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

Two Upcoming Projects

We hope you had a nice President's Day Weekend. Mrs. Shore and I and our families did lots of fun things.
First, we had a yummy Fiesta at my house last Friday Night. Lots of people came over and shared great food with us.
Second, we went bowling at Pine Bowl; it was pretty crowded.
Third, I went to the movies with my kids and also watched a basketball game.
Finally, we went skiing. We went over some really fun jumps and skied in the trees. That was the best part.

Here are some of our upcoming events: I sent an email out to anyone with an email account.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012: PENNY WARS BEGIN!!

Friday, February 24, 2012: End of the 4th six-weeks

Friday, February 24, 2012: AR Goal Deadline

Friday, February 24, 2012: Water Cycle Model due

Friday, March 2, 2012: Animal Report due (We will send home)

Language Arts:

Our class is working on an animal Research Report. These are the some of the things we will be grading on: Beginning, Middle and End. The middle of the report will tell us about the animal's habitat, what they like to eat, and any special characteristics. For each one of these categories, the student will have to give examples and details. We have already written the introduction. We will work on this research paper this week and send it home with a book to be completed at home.

Our story this week is Two Days in May. It tells about two deer who wander down into the city because they are hungry and looking for food. The citizens in the community have to decide what they are going to do about these hungry animals.

Math:

We are taking a break from Multiplication for one week and reviewing different ways to tell and say what time it is.

Science:

A model of the Water Cycle is due this coming Friday. The water cycle model should be 3-D. We already made one in class on construction paper. These four parts need to be included in the Water Cycle Model: Precipitation, Ground Water, Evaporation, and Condensation. Each of these parts need to be labeled.

Question of the Week:

Brainstorming: What are 5 things you can do at an amusement park?

Synonyms: Write a synonym for each of the following:

Moist:

Angry:

Filthy:

Rough:

Fluffy:

AR Goal deadline on Friday, February, 24th

Congratulations to the first students to reach their AR Goal:

Kaleb

Sydney

Ian

Way to go!!!

HAPPY VALENTINE"S DAY!!

This is going to be a really quick blog, because my Internet Service has been down all week, and I just got reconnected.

Housekeeping:

Monday, February 13, 2012: PLC Early Release

Tuesday, February 14, 2012: Valentine's Day Party

Thursday, February 16, 2012: Class Pictures

Monday, February 21, 2012: Penny Wars Start

Friday, February 24, 2012: End of 4th Six-Weeks

Friday, February 24, 2012: AR Goal Deadline

Spelling Words:

cared

babies

chopped

saving

carried

fixing

hurried

joking

grinning

smiled

wrapped

parties

Question of the Week:

What are some materials the Inuit People use to build their homes?

Get Ready for a Research Project!!

Housekeeping:
Monday, February 6, 2012: Early Release, PLC
Tuesday, February 7, 2012: Special Visit by the Pocatello/Chubbuck Superintendent.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012: 100's Day....Wear a number shirt, you can bring a poster of 100 things, get ready to disco for 100 seconds. We will have 100 seconds of silence, and write Ellis as many times as we can in 100 seconds.
Tuesday, February 14th: Valentine's Day. We will send a list home with the kids. Please, only use first names on the Valentine's.

Language Arts:
This week we start Reading Unit: Amazing Animals. We start off by learning about the cute "Little clowns of the sea: The Puffins". We will then read a story about a pretty amazing seal, a couple of deer and finally some animals from the desert. Also during this theme, we have the kids write a research report about an animal of their choice. They can choose any animal. So be thinking about what you would like to learn more about. The research report will include a picture, citation page, and important information about the animal. We will help the students in class and then send the piece home to be edited and revised. Thank you for your help on this project.

The spelling words this week are:
hair
care
chair
pair
bear
where
scare
air
pear
bare
fair
share

Math:
We have become well acquainted with facts for 2, 5, 9, and 10. This past Friday, we introduced multiplication with 3 as a factor. Remember, multiplying is just REPEATED ADDITION!!

Science:

On Friday, we wrapped up our Arctic Unit and took an assessment on the information. For the next couple of weeks we will be studying about Earth's resources, learning about the Water Cycle and making a model of the Water Cycle. The kids just love this activity.

Question of the Week:

Give me 3 facts about a Polar Bear, the "Bad Boy" of the North.

Write a multiplication word problem for 3 x 4= 12

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!! THANKS FOR POSTING