A BLOG CLOG

I need to fix a date I gave to all of our followers:

Thursday, May 14, 2009: Room #1 Technology Night from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. Come and see a slide show put on by your child.

Friday, May 15, 2009 (2:00 pm): Room #1 Class Talent Show. Many of our students have signed up. It promises to be an entertaining show.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 (8:45 am): Combined Talent Show for all third grade classes. We will meet in the school gymnasium.

Friday, May 22, 2009 (9:30-1:00 pm) Third Grade Field Trip to the Community Recreation Center. Have your students bring thier swimsuits and $2.50 for the entrance fee.

Friday, May 22, 2009 (2:00 pm) "The Great Kapok Tree" Rain Forest play. This will be held back in our room

Yes! We are Finished!

This week is a busy one with lots of different activities and a new story.
First of all, congratulations on your fine work on the ISAT exams and the IRI assessment. Our final ISAT was in math and our class was 96.2% proficient or advanced.

This week we are beginning a new Magic Tree House Book titled: Night of the New Magicians. We will be doing some fun science "magic" in small groups and learning about the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

The spelling list list this week is words from the story:

whirl
twirl
invent
lightbulb
telephone
evil
germs
medicine
iron
cloak
dark
world
fair
Paris
France
magic

In Math we continue to work on multiplication strategies using our new math series. We will be working with some new math mats with dry erase markers.

Our butterflies all emerged from their chrysalis this past week. Some of them made it and some did not. In Science we will continue to learn about the life cycles of plants and animals.

One of our upcoming projects is a class play about the rain forest. It is called the Great Kapok Tree. Each student has been assigned a part in the play. We are making paper mache animals and will paint them as soon as the animals dry. The students have had a great time so far making their animals. Hope to see you at the play.

Some upcoming dates for your calendar:
Room #1 Technology evening: Thursday, May 14, 2009 5:30pm-6:30pm--come and see the slide show presentations your child has been working on.

Friday, May 15, 2009 2:00 pm: Individual class talent show.

Thursday, May 22, 2009 8:45 am Combined third grade talent show.

Friday, May 22, 2009 End of the year field trip to the Community Recreation Center and Class Play. The play will begin as soon as we come back from field trip.

Question of the week: Name 5 solid figures we have studied in class (hint: a cylinder is one).

One More to Go!

This weeks marks the last testing week for ISAT's as well as our Spring IRI. The spring IRI will be given tommorrow at 10:00 am. We encourage all students to read their best. We have made so many gains since we took it in the Fall. On Tuesday, we will wrap up our ISAT testing with the math portion of the assessment. This will begin as soon as we check in for school. The students will be allowed to take a sharpened pencil and some extra paper down to use when figuring and solving problems. Again, Good Luck and get a good night's sleep and a good breakfast before you come on Monday and Tuesday.

We have completed our reading anthology and will focus on three books from the MAGIC TREE HOUSE series. The first story we will focus on is Afternoon in the Amazon. Each story will take a week to complete and comes with plenty of activities. Mrs. Shore and Mrs. Graham's class do a play at the end of the year about a tree in the rain forest. Each student will create a paper mac he' animal and use it in the play. It is great fun and the students always enjoy participating. We will start creating our animals at the end of this week.

The spelling words for this story concentrate on the /s/ sound in face and city. It is the soft c sound:
face
city
pencil
place
center
dance
race
circle
nice
once
princess
circus
silence
excitement

Each student has been working on a technology presentation about their experience in third grade. We would like to share these presentations on a "Technology Night". We know the end of the year is getting busy, but have planned the sharing for Thursday, May 14, 2009 from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm in the evening. Hope to see you there. The students have been working hard.

In Math we will again concentrate on Multiplication and Division for the next couple of weeks. We are hoping for a great showing on the Math ISAT on Tuesday.

Our caterpillars have woven themselves into a tight chrysalis. We are patiently awaiting the transformation. We have placed the chrysalis pad into a butterfly house so they can have more room when they transform into the Painted Lady Butterfly. After each caterpillar has changed, we release them altogether.

In Science we continue to learn about life cycles of living things.

Housekeeping:
Monday, May 4, 2009: Spring IRI
Tuesday, May 5, 2009: Math ISAT
Thursday, May 14, 2009 (5:30 pm to 7:00 pm) Technology Evening
Friday, May 15, 2009 (2:00 pm) Individual Class Talent Show

Question of the Week:
List the Multiplication/Division Fact Family for 8x3. Remember their are four different facts in the family.

They did it!

Our class did so well with the reading ISAT's. Way to Go! Our proficiency percentage was 96%. We still have a few kids that need to finish up on Monday. Thank you for taking your time and reading slowly as to understand the passages and the questions. We have one more ISAT exam on May 5, 2009. This is our Math ISAT. A really good WEBsite to visit for more ISAT practice is the District Website at www.d25.k12.id.us. You can click on the Parent tab and then go down to Curriculum and Testing. This should give you options on several tests including the ISAT exam. Of course we want our kids to all be proficient in Math. They need to be in between 190-201 on the RIT score practice portions. There are about 12 questions per section. We did several of them in class for reading practice. It gives the students a good idea how the questions will look and be worded. It also gives them excellent practice. We will be going to this Website all week next week. Keep up the good work.

The weather is warming up and encourages a lot of playground time at recess. Remember the school rules and always be safe and make good choices.

Report Cards will be sent home on Tuesday. Keep taking your reading logs home and get them signed by your parents. This counts as your reading grade. New AR goals have been made. The AR deadline is Friday, May 22, 2009. This is the day the librarians would like all books checked back in. If your child has missing books, please locate them and bring them back to our wonderful library.


Language Arts:
Our literature selection for the week is Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. Did you know this wonderful author did not even like reading until she was in third grade? I find that amazing. She has written dozens of fantastic books for children.

The spelling for this week concentrates on contractions:

• I'm
• he's
• aren't
• couldn't
• won't
• o'clock
• wouldn't
• weren't
• she's
• wasn't
• I'd
• shouldn't
• can't
• isn't
• let's
• who's

Make sure you get that apostrophe in the correct place.

MATH

Another week of reviewing concepts from the beginning of the year and also introducing new concepts. We will be going out to the district Website daily and getting extra practice. Each morning we will work on geometry concepts on our Promethean Board. Pay attention so you can get every little bit of help you need to do well!

SCIENCE

Our third grade class continues to learn about food and nutrition, eating balanced meals, and what happens when we eat the correct way. Our caterpillars are growing and getting fat. They should be attaching themselves to the top of our jar sometime this week. They are amazing little critters.

Congratulations to our Young Author Representative: Mr. Brennan Anderson. He wrote a descriptive piece on Pizza. Nice Job Brennan!

Congratulations to our two students who had the hightest increase in their Math multiplication test scores and percentages. These two students are Taylor Sanchez and Donald Rowberry.

Question of the Week:

This is an opinion question: "What did you like most about being in Third Grade?

ONE ISAT DOWN!!

The Ellis Elementary Third Grade has met and exceeded their proficiency goal on the Language Usage ISAT assessment. Next week all third graders will be taking the Reading portion of the ISAT exam. Remember to have a good breakfast and a good night's sleep. Our class will take the exam on Friday, April 24th at 8:40 in the morning. Take your time and read slowly through all the questions. You can do it!! You have already done so well!!

Our story this week is one of my favorites. The title is Poppa's New Pants, by Angela Shelf Medearis. It has a surprise ending--wait and see what happens in the story, you will love it. Also, on Monday, we begin the last six-week grading period. New AR goals will be made. They will not be as lofty because we have less than 6 weeks to meet the goal. Please continue signing the reading logs every night. The reading log is part of their reading grade. The spelling list for the week concentrates on the spelling words that begin with a and be.

• begin
• again
• around
• before
• away
• about
• alive
• because
• ahead
• between
• behind
• ago
• they
• want
• awhile
• beyond

For the next two weeks in math, we are going to do a comprehensive review on math concepts. Some concepts will be a review, others are math concepts we are in the process of learning. Please continue reviewing basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts with your child. These are things that will appear on the Math ISAT assessment. Following is a list of concepts we will be reviewing:

• basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication strategies
• using time and temperature as a measurement
• angles, symmetry, area, and perimeter
• graphing and organizing data
• fractions
• division
• counting money and counting back change

In science, we are starting a health unit and also beginning to watch the life cycle of a painted lady butterfly. We have the caterpillars in a jar and they are hungrily eating their way into a fat, healthy chrysalis.

We have sent out notices for our classroom talent show. We would love everyone to participate. A permission slip was sent home for parents to sign. The individual talent show is scheduled for Friday, May 15th. The combined talent show is scheduled for Thursday, May 21st.

Questions of the week:
What is the difference between an auto-biography and a biography?
What is the difference between fiction and non-fiction?
What is realistic fiction?

HAPPY EASTER!!

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter Weekend.

Ellis Elementary is beginning ISAT testing this week. Mrs. Shore/Mrs. Graham's class will take their first ISAT test this coming Thursday. Make sure your child has a good night's sleep, a healthy, balanced breakfast and remind them to take as much time as they need on the test as possible. We don't want any "happy clickers".

This coming Friday (April 17th) marks the end of the 6-week grading period. It is also the deadline for the AR goal. The entire class has almost reached their individual goals. Way to go!!

This week we start a new reading unit called "Smart Solutions". The first story is about a little girl who speaks both English and Spanish. She is bilingual. The title of the story is Pepita Talks Twice. Following are the spelling words from this story concentrating on the word ending with -er and -le:

• summer
• winter
• little
• Ocotober
• travel
• color
• apple
• able
• November
• ever
• later
• purple
• flower
• people
• thermometer
• mumble

In math we continue to work on multiplication math facts and will begin mulitiplication by tens this week. Keep working on those facts--and keep bringing your reading logs.

Social Studies discussions this week will include the law making process and how laws help our communities build trust and keep us safe.

As the days warm up and the sun continues to shine, we still want to give our students a gentle reminder we come to school to learn, participate, and do well. Please encourage your child to continue following the rules of the school and of the classroom. They are put in place for safety and a positive learning experience. Thank you for all you do!

Welcome Back from Spring Break

This is the fastest plane ever made. It can fly from San Francisco, California to Washington DC in about an hour. It takes a regular plane about 5 1/2 hours to do this. I saw this plane in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Hey! (interjection) Did you lovely students get my postcards? I hope so.

Mrs. Love, our other 309 student, started her sequence last Friday. She will be assisting the students with the writing process as they complete a descriptive writing piece. As we score and grade these writings we will be looking for an exceptional piece to be submitted to represent our class for the Young Author's Conference. Mrs. Love is going to teach you some fabulous writing techniques. We are so lucky to have them in our classroom. They have helped the students in our class so much. Thank you for all you do.

Math: Yes! (Interjection) We finally started multiplication. Last week we constructed arrays and wrote multiplication sentences. Remember a multiplication sentence consists of the factors 3 x 4 and the product (answer) = 12. To write a multiplication sentence correctly it should look like this 3 x 4 = 12. Don't forget to write the complete sentence. Mrs. Shore and I will be teaching you multiplication strategies to help you remember the facts. You should also be practicing on your own time at home.

Keep reading every evening. We check the reading logs every day in class. This is part of your reading grade. The AR deadline in Friday, April 17th. So many of you have already reached your goal and many of the rest of you are exactly where you need to be. GOOD WORK!

We have started Social Studies again and will concentrate on communities and government within a community. We will learn how a law is created and passed.

Looking forward to seeing and teaching you next week.

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK:

What is the capital of Idaho?

Who is Idaho's governor?

What is one famous river that runs across the lower part of Idaho?