It Warmed Up (a little)!!

Congratulation to our last six-week AR Winners!!
Hunter Ellis and Phillip Bayes were the first girl and boy in room #1 to reach their AR goal.
Housekeeping:
Monday, January 28, 2013: PLC/Early Release
Monday, February 4, 2013: Water Cycle Models due
Tuesday, February 5, 2013: District Board Visits
Friday, February 8, 2013: Ellis 100 day celebration!!

Stories of the week:

• Dinosaur Bob and the Family Lazardo
• Fugitives on Four Legs

Spelling list (it's a big one)

• word
• sound
• clear
• also
• soft
• crown
• crack
• lawn
• girl
• knew
• here
• turn
• dark
• north
• orange
• her
• skin
• hear
• squeezed
• gym
• second
• jeans
• our
• hour
• knew

Language Arts:

This week we will review several skills we have been practicing over the past six weeks (verbs, base words with endings -er and -est, and comma rules) just to mention a few. The students did very well on the Idaho Reading Indicator and each student improved from the Fall IRI. We have formed some new House groups which will remain until the end of the year. Students continue to go to SWITCH groups from 10:00-10:50 AM on Monday-Thursday. This is a great way to really individualize their education and give them what they need to keep them going strong. Please continue to let your children use Myon.com for reading. It is a great resource. This is the second week or their new AR goals. They should be at about 36% of their new goal by Friday.

Math:

Our students continue to work on multiplication and also make connections with division. We are having them work with Math manipulatives so they can see and feel how multiplication works. So far we have worked on these multiplication families:

• 0's
• 1'2
• 2's
• 3's
• 5's
• 9's
• 10's

They know strategies for all of these multiplication facts. We realize they are just learning and so the facts will not be mastered. We do want them to make the connection that multiplication is just repeated addition and give them strategies to learn their multiplication facts. The quicker they can learn the facts, the better off they will be as they advance into upper grades.

Science:

Last week we learned about how much of our Earth contained land and how much of the Earth contained water. We learned that about 3/4's of the Earth is covered by water and 97% of it is salt water, 2% of it is ice and 1% is fresh water. This conversation lead us into a discussion on the water cycle and its different parts. Each student made a model in class on a piece of paper. They need to take their paper model home and create a 3D model to bring back to class. The students will be graded on their participation and completion of the project. The project is due back in class on Monday, February 4, 2013. Ben Merrill has already brought his back to class!! Way to go Ben!!

Question of the Week:
Mia wants to plant a garden in the shape of a rectangle. The perimeter of the the garden is 24 feet. If the long sides of the rectangle each measure 8 feet, how long are the short sides of the rectangle?

To answer this question you will have to know 2 things:
1) What does perimeter mean?
2) What is a rectangle?

Write a multiplication word problem using this equation:
3 x 6 = 18........BE CREATIVE!!

Happy Martin Luther King Day!! Hope you had a fun day!!

Housekeeping:
Monday, Jan. 21, 2013: Martin Luther Kind Day
Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013: Awards Assembly from 2:00 to 2:30

Congratulations to all students who have reached their AR goal for all of the grading periods!!



Congratulations to all students who have completed Fast Math addition.

Reading:
Last week all of the third grade students at Ellis took the Winter IRI. We had some amazing growth and great scores!! There will be some changes in our Title One groups and switch groups. We are gong to have a big push for the next 2 1/2 months as we prepare for the ISAT test and the Spring IRI. We have some great readers in our class. The new goals for AR have been set. The students need to be at 21% of their new goal by this coming Friday.

The story of the week is The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.  The students will be listening to the story and working on various skills. The spelling list for the week focuses on homophones or words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings:

• hear
• here
• new
• knew
• its
• it's
• hour
• our
• there
• their
• they're

The skill we will focus on is using verbs in the past and future tense. For example:
1) The small girl danced in the dance recital last night. (danced is past tense)
2) The small girl will dance at her practice tomorrow night (will dance is future tense)

Math
The students have learned the following multiplication facts:

• Zero is the KING
• One is like a mirror
• Two times a number means add that number twice (or make a double)
• 3x3=9
• 3x4=12 "One, two, three, four,....I like math let's do some more!!
• 4x4=16 "You have to be 16 years old to drive a 4x4 truck!!"
• 5 count-bys
• 10 count-bys

That is a lot of facts to know. We will continue to practice for several more weeks. We will also learn the basic concept of division along with the multiplication facts.

Science:
We started learning about Earth's resources last week. There are three things we cannot live without.

• air
• water
• food

This week we are going to learn about how much usable water the Earth has and how we can keep our water clean. We will learn about the Water Cycle and make a model of it in class. Each student will practice making a model in class, but will also be required to make a model of the Water Cycle at home. There have been some fabulous ideas over the past years. Water Cycles made out of cakes, candy, Lego's, terrariums, and wheel charts. This is a great science project for the students and helps them to learn the parts of the Water Cycle. I have already asked permission from Mrs. Whitehead to let our students display their water cycles in the Ellis Media Center. We will have some ideas to display for the students.



Question of the Week:
Make multiplication word problem for 3 x 6 = 18.
What are the factors (multipliers or partners) in this problem?
What is the product?

If macaroni and march were the guide words on a dictionary page, what word would be found on the page?

• marriage
• matchstick
• melody
• maps
• middle
• master

BABY IT"S COLD OUTSIDE!!!

Boys and Girls....please don't forget to wear really warm layers and bring your hats and gloves; it is cold outside!!

Housekeeping:
Monday, January 14, 2013: Early Release/PLC
Thursday, January 17, 2013: End of Six Week Grading Window
Thursday, January 17, 2013: Third Grade IRI
Thursday, January 17, 2013: AR Goal Deadline
Thursday, January 17, 2013: Technology Night at Ellis. Bring your parents to come and watch you PowerPoint slide show.  6:00 pm
Friday, January 18, 2013: Classroom auction and AR Party (Scooters and Dress from the past)

Language Arts:
Technology: Students will put the finishing touches on their PowerPoint presentations this week. Come on Thursday evening to Ellis Technology Night and see what your child has been working on!!
Story of the Week: The Mysterious Giant of Barletta
Spelling List:
girl
clear
her
turn
dark
work
smart
word
hurt
serve
north
heard

**Since we had a snow day on Friday, we will be taking the spelling test on Monday for last week's words.
We missed our scheduled Library time and will be visiting the Library on Monday or Tuesday.

Math:
We are off to a great start with Multiplication. Each day we learn a new multiplication fact along with a fun story to help memorize the fact. We have reviewed multiplication with 0, 1, 5, and 2's. These are the easy ones. Just remember......Multiplication is just repeated addition!!  Zero is the KING!!   One is like a mirror, and 2 times a number means add that number twice.....IT IS JUST A DOUBLE!!  These week we will review 5's, 2's, 1's, 0's and start to teach how division and multiplication are related.

Science:
Earth's Resources. Last week we did a quick Unit on Martin Luther King. This week we will head back into Science with Earth's resources. We will learn about natural resources, exhaustible resources, and inexhaustible resources.

**Don't forget, the Winter IRI is on Thursday. We already know you have improved as readers, we just want to see how much.

We think you are GREAT!!!
Question of the Week:

4 x 3 = 12

In the above math multiplication equation, what numbers are the factors?
What number is the product

Can you make up a word problem using the equation 4 x 3 = 12?

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND MULTIPLICTION HERE WE COME!!

We hope everyone had a wonder Holiday Season and you were able to rest and relax and enjoy your time off with family and friends. Mrs. Shore and I had a lot of company over the Holidays. We watched several movies, had a great Bunco night and played a bunch of games. We are excited for school to start back up again and are looking forward to these upcoming events:
Housekeeping:

• Winter IRI: January 15-18th
• End of the Third Six weeks: January 16th
• AR Goal Deadline: January 16th
• Technology Night: January 17th 6:00 pm (Come and see some great presentations!)
• Class Auction: January 18th

Language Arts:
Our new story is Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolen. This is a great story about a little girl who finds a dragon and raises it on her family farm. On Monday we are going to work on paragraph organization together as a whole group project. We will focus on a main introductory sentence and 3 sentences that support it. We will end with a closing statement. This is basic paragraph writing format along with indentation and correct punctuation. We have several students that are excellent with this skill. It is a great skill to practice frequently. The spelling list for the week is as follows:

• large
• gym
• skin
• quick
• picnic
• judge
• park
• jeans
• crack
• orange
• second
• squeeze

Yes! We will be having our spelling test on Friday. The list will be passed out on Monday along with Homework for the week.

Math:
Starting on Monday, we begin our study of multiplication and division. The new standards require mastery of of the multiplication and division facts through 10 x 10. We have a fun book called Multiplication the Fun Way that teaches the students little memory tricks to remember the facts.

Social Studies:
In two more weeks, we celebrate the birthday of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. For the next few weeks, we will study about this famous leader and how he influenced America.

Question of the Week:
How would you punctuate these possessives?
The crayon of Brianna
The pencil of Brenna
The supplies of the girls

(This is especially for Brianna and Brenna because they are faithful posting students!!)