Animal Reports in Full Swing!

Today we had time to keep working on our animal reports. Many of the students are getting started on their final publishing stage where they are typing on the computer. I am really impressed so far with how well the students are typing! We are using every computer we have in the room and Monday our new laptop is here so we will have that as well!

On the note of computers, we have 3 computer monitors (older ones that are beige) that we are giving away. If you are interested in having one of them, please feel free to stop in take one. We were just donated a couple of new computers so we are trying to get rid of those old ones so they don't have to just sit in storage.

Tomorrow is PE so make sure you are ready. Study those spelling words too so we can do our best! Also we have a short pep rally tomorrow afternoon to get ready to cheer for third grade!

Still Collecting

Just a reminder that we are still collecting Boxtops for Education, Campbell's Soup Labels, egg cartons, and old magazines (with child appropriate pictures, especially National Geographic!).

Thank so so much for all of the donations so far and keep them coming! This helps lessen the impact of waste on the environment since we are reusing the materials AND helps us get to create a lot more projects with the donated materials! Thank you so much!

Artistic Talents Galore

Today was another good day with the group... though I don't expect anything less now! We have such a great routine down that it is like they can read my mind sometimes! :)

Today we started our publishing phase of the animal report writing process. It was really exciting to see everyone's hard work taking shape. What great writers too! I am very impressed with the writing I have seen and I can't wait to see the finished product! Each student gets a chance to type out their writing on the computer, and then print it off in the font of their choice which is pretty exciting! Also, we will be doing a large illustration of the animals we are doing our reports on so I can't wait to see how things turn out! So far, so good! We will definitely have to practice typing though because that is a slower process since many of the students haven't had much exposure to typing on a computer keyboard. This project will definitely help them with that!

We spent some more time this morning talking about the upcoming CRT test and doing some sample problems so we are used to test format once it gets here. We will be doing daily practice from now until the beginning of March (when the test takes place for us) so that we are all ready to do our best!

This afternoon we also spent more artistic time sketching some plants from around the school. Then, we outlined our drawings with liquid glue and let them dry. Tomorrow we will be doing some paint over those drawings with watercolors. The best part is that the glue (once it is dried) will act like little walls that will help the water colors not to run. It is pretty exciting to see how the pictures are turning out! This is quite the group of talented artists!

Tomorrow is going to be another cold day so make sure you are bundled up and dressed for the weather, just in case we go outside! Make sure that you are turning in any missing homework too because we want to start the new semester on a positive note! Have a great evening and see you tomorrow!

No Buses but School Continues!

Well that was quite the weather we were having today! Wow!

Thank you so much to the families who did their best and to get all of the students into school on time. Even though the buses didn't run this morning we kept going as usual.

Instead of doing a new story this week we are spending time working on test taking strategies for the upcoming CRTs. Today we did our first practice with extended response. Tomorrow we will be talking about the results of those, though they look pretty good from what I have seen so far! I believe it is important for students to have a lot of practice with the types of questions they will be seeing on these state tests so that when it comes time to actually do them, they aren't anxious or nervous about what they are seeing since it has been seen so many times before.

Today we also got our new spelling words for the week (see the previous post) and we are focusing on homophones again. It is important that the students not only can spell the words but can use them correctly when they are writing outside of the spelling test. Students will have a standard spelling test this week (where I give them the words to spell) as well as a writing test where they are given the words spelled correctly and they have to use the words in a sentence correctly. Both ways are equally as important!

In math we learned our multiplying by 2 facts and we made pictures to help us remember those facts. We are getting better at our multiplication facts so great job on the practice! Subtraction and addition is also equally as important though! Don't forget them!

This afternoon we started our week with an art lesson that will be a series of art lessons for the week. We discussed the difference between observational and imaginary drawing. We talked about how imaginary drawing can be ANYTHING we want it to be because it is in your imagination. But, observational drawing is drawing things exactly like we see them. We spent some time doing drawing centers and practicing drawing things exactly like we see them. Tomorrow we will continue that and discuss the shading aspect of the drawing. Wednesday is the culmination of these art lessons and I can't wait to see how this goes... but it's a surprise! :)

Tomorrow we have library so remember to bring your library books with you so that you can check out new books. Have a great night, stay warm, and we will see you tomorrow!

Spelling Words for Jan 25-29

Here are the spelling words for everyone this week. We are working on homophones again.

blue blew knows nose road rode
weight wait made maid peace piece
flour flower your you’re


Here are the challenge words for EU, KK, CB, MB, IB, JH, KB

neon create preview prefix detour female
recent cedar tepee depot

Good luck with studying the words this week and make sure you LISTEN carefully to the sentences so you know what each word means! :)

The Weather Held

Well we are supposed to have quite a weekend of weather ahead of us so I hope you are all in places where you can stay warm and dry for the weekend. With the forecast showing that we are supposed to have between 7 and 13 inches of snow over the weekend, I hope we have school Monday!

Today was a great end to our week. We had our vocab quiz and spelling test. Everyone did a great job! We also had our recognition assembly for perfect attendance. Congratulations Mary for being the ONLY third grade student with perfect attendance! Let's see if we can keep someone in the perfect attendance plan for next quarter!

Also the students that didn't have any write ups got to go outside for an extra 25 minute recess today at the end of the day. They had a really good time and the weather held up really well for them! Thank goodness for that!

Please be safe this weekend with the weather and everything! We will see you on Monday (fingers crossed!)!

Winter is Around Us

Here are some pictures from around Frontier of the winter scene we have at the school! Though the weather this weekend is probably going to change the way it looks pretty dramatically if the weather channel is correct!

1000 Page Club!

I finally was able to hook up my camera to the computer to get this picture up from when Paisley made it to the 1000 page club! Great work!

Way into Reading!

Today we announced the winners of our reading contest we had last quarter. The expectation for last quarter was that the students would have read 300 pages. Granted that sounds like a lot but in reality it isn't very much. The vast majority of the class had well over 500 pages even! So today I announced the top 3 readers from Quarter 2. And the winners are....

In third place is Ezekiel with 992 pages!

In second place is Mary with 1604 pages!

And in first place, with an amazing 1788 pages, is Chevy!

Congratulations to these amazing readers! Just fantastic work! This quarter the expectation is 400 pages to conference and get quizzed on so make sure you are starting this work early!

Today we spent some time reviewing our homophone spelling words for this week because we have a quiz on them tomorrow. It is important that we can spell them, but also USE them in a sentence correctly! That is where we run into trouble sometimes. So, our homework is using those words correctly in sentences to get that extra practice! We also did an art project this afternoon with paint blotting. Everyone had a great time making interesting (an symmetrical!) designs on their papers. Tonight they will get a chance to dry and we will finish the project tomorrow morning to make everything look nice! Great job today making better choices. Today was definitely our best of the week!

Have a great evening and remember we have a spelling, vocabulary, and cursive quiz tomorrow so study hard! Get plenty of rest and a good breakfast and I will see you tomorrow!

And A New Student Makes 13

We are now back up to 13 students! Welcome to Frontier Jeremiah! We are really excited you are here with us today and really excited to to get to know you this year!

Congratulations on doing a great job with our sub this morning. She said you were a very well behaved group of students which always makes me very proud to hear! All of that practice must really have paid off.

Since it is a new semester, the expectations will continue to get higher over the year to prepare everyone for fourth grade. One expectation to remind you of is that this quarter you are required to read 400 pages and conference with me on those books. Also, in addition you will have to take a quiz on what happened in the book to show me that you were reading well and thinking about your reading. In fourth grade you will be taking quizzes on the books you read as well so we might as well start preparing now. We are also going to be starting some more difficult science material next week. There will be more activities and more quizzes and tests as well. You will always know in advance but you may have to start studying for those tests and quizzes to get the grades you want to have! It's all part of getting older and smarter!

Grades will be coming home later this week so be on the look out for those. Again, if you want to know your students' grades before then or if you don't get a copy please email or call me at any time.

One last reminder, book orders are due tomorrow. If you are submitting online (my preferred way!) I will be submitting the order at 4 o'clock tomorrow so please have orders in before that time. In class orders need to be in by the end of the school day.

Today on www.schooltoolstv.com we got a "shout-out" from Rusty! We were all so excited to hear that! Follow the link to Tuesday's show to hear it yourself! :)

Have a great evening and see you tomorrow!

A New Semester!

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had wonderful three-day weekends!

A couple of quick notes...

Just a reminder that I will be gone tomorrow morning until after lunch at a meeting. You will have a sub and I know you will all make me proud! The expectations are exactly the same and just in case we get a new student tomorrow, please make him or her feel very welcome in our classroom! Teach them the ropes and help them make good choices in their new school! I know you will do amazing!

Spelling for this week is going to be a little different. We are ALL going to have the same 16 words since we are working on homonyms this week. Homonyms are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Then, there are some of you who will have a challenge section of words as well. These are for people who are comfortable with the words we are learning this week. The tricky thing about homonyms, though, is that you may be able to spell them correctly, but can you USE them correctly in sentences? That is what we will be working on this week. On Friday your spelling test will be in two parts. One where you are spelling the words I give you in sentences. The other is where I write out the words for you and you have to write the sentences for ME! This is going to be fun to see what you come up with! I would make sure you spend some extra time this week studying to make sure you know the homonyms really well! Just a suggestion though!

Here are the words for us all:

1. two
2. to
3. too
4. meet
5. meat
6. there
7. their
8. they're
9. some
10. sum
11. know
12. no
13. ate
14. eight
15. right
16. write

Now the following people have these other words IN ADDITION to the words above because you need that little extra challenge! EU, KK, MB, IB, CB, KB, and EZ have these words.

1. hydrant
2. nylon
3. lightning
4. frighten
5. rhyming
6. whimper
7. hygiene
8. stirrup
9. brightly
10. guitar

I will miss getting to see you all tomorrow morning but please be on your best behavior. Any names that get written down for poor behavior will owe me a week of recess so think twice before you choose something you shouldn't. Have fun and see you tomorrow afternoon! :)

Different Shades of Red, Blue, and Green!

Today we spent time reading and practicing our test-taking strategies. Today's strategies were for short answer questions: When you come to a short answer question, find the answer in the passage and use examples from the text. Everyone did a great job with this question! Congratulations! Next week we will be talking about extended response questions and how to answer those... without using "because" as the first word in the sentence! :)

In math we reviewed our math facts. This is an area that many students are struggling with in the class. I understand the multiplication problems being a struggle at times because they are new facts. Plus, we started with multiplying by 7 which is a pretty tricky fact to master! However, it is important that these facts start getting practiced now to make future math lessons and math classes go much easier. It kills me to see the kids doing 7 times 7 and counting on their fingers.... that's 49 fingers! If you can buy or make flashcards and practice with your student, even once a week, that would make a valuable improvement in their education!

Now that that is taken care of, on to art! Today we talked about color tinting and made different shades of red, green, blue, black, and brown. They turned out really well and I will be posting pictures as soon as they are dry and mounted! This is quite the group of artists we have here!

Tomorrow there is a spelling quiz so make sure you are studying your words. Also we will have a cursive quiz so make sure you are practicing those cursive letters! So far you are all doing excellently! Lastly, book orders are due next Wednesday (the 20th) so please bring those in as soon as possible and tomorrow is the end of the quarter AND the end of the semester so we will be having grades out next week. See you all tomorrow!

Evaporation!

Today we continued our science experiments on evaporation. Yesterday we set up a balance with two cups and two wet paper towels in them. One cup had a lid on it and the other was exposed to the air. We let them sit all night long and all day today and tried to see what happened. To the surprise of many students, the paper towel exposed to the air was dry and the paper towel inside the cup was still wet! I think some of the students thought I was playing a joke on them or something because they kept wanting to touch it. So after our observations were done we got to touch them and it really was wet! I love that they thought I must have altered the experiment in some way! No way!

Just a reminder, there is school on Friday but students do not have school on Monday, January 18th for Martin Luther King Day. Also, book orders are due January 20th online or to class (though online is much better! :) ) and students receive 20 Dunnies for each thing they order!

Have a great evening, stay warm, and see you tomorrow!

Book Orders Home!

Yesterday your students were sent home with book orders! This month there are so many great incentives to buy books for your student! Books are an important part of helping your child become a better reader so your support for book orders are helping that cause! In addition, your purchase is allowing our classroom to get new books and materials that will help them become better readers, writers, and Third Grade students overall! For every book you purchase, your student will get 20 class dollars to spend at our class store as well. Everyone is winning with this! Book orders are due in class or online by January 20th and there is a lot of great book picks this month. Check it out!

Today we spent some time preparing for our state testing which is quickly approaching (it will happen at the beginning of March for us!). Today we talked about test strategies for multiple-choice questions. Our strategy was to look for answers that are obviously wrong and cross it off so we aren't tempted to guess that choice. Every day this week we are going to be talking about a different test-taking strategy and practicing with different formats so the state test is not at all a surprise and we are used to it when we get there!

We also set up a science experiment today where we are seeing what happens to a balance with wet paper towels in them. One of the cups with the paper towel is open and the other is covered with a lid. We made some great predictions and I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

This afternoon we also got to finally play with the reading games that we had donated to our classroom. The students had a TON of fun with the three games so far! We had Contraction Go Fish, Plural Grab Bag, and Rockin' and Rollin' Syllable Yahtzee. It is always nice to get a new set of games to play with, especially ones that help us learn and practice skills we know! That always makes me happy when there are learning games!

We are really excited to announce that we have had a laptop and several different kinds of science materials donated to our classroom through the same website! The website is www.donorschoose.org and is a fantastic way to have people from around the country be able to help support teachers and schools like us! We are super excited to have the new materials and can't wait for the rest of them to arrive! Thank you so much for the generous donations of our supporters!

There are a few students who are in serious danger with their grades in reading. The expectation in my class for this quarter is to have read and conferenced with me on 300 pages this quarter. Though there are other parts to the reading grade, that is a big majority of the grade for the students. Of the 12 students in the class, 9 have met and far exceeded that expectation. Our highest reading student has read over 1500 pages, this quarter alone! There are three students, however, who have not met these goals and their grade is in serious jeopardy. Please ask your student if they have met the goal or email me to find out. The bar is going to be continually raised as the year goes on to prepare them for fourth grade and their bright future. Next quarter students will be required to read at least 400 pages AND take quizzes on all of the books they read. I know they are ready for this but it will take extra effort on their part. Support your student in their reading success and help remind them to read every night for at least 20 minutes. This reading is so important for their futures!

I hope you all have a great evening and I will see you tomorrow!

Schooltoolstv.com

Schooltoolstv.com is a website that we visit every day in the morning to be inspired and learn social skills that will help us all be more successful with communicating with one another. Feel free to visit this website with your students to learn more about what we see and experience every day.

Rusty (the person who runs the daily videos) is a school counselor who produces themed videos every day to help students learn important communication, health, social, and emotional skills to make our time together more successful and improve student self-esteem. The students absolutely love watching the videos every day and have even learned his motivational saying at the end! It is great! I have seen such an amazing improvement in our social skills since we have started watching the videos so I encourage you to share this website with everyone you know!

Peace out little diamonds! :)

Spelling Words for Jan 11-15

Spelling Words for CB, IB, MB

fable angle little rattle settle cattle
nibble turtle table middle camel angel
model gravel motel bushel level pretzel
travel smaller pencil journal

Spelling Words for BL, DV, EZ, KB

soft moth cost cross cloth lost
toss frost long roll cold stroll
mold scold fold told folk ghost
most host post son

Spelling Words for PF, TB, SW

rope woke close stone bone phone
broke road boat soap soak moan
loaf coach blow grow know slow
throw snow low toast

Spelling Words for KK

debate mistake amaze parade engage
bracelet estate escape explain dainty trainer
complain acquaint raisin refrain layer
dismay payment crayons hooray decay
betray

Spelling Words for EU

sympathy symphony synthesis synthetic
photosynthesis synonym synagogue synchronize
thesis parenthesis synthesizer kinetic
kinesiology kinescope cinema cinematographer
sonic sonnet sonovox sonar sonata consonant

The Week is Already Gone!

This week was quite a whirlwind of activities and getting back into our routine!

After braving the extremely cold temperatures (I am not used to it getting this cold since I grew up in Washington!) we made it to school with our late starts. All of the students did a great job getting here by nine every morning. This week we didn't have anyone absent at all which is amazing! Great job!

This week we did a lot of different activities to keep our interest and attention after being well rested from break. We had our normal Wednesday poetry workshop where we read a funny poem by Kenn Nesbitt called, "I Bought Our Cat a Jetpack." I thought it was a great one! The students really like reading our weekly poem because they get a chance to entertain themselves with a new poem, read it aloud, and usually read something pretty funny! I have noticed a huge difference in their expression when reading since we have been doing poetry workshop this year. Expression is a big part of reading fluently so keep up that great work!

We also celebrated Alaska joining the union on Wednesday by learning an Inuit game called ajegaq. The game was traditionally played with a hollowed out bone and a stick but we used toilet paper rolls that we cut semicircles into. We then substituted a stick for our pencils and tried to catch the "bone" with our pencil. It was a LOT of fun... for them to play and me to watch!

Yesterday we were in our normal routine with reading, music, writing, and math. The students finished their animal report research on Thursday which was exciting and a huge step! That is amazing that the research is done... now onto the writing of the report. We will start next week with the formal writing so I hope we are ready! I know we can do it!

We also spent our art time learning about the color wheel. I found out earlier this year that most of the students didn't know how to create green from blue and yellow or orange from red and yellow, etc. So, I decided to help them understand these mixes in a hands-on way. We used blue, red, and yellow paint to create a whole color wheel of 12 colors! It was pretty fun and really had the kids excited! I think they thought I was making it up that you could mix colors and not just make a dark brown! :)

Today we had our usual Friday schedule after the late start. The students reading the story "Seal Surfer" and took a vocabulary quiz on those words. They did a great job with really understanding the words this week! Nice work! Then we spent time doing a mapping quiz using the grid maps we learned about earlier this week. They are mapping pros now which is great. I always loved geography and mapping so that makes it great for me as a teacher to teach something I really enjoy too! Math today was a little tricky. We learned about square numbers which was a challenging concept to really understand. Slowly but surely we will get the hang of things!

This afternoon we had our normal class payday and class store was today also! It was fun to see what the students picked to buy, as always! This week the mystery bags were popular (as usual!) and so were the twisted pens. Pens overall seem to be the hot item these days!

I hope you all had great weeks and have fun weekends. I will see you Monday, well-rested and ready for a full week!

A sneak peek at next week:

• Book orders will be sent home early next week and students will earn $20 in classroom money for every book they order with the paper form or online. Remember ordering online gets the class and you free books so that is a great incentive!
• Friday is the end of the quarter AND the end of the semester so grades should be home by the end of the week. If you want to know sooner, you student will get their grades in class on January 19th and I can always email you or call you with those details if you are interested!

Iron Chef: Frontier

Today was a really exciting day. The snow was falling like crazy but we were nice and warm inside the school (thank goodness!).

This afternoon we had a very exciting lesson for math. The lesson was learning how to measure using measuring cups and how to read a recipe. Well what can you do with a recipe but bake something! So I decided that we were going to learn in a hands-on way in our school kitchen and make peanut butter cookies. The students had a great time and did a great job. I have a bunch of little Iron Chefs on my hands! It is a lot of fun for me too because I absolutely love cooking so it was fun to see kids getting into the cooking spirit as much as I do!

Just as a reminder... Wednesday (tomorrow), Thursday (1/6), and Friday (1/7) we have the buses running an hour behind schedule. It would be great if the students could be dropped off at the school in time for school to start at 9 o'clock. The school will be opened at its normal time just in case you need students to be dropped off earlier but normal classes will not start until nine.

Be safe out there on the snowy roads! They are a little dicey out there and safety is the number one concern for all of us. Stay warm and we will see each other tomorrow! Sleep well!

Welcome Back!

It was so great to see you all back in school today! We were all really excited to see one another after the break and the day went by so quickly! I was very impressed with how well the students all got right back into that routine that we have established so far! Great job third graders!

Today we spent time reading our new story for the week, Seal Surfer. Then the students each got to spend some time reading independently and book shopping for new books for this week. Later in our day we learned what key ideas are to prepare to write our animal report that we have been researching before the winter break. The students have done a great job so far on doing really good researching so I can't wait to see the final product!

We also started our cursive writing review. Though the students were taught to write in cursive last year, we all need that refresher to make sure we remember things correctly. As they move to higher grades they will be required to write in cursive so it is important we start practicing now to get a step up!

This afternoon we spent time learning how to read a grid map and a map key. We even got time to create our own map symbols and put them on the grid maps! That was a lot of fun. Then to practice reading a grid map we spent time playing battleship with our classmates. They are very good at the mapping skills already! Great work!

One highlight for the students was getting to meet my dad who came for lunch today since we is in town for a visit. I loved seeing that they were just as excited as me! They are such a loving bunch! :)

Tomorrow is library so make sure you remember those library books so you can get new ones! Also, we are still collecting egg cartons, wrapping paper rolls, boxtops for education, campbells soup labels, and old magazines (with child appropriate images). Thank you so much for your support! We had a great start to 2010 together!

Spelling Words for Jan 4- 8

Spelling Words for BL, DV, EZ, PF

road, team, rain, boast, stream, strain, coach, sweet, claim, groan, queen, waist, throat, peach, faith, toast, thief, praise, roast, peace, strain

Spelling Words for SW, TB

grin, third, hire, bring, shirt, tire, drip, dirt, fire, grill, bird, wire, trick, skirt, tired, drink, girl, brick, crib, price, ripe

Spelling Words for CB, IB, KB, MB, KK

trapped, mixed, stopped, chased, cracked, walked, waited, dotted, treated, traded, ended, handed, needed, played, mailed, boiled, raised, tried, filled, seemed, yelled

Spelling Words for EU

geometry, optometry, symmetry, barometer, thermometer, diameter, centimeter, anemometer, philosopher, Philadelphia, philanthropist, phillumenist, philogynist, philologist, philtre, phobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, hydrophobia, phobophobia, toxikophobia

A quick note on spelling words...

Many of you have asked how your students are being put into the spelling groups that they are in. The spelling groups are chosen based on a couple of factors: a spelling assessment given earlier this year and their writing. Earlier this year the students were given a spelling list of 26 words. I scored this spelling list based on the sounds that they students wrote down and the sounds they missed. This allowed me to see what the students need to work on in their spelling and what the students have already mastered. Additionally, I look at the writing that they students do. It is great if the students spell all of their words correctly on their spelling quizzes but if they are not applying those spelling words to their outside writing, moving them onto harder spelling words is not going to help their writing improve. In order for students to show me that they are ready to move to a higher level of spelling words, I need to see spelling words being spelled correctly in spelling quizzes and those spelling words (as well as ones that use similar spelling patterns) are being spelled correctly on their daily writing pieces. I hope that that is clear and helps you understand why your student is in the group they are all in. There is not one group that is "better" than another. Everyone learns at a different pace and so I want to make sure each student is getting help in an area that he or she needs help with but is also being challenged to improve their spelling. Good luck with the words for this week! I hope we are all ready to get right back into the swing of things! :)

Happy New Year!

Happy 2010! I can't believe it is already a new year and our winter break is coming to a close! Wow! I hope you all are having a fun, relaxing, and well-deserved break from school. Start getting ready to head back to school and I will see you Monday! :)