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

Thanks for Coming to Conferences!!

Housekeeping:

• Monday, Jan. 29th: PLC Early Release


• Feb. 7, 2012: School Board Visit Room #1


• Feb. 8, 2012: 100's Day


• Feb. 17th, 2012: Muffins with Mom


• Feb. 15th 2012: Spring Class Pictures

A big thank you to all parents who were able to attend our Parent Teacher Conferences and came to enjoy the students' Presentations they have been diligently working on. We had a wonderful turn-out in Room #1. We have such a wonderful classroom of students and GREAT Parents!!

Language Arts:

The story this week is a comparison story about Dinosaur Bob and Fugitives on Four Legs. It is the last story in Theme 4 (Incredible Stories). We will be working on skills we have already learned this past 6-weeks such as using verbs in the Past and Present; Commas in addresses, dates, and a series; format of a friendly letter and using prefixes. There is a big spelling test at the end of the week which addresses all of the spelling patterns we have been learning over the past 6 weeks:

word sound clear also soft crown crack lawn girl knew here turn dark

north orange her skin hear squeeze gym second jeans our hour knew

Technology:

The PowerPoint Presentations were a huge success. Students in Harry Potter Room #1 are going to start back up with FasttMath and Compass Learning. We would like all students to have mastered their addition facts by the end of the year and well into their subtraction facts.

Math:

We continue to learn our multiplication fact patterns. So far we have learned multiplication with 0, 1, 2, 5, 9, and 10. We practice a lot in between. Please practice at home with your child. A good website to visit is math-drills.com. Their are a variety of worksheets for all math computation skills available on this site.

Social Studies:

We would like to finish up our Arctic Unit this week. We have been learning about our friends in the North and their way of life. We have learned what kind of clothes they wear, what kind of food they eat, the type of transportation they use, and their way of life. The Unit Exam will be on Friday.

Question of the Week:

Look at the following words:

reappear, unfortunate, disloyal

What is the prefix in each word?

What is the base word in each?

What does each word mean?

Write a multiplication word problem to represent 5 x 3 = 15.

THE IRI WAS A HUGE SUCCESS!!! WAY TO GO ROOM #1

Housekeeping:

• Monday, January 23, 2012: Early Release/PLC


• Thursday, January 26, 2012: Parent Teacher Conferences/Open House Conferences are after school, and the Open House begins at 6:00 pm. Come and see what your child has been working on.


• Hundreds Day: February 8, 2012


• Muffins with Mom: February 17, 2012


• Visit from Superintendent in our classroom: February 7, 2012

Language Arts:
The story of the week is another Fantasy story from our Incredible Stories Theme. The name of our story is The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris Van Allsburg. Skills we will work on are: Prefixes, use of verbs in the past, present and future tense, Mountain Language skills, and a new AR reading goal.

MATH:

The third graders at Ellis School have started multiplication. We have taught them that multiplication is just repeated addition. We started with multiplication using 5 as a factor. This week we will relate division to multiplication and start multiplication with 1's, 2's, 0's, and 10's. To learn multiplication, we do a lot of worksheets to reinforce the concepts. The best thing yet is to memorize them....but until then, use the strategies!!

Technology:

This past week our students inserted class pictures into their PowerPoint presentations. They are looking very original! The students have done a great job. Get ready to be entertained when you come to conferences.

Social Studies:

I made an error last week in reporting we had started our Science new Unit. Instead we started our Arctic Unit. We worked on it last week and will be wrapping it up this week. In March we will start a mock Iditarod Race with all the third grade students. It is one of the highlights of their third grade experience. We assign them each a racer and we track the actual racers as they travel across Alaska.

Question of the week:

Irregular verbs in the past tense.

Use these verbs in the past tense in a new sentence.

Example:

I eat my breakfast every morning. (eat)

I ate my breakfast yesterday morning.

• swim


• dig


• hear

End of 6 Weeks!!!

Housekeeping:

We are in for a busy week this week....

Tuesday, January 17, 2012: Back to School

Thursday, January 19, 2012: Winter IRI!!

Thursday, January 19, 2012: Technology Night at Ellis (6:00 pm)

Friday, January 20, 2012: End of 6 weeks. AR Goal Deadline

Friday, January 20, 2012: AR/Matilda Party and Class Auction. Fabulous prizes for everyone in the class.

Technology:

Last week, the students in Room #1 put clip-art on their PowerPoint presentations. This week we will show them how to insert photos and save to their personal H drive. We invite all parents to come with their child to Parent Teacher Conference Evening on Thursday 26, 2012. The conferences start at 6:00 pm. Hope to see you there.

Language Arts:

This week are story is Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolen. This is a great story about a little girl who lives on a farm and discovers a dragon egg. Our students will keep working on identifying comparatives (words ending with -er....the horse was bigger than the cow) and superlatives (words ending with -est....the lion was the strongest of all the animals).

The spelling words concentrate on the /j/ sound ad the /k/ sound and the /kw/ sound:

judge

gym

skin

quick

picnic

park

jeans

crack

orange

second

squeeze

Math:

This week we start multiplication. Keep working with your children on identifying and filling in number patterns. For example:

__, __, 7, 10, 13, 16

5__, 11, 14, __, 20

Science:

We are wrapping up our Martin Luther King Unit and starting our Science Unit on Earth's Resources. We will continue with Science for the next 3 weeks.

Question of the Week????

Put these words in ABC order:

cannon, crying, camera, crane, cringe

What are the missing numbers in the pattern? What is the rule for the pattern?

1,___,___,10, 13, 16, 19,___

2,___,____,14, 18, 22, ____