joy
• boil
• noise
• spoil
• choice
• soil
• point
• foil
• voice
• coil
• broil

Math:
Last week we worked on counting money and using different coins to show money totals. Mrs. Shore started the section on tables and graphs. We will continue to read tables and graphs for information and then work on word problems with too much information. This is a tricky skill. The tricky part is deciding which information is important and which information is not necessary.

Science:
On Thursday, we started Unit 3 in science. It talks about matter, energy, and the properties of matter. There are a lot of fun investigations to complete as we enjoy this new unit of study.

Question of the Week:
Here is a word from our Mountain Language last week. The word is REVIEWED.
1) What is the base word?
2) What is the prefix?
3) What is the suffix?

A THINKING QUESTION.........................
In Social Studies, we learned about the Coastal Native Americans? How were they able to make their canoes? Do you think this was a good way to make the canoes? What might be a disadvantage of having a canoe like this now?

Hope your Holidays were glorious!!!

 

Housekeeping:

Monday, November 26, 2012: PLC/Early Release

Monday, November 26, 2012: AR store...everyone in our class reached their AR Goal for the second time!!! Way to go class!!

Monday, November 26, 2012 to Friday, December 7, 2012: Ellis School Food Drive. These are the suggested themes for the first week, after that, anything goes!! The upper grade and the lower grade with the highest amount of donations will receive a class prize compliments of the Ellis PTA organization.

 

Monday: Soup Day

Tuesday: Breakfast Items

Wednesday: Lunch Items

Thursday: Dinner items

Friday: Snack items

 



 Language Arts:
The story of the week is Dancing Rainbows by Evelyn Clarke Mott. It is a story about a young Native American boy who lives with his grandfather. His grandfather teaches him how to dance and the young boy dances at many festivals and celebrations. It is a wonderful tradition passed down from generation to generation.

Spelling List:

• wild
• bright
• die
• sight
• child
• pie
• fight
• lie
• tight
• tie
• might
• mind

Math:
Because of the busy schedule last week and the shortened week due to the Holidays, we will start this week in Math with counting money amounts. We will also begin reading bar graphs, picture graphs, and graphs with information. The students really like this part of the Unit and there will be many questions about graphs on the year-end ISAT exams.

Social Studies: The students in room #1 will complete the Native American Unit this week. We will start our new Science Unit next week.

Question of the Week:

1) What are the 7 colors of the rainbow in order?
2) List a family tradition you enjoy during the Holiday Season.

 














Story of the Week:
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

Housekeeping:

• Monday, November 19, 2012: PLC Early Release
• Tuesday, November 20, 2012: AR deadline
• Tuesday, November 20, 2012: Spelling Test and Homework due
• Tuesday, November 20, 2012: AR Party...Board Games and Marvelous Medicine
• Tuesday, November 20, 2012: Dr. Shropshire from ISU Physics presentation: (Upper grades 3rd, 4th and 5th presentation from 1:30-2:30).
• Wednesday, November 21-Friday, November 23, 2012: Thanksgiving Holiday Break
• Wednesday, November 21, 2012: Grading Window opens...please have all missing assignments completed.

Language Arts:
The story of the week is Miss Rumphius. We will only be studying this story for 2 days because it is a shortened week. The spelling list is a review of the past several weeks. The spelling test will be given on Tuesday morning. Also, homework for this week is due on Tuesday. It will be our last homework assignment for this six-week grading period.

Spelling Words:

• lay
• feel
• hold
• wild
• might
• paint
• seem
• patch
• three
• own
• speak
• need
• lie
• host
• spread
• float
• row
• leave
• both
• wrap
• know
• mind
• street
• bright
• tie

Math:
The past week, room #1 has been learning how to round to the nearest 100 and the nearest 10. We also learned about symmetrical and congruent figures. This week, we will learn about money values, which should be a cinch, because we do them every morning during our opening.
Remember:
**Symmetrical figures can be folded in half and exactly match up on each other
**A Rhombus can never be symmetrical
**Congruent means a figure that is the same size and the same shape, even if it is shifted.

Social Studies:
Room #1 continues to learn and read about the early Native Americans. This week we will read about the coastal Natives and how they lived and survived in the early times. The students continue to work on a mat weaving project and completing assignments from their Native American folder.

WRITING:
The entire third grade team at Ellis has been involved in a writing pilot program. For the last 4 weeks, our students have been studying, learning, taking notes, and writing about the solar system and a planet of their choice. It has been a long process. When the informational piece was finalized and completed, the third grade teachers took the polished product to be shared with other third grade teachers in the district. I am happy to report that EACH Third grader at Ellis how a complete product with peer editing. all of the papers were wonderful! Here is some of the criteria the papers were scored on:
1) The paper had to have at least three paragraphs. The first paragraph was about the solar system. The second paragraph was about the planet they chose to learn about complete with interesting facts about the planet's physical features and other informational facts. The third paragraph was a concluding statement and a citation of where the students got their information.
2) The paper had to be neat and legible with obvious indentation for each new paragraph.
3) An organizer and rough draft needed to be included.
4) The paper needed to be edited by a peer and checked for complete sentences with proper punctuation and grammar.
5) Stellar papers included detailed more complex sentences and transitional words between paragraphs.
6) Papers were given a 4 point rating:

• 1 point=below grade level
• 2 points =approaching grade level
• 3 points =benchmark or grade level
• 4 points = beyond grade level or benchmark

7) Other teachers in the district were able to use a rubric to grade the Ellis third grade papers. A recent email indicated what an amazing job the Ellis students did in preparing for this assignment.  OUR STUDENTS ARE AWESOME!!!

Question of the Week:
1) If the guide words on a dictionary page were beach and beat, what is the only word from the list below that would be found in between the guide words?

• Bengal
• begging
• bean
• berries
• beaver

Mrs. Shore and I wish you a wonderful, safe, and plentiful Thanksgiving Season!!!

Our Solar System Papers are Finished!!

Housekeeping:
Monday, November 5, 2012: Early Release/PLC
Thursday, November 8, 2012: Math Night at Ellis (6-7 pm)
Friday, November 9, 2012: Veteran's Day Celebration Displays
Tuesday, November 13, 2012: McDonald's Night for Ellis

Language Arts:
The story this week is called Grandma's Records by Eric Valesquez. It is realistic fiction, or a story that could really happen. The story is told by a man who is remembering when he used to visit his Grandma when he was a little boy. He remembers going to a wonderful concert and listening to the music that his Grandma loved. He learns to love music and to appreciate the culture the music originated from.

The spelling pattern focuses on the long /o/ sound.

• coach
• blow
• float
• hold
• sew
• though
• sold
• soap
• row
• own
• both
• most

Skills:
Proper and Common Nouns
Plurals
Subject and Predicates

Math:
For the last 2 weeks we have been solving word problems using addition and subtraction. Some of the strategies we have been using are:

• Comparison Bars
• Math Mountains
• Fact Families

The important idea behind word problems is reading the information carefully and looking for the total or the partners. If the total is given but one of the partners is missing, you will need to subtract. If the total is missing, you will have to add both partners. It is essential for the student to identify the parts of the problem.

Social Studies:
This week we are going to start our study of Native American cultures. We are going to study Natives who lived in:

• Forests
• Deserts
• Grasslands
• Plains

We will also begin to weave our yarn mats. The students can bring yarn from home or use yarn we have at school. We will supply both the yarn and the weaving mats.

Question of the Week:
List 5 proper nouns of your choice.
What makes a noun proper?

Word Problem:
Use a Math Mountain to solve this problem. There were a total of 115 students who traveled to the band competition. The students traveled on two buses. 58 students traveled on the first bus. How many students traveled on the second bus?

Halloween Week and Red Ribbon Week

Red Ribbon Week Activities and Housekeeping:
Monday: Pajama Day
Tuesday: Crazy Hair Day
Wednesday: Wear Red Day
Thursday: Inside Out Day
Friday: Extreme Ellis Colors Day
Monday, October 29, 2012: PLC Early Release
Wednesday, October 31, 2012: Classroom Halloween Party from     12:50 to 1:50...games and healthy spooky snacks
Friday, November 2, 2012: Pinch Pots from Native American Unit in the gym from 10 am to 11 am
Friday, November 2, 2012: Pride Day and Playground Clean-up

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Writing: We have two writing projects in working progress. The first is our planet report. The planet report is being completely written, edited, and polished in the classroom. On November 12, 2012, the Ellis third grade teachers will take the written planet reports to a meeting. Other teachers will look at the reports and provide a grade from a required rubric. The students know what needs to be included in their report in order to do well. The reports are looking awesome!!

Also, our personal narrative book is almost completed. All of the pictures are finished and we are in the process of writing our stories on the special "page" paper provided for the class book. A notice was sent home last week for any parents interested in ordering a class treasure book. The payment is due on this Friday so we can get all of the pages shipped off to the publishing company.

MATH:
Nice job on the measuring lines and Quadrilateral Unit. We have moved on to word problems using addition and subtraction. Some strategies we use to help us with word problems are comparison bars and math mountains. All problems will involve adding or subtracting larger numbers.

SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will wrap up Communities...why people move there and why people move to a place with resources. Next week we will begin our Native American Unit. We learn about four different Native American groups in the United States. The students always enjoy this Unit. We will kick off the Unit by making pinch pots in the gym on Friday morning and culminate the Unit with a weaving project.

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK....
List 5 facts (something you could prove) about the Solar System.
List the planets in order.

Just a relly great week!!

Housekeeping:
Monday, October 22, 2012: Early Release PLC
Monday, October 29, 2012: Start of Red Ribbon Week-PJ Day
Tuesday, October 30, 2012: Crazy Hair Day
Wednesday, October 31, 2012: Wear Red Day
Thursday, November 1, 2012: Inside-Out Day
Friday, November 2, 2012: Extreme Ellis Day
Wednesday, November 21, 2012: End of Six Weeks/AR Goal deadline

Language Arts:
The story of the week is The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco. This story is a personal narrative, non-fiction story about a woman and her ancestors and the quilt they all grew up with.

Writing: The students have completed paragraph one of their 3 paragraph informative report on planets. This week we are
pre-writing paragraph 2 and then editing it and polishing it.

Spelling words for the week:

• paint
• clay
• feel
• leave
• neighbor
• eight
• seem
• speak
• paid
• lay
• need
• weigh

Math:
We will complete a quick unit on measuring lengths, parallel and perpendicular lines, and types of quadrilaterals. After the Unit Test on Tuesday, we will jump in to comparing numbers and rounding.

Social Studies:
All the third grade classes are busy studying communities, why they start and where they start. We will be learning about Native Americans and their customs and places to settle.

Questions of the Week:

Put the commas in the correct places.

1. The small girl visited her Grandma in Mesa Arizona on July 30 2012.

2. When I go camping I like to eat pancakes sausage eggs and bacon for breakfast.

What is a quadrilateral in math?? Is a square a quadrilateral?

WOW!! Everyone reached their AR reading Goal!!

Our entire class reached their AR reading goal and were able to attend the BFG party on Friday. We had special visitors for the party (The BFG, aka Mrs. Graham, and Sophie, aka Mrs. Shore).
The new AR reading period will extend over the next 6 weeks. The goals will of course be higher than the original goal because we are becoming more excellent readers.

Congratulations to our Order of the Phoenix Readers (The first boy and girl to reach 100% of their AR goal):
 
Marissa Gallup and Jaxson Briscoe

















Housekeeping:
Monday, October 15, 2012: PLC Early Release
Tuesday, October 16, 2012: Grandparents and Granola A-M 8:30-9:00
Wednesday, October 17, 2012: Grandparents and Granola N-Z 8:30-9:00
Thursday, October 18, 2012: Report Cards Available on Infinite Campus
Monday-Friday: The Entire Week: Ellis Book Fair

Reading:
This week in Literature we are studying 2 selections:
The Midnight Ride of Sybil Ludington and Radio Rescue. Both stories are about brave youths who used their courage to help save lives of people of people during trying times.
The spelling list for the week is a review list of the past 4 weeks:

• drum
• huge
• last
• drop
• class
• left
• wide
• mix
• send
• save
• smell
• stick
• note
• thick
• hunt
• thin
• grade
• lot
• cube
• pond
• life
• sock
• luck
• shut
• smile

Science:
We will continue our planet study and begin to write the beginning paragraph of our informative paper. We are looking for a great opening sentence and some details about the solar system for paragraph one. We will edit and review in class.

Social Studies:
Last week we learned about maps and started to create a map of our community. This week we will be studying why people move to different places.

Math:
Hooray!! The unit on addition, subtraction, and place value is complete. We will begin rounding and graphing for our next unit of study.

Question of the Week:

Brenna's Grandparents bought a total of 576 books at the Book Fair. Her Grandma bought 217. How many books did her Grandpa buy?? Use a Math Mountain to figure out the problem.

Write an addition word problem using the same numbers as above.

Welcome to Fall and a planet study for Science

Welcome to Fall!! Glad to be back at school and we hope you enjoyed your two days off!!

Housekeeping:
Monday, October 8, 2012: PLC Early Release
Thursday, October 11, 2012: End of first 6-week grading period
Thursday, October 11, 2012: AR reading goal deadline
Monday, October 15, 2012: Book Fair begins
Tuesday, October 16, 2012: Grandparents' Day last name A-M
Wednesday, October 17, 2012: Grandparents' Day last name N-Z
Thursday, October 18, 2012: Report Cards posted on Infinite Campus

Language Arts:
Last week there was a bit of a mix-up with the spelling list. We gave the correct test for the words which the students took home. But I posted the wrong test on the BLOG....silly me. So for this week, the spelling words are the same words that were on the BLOG last week. The spelling pattern focuses on long vowel with a silent e.

• smoke
• huge
• save
• life
• wide
• come
• mine
• grade
• smile
• note
• cube
• love
• escape
• slope

Our story this week is Lost and Found by Mark Teague. The students will love this story with a bit of a twist at the end.

Our third grade class is also participating in a writing pilot. Our students will be required to write and publish an informative piece on the solar system and the planets. The students have already chosen the planet they were interested in last Wednesday. The teachers will do a series of about 20 mini lessons as we go through the writing process. Each student is required to write about a planet of their choice from our solar system. This is our next big project. Thank you again for helping your students edit and polish their personal narrative stories.

Math:
I think we finally have subtraction strategies figured out. We had a quiz last Wednesday, and everybody did a great job!! We have about 5 more lessons to teach in this Unit as we will next tackle word problems with addition and subtraction.

Science:
As mentioned above, the students will begin to write an informative piece on our solar system and the planet of their choice. This entire process will be completed by November 12, 2012.

Social Studies:
Last week we started our study on communities and will continue to learn why communities begin and why people move to various locations.

Question of the Week:
What is the proper abbreviation for the word missus?

Also, We had a mini-lesson on plural possessives from our Daily Language. We were applying the correct punctuation to this sentence:
Several students notebooks in the classroom had lovely pictures in them.

In the above sentence, what is the correct way to punctuate students and show the proper possessive form?

Then a little girl in the class asked how to show the plural possessive form of fish. That is a tricky one because the plural form of fish is fish (within a species). When we are talking about fish from several species, the proper plural form is fishes ( I looked this up because I wasn't sure). Because fish has two plural forms, it also has two forms for the plural possessive. The possessive of fish is fish's; and the possessive of fishes is fishes'. So....we all learned something new today...at least I did!!!

A Short Week

We have a short week!
Housekeeping:

• Monday, October 1, 2012: PLC Early Release
• Thursday and Friday, October 4-5th: No school
• Thursday, October 11, 2012: AR Goal Deadline
• Thursday, October 11, 2012: End of first 6 weeks

Language Arts:
The spelling list for the week focuses on the short and long vowel sounds:

• stand
• rest
• plate
• clock
• white
• stuff
• spoke
• bend
• frame
• twist
• June
• mile

Since this is a shortened week, we are doing a genre study on poetry. The students will create several different types of poems and listen to a variety of poetry. Nice job on your personal narratives for our Family Adventure Book. They were very enjoyable to read, I had a great time reading through each one. Thank you parents for all your hard work in helping your students write their stories. We will recopy in our neatest penmanship and add a picture for the class book.

Math:
All of the third grade classes are getting to be experts at addition with higher numbers. Now we are working on subtraction with regrouping and subtraction over zero. This is always a complicated  twist in mathematical procedures. Please continue to work at home with addition and subtraction facts. We will continue to work on subtraction this week.

Science and Social Studies:
The third grade students are finalizing their study of space,  the earth and the moon. We just recently learned about the different types of eclipses. There are two kinds: the solar eclipse and the lunar eclipse.

Solar Eclipse: When the moon moves between the earth and the sun and casts a shadow on the sun.

Lunar Eclipse: When the earth moves between the moon and the sun and blocks the sun's rays. These occur more frequently and are safe to look at.

Question of the week:

1) BRAINSTORM:
Name 5 things you can do in the water.

2) What is the difference between a  sentence that is a statement and a sentence that is a command?

Carnival Fun!!

Ellis Fall Carnival 2012






Housekeeping:

• Monday, September 24, 2012: Early Release/PLC
• Monday, September 24, 2012: Ellis Fall Carnival begins at 5:00 pm
• Friday, September 28, 2012: Personal Narrative Stories are due. Remember, they need to be neatly edited on ONE PAGE with your most beautiful penmanship.

Reading/Language Arts:


The Legend of Mulan


 

This week our story of focus is The Legend of Mulan. A legend is a story that has been passed down from generation to generation until the story we have at present. This story is about a courageous young woman who represents her family at a time of need. As we read the story think about the character Mulan and what she does that makes her so brave.












Math:
I believe we almost have it. Room #1 has been working on addition with larger numbers. We have learned three strategies to figure out the correct sum. These strategies are:
*New Groups Above
*New Groups Below
*Show All Totals
We will work on addition one more day, and then we will start subtraction of larger numbers. Again, there are strategies we will teach to ensure the students can subtract with success.

Science/Social Studies:
This week we will wrap up our unit of study on space. For the next 4-5 weeks after the conclusion of Science, we will begin our study of communities.

Questions of the Week:
1) Read the following statement. Is it a fact or an opinion?
** Mrs. Graham is the tallest teacher in the third grade.
2) How many syllables does this work have? STRAWBERRY
3) How would you divide this word into syllables using slashes or dots. For example
SANDWICH would be divided like this: sand/wich



We have been sorted!!

On Monday, September 10, 2012, the students in Room #1 at Hogwart's School of Learning were sorted into houses.

Each student was placed into the following houses for the year:

Ravenclaw: Blue

Hufflepuff: Yellow

Gryffindor: Red

Slytherin: Green

Each student can help their house earn points by following classroom rules, participating in class, bringing their reading logs, staying on task, and getting all of their work done. This is just another positive activity we use in class to encourage the students to always do their best.

Housekeeping:

Monday, September 17th: Start writing Personal Narrative for classroom "Treasure" book.

September 19th and 20th: Hearing Screening

Thursday, September 20th: Guest author to visit Ellis Elementary

Friday, September 21: Bring bags of suckers for Carnival contributions if possible

Monday September 24th: Ellis Elementary Fall Carnival

Language Arts/Reading

This week we are going to start writing our Personal Narratives for our class "Treasure" Book. The narrative will be sent home this Friday after we work on it all week. The students will bring their narratives home to polish and then bring back for a final grade. When re-writing the narrative for our classroom book, the students will only be able to use two pages. One page will be for their illustration, and the second page will be for their story. Their story cannot be longer than one page.

Here is the writing schedule:

Monday: Brainstorming for ideas and then creating a 4-W chart (who, what, when, where)

Tuesday: Adding an attention getting beginning/begin writing process

Wednesday: Adding colorful adjectives and juicy details to my writing

Thursday: Continue writing personal narrative using details and organization.

Friday: Adding a summary to my story/Take story home to be polished and beautified

Spelling List: Frequently Misspelled Words

have

haven't

found

around

one

than

then

them

because

other

mother

before

Mountain Language:

Each week we learn 5 new Mountain Language skills. Last week we reviewed the following:

• Putting words in ABC order
• Finding two words that have the same meaning (Synonyms)
• Sentences with subjects and predicates
• Prefixes, suffixes, and base words
• Correcting sentences using correct grammar and punctuation

Math:

Ask your students about the three ways we have learned to add numbers with more than 2 digits (larger numbers).

*New Groups Above

*New Groups Below

*Show All Totals

When adding money amounts, please REMEMBER to use a dollar sign and a decimal point!!

We will practice adding money amounts for the next 3 days and then we will start subtracting with smaller numbers. Keep practicing those math facts!!

Science:

Last week we learned about the sun and how big it is compared to the earth. We visited about the power of the sun and the different layers of the atmosphere. This week we will learn about how the earth rotates and moves throughout the year and also how the earth moves around the sun.

We sure love teaching your students. This week we begin switch groups for about 50 minutes on Monday-Thursday. Don't forget to bring your homework back by Friday and bring your reading log everyday.

THE AR GOAL DEADLINE IS THURSDAY OCTOBER 11, 2012!!

Questions for the Week.....Thank you for commenting last week.

#1 What is another word or synonym for soft?

#2 Put these words in ABC order: salt, sick, sandwich, swipe, silly

#3 Write a complete sentence about yourself with a subject (you) and a predicate.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK AT ELLIS!!

WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL!!!

Welcome Back to School Room #1. We are so excited to have you in our class this year and we look forward to getting to know you better as we learn and have a ton of fun together!

Housekeeping:

• Monday, September, 10, 2012: Sorting Hat in the classroom following lunch. Make sure you come to school and see what House at Hogwarts you will be in for the year!!
• The AR Goals are set!! We only have 4 weeks to reach the goals. I am going to have to make a few adjustments on some of the goals because we have amazing readers in our class and they need a good challenge!!
• Wednesday/Thursday, September 19th and 20th: Hearing Screening to be done at school.
• Thursday, September 20th: Visiting Author Assembly in the Cafeteria.
• Monday, September 24th: Second Annual Fall Carnival. Come with your family and friends and be prepared to have a BLAST!!!!

Reading and Language Arts:
This week our story is called Cliff Hanger, by Jean Craighead George. We will be working on the concept of Cause and Effect and will have some reading activities centered around this skill. Each morning the students come into class they will work for about 7 minutes on Daily Language Review. They are given this worksheet on Monday morning and they complete it every morning for 4 days. It is a great Language Skill builder.

The Spelling List should have gone home in their Friday Folders with any corrected work and their new homework for the week. Homework is due next week on any day, but must be completed and handed in by Friday. Following are the spelling words for the story Cliff Hanger.

mix
milk
smell
last
head
friend
class
left
thick
send
thin
slick

Math:

The last week we worked on Place Value and also addition strategies to help the students with simple math facts. A cheap set of flashcards are an excellent resource to help your kids build speed at instantly knowing their addition and subtraction basic math facts. A great website for math skills is located at www.math-drills.com. Their are worksheets for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We use it quite a bit for drill and practice.

Science:

All of the Third Grade at Ellis work on Science for about six weeks and then switch to Social Studies. Currently we are studying about the moon and the earth and how they are the same and how they are different. Mrs. Shore did a really great moon phase activity on Friday. Ask your kids about it.

Question of the Week from Mountain Language:

What is the abbreviation for the word Friday?

Is the word Statue of Liberty a proper noun?

Make a list of 5 proper nouns.

If the students post their answers in the comment section, we will give them a blue token in the classroom. HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!

Great Job on Animal Reports

Hey all you Bloggers!! (Carlos and Friends)
We are going to try something a little different this week. We are trying out a new District Tool called My Big Campus. It is a lot like Facebook, but completely safe. We will post on "My Big Campus" weekly. It will be a great way for you to earn some blue tokens. The reason we really like it... is because we can put so many things on there and we won't have to put them on your desktop every morning. We can just put them on "My Big Campus" from our own homes and then you can go and get them.

Hope you like it. You can also log in at home and show your parents. The log-in is the same as your username and password at school. We will show you how to do it this week. It is a lot of fun.

Question of the Week:
ABC Order:
book, black, bear, biggest, banking

Possessives:
The car of Mrs. Shore.
The apple of Dakota.
The park of Chubbuck.

Animal Reports due this Friday

Aaron did his on the Tiger Shark.

Colton did his on the Gray Wolf.



Josh did his on the Siberian Tiger.


Congratulations to the first three students who already brought in their Animal Research Reports. They were all excellent.
Housekeeping:

• Friday, March 2, 2012: Animal Research Reports due


• Friday, March 2, 2012: AR Party


• Friday, March 2, 2012: Dr. Seuss Day


• Friday, March 2, 2012: Choose Mushers for Iditarod Alaskan Race


• Monday, March 5, 2012: No School

Language Arts:

This week, we are writing an essay on how we can help our country when we have a disaster. We brainstormed some ideas yesterday and came up with this list:

• avalance


• hurricane


• wild fires


• tornado


• earthquake


• tsunami


• disease


• plane crash

This is the Lion's Club essay. We will work on it and complete it at school. Each essay will be graded and submitted by the teacher.

Math:

Last week we did a quick unit on time to take a little break from multiplication. This week, we are right back at it. For the next few weeks we will complete multiplication using 6, 7, and 8 and begin word problems with multiplication.

Science/Social Studies:

This week we will conclude Earth's Resources and how the Earth changes. Next week we will begin "Women in History".

Question of the Week:

Answer these multiplication problems:

Commutative Property: (Flip Flop)

3 x 7 = ___ x 3

6 x 10 = ___ x 6

Associative Property:

(2 x 3) x 4 = 2 x (3 x ___)

1 x (4 x 2) = (1 x ___) x 2