Harriet Tubman

Today we spent time preparing for our CRTs again by doing a math practice as well as a reading practice. We are getting better and more prepared every day! I know they are going to do great!

We also started putting together our poetry portfolios. We have learned about 8 different kinds of poetry now, and the students are getting an opportunity to create a final draft of all 8 types of poems. The poems are going to be turned in as a poetry book and we will be sharing it with one another when we are done. I can't wait to see how the final product turns out!

Lastly, we learned about Harriet Tubman today during our social studies afternoon. I showed the students a great slide show about Harriet Tubman. Check it out at the following link: http://www.pocanticohills.org/tubman/timeline2/timeline.htm The students then practiced taking notes from the slides so that they could remember the timeline and add it to their social studies notebook. I was impressed how well they could take what they read and put it into their own words! All of the practice from the animal reports really paid off! Great work!

We are all starting to get sick too. Make sure that you are getting plenty of rest, drink plenty of water, and are washing your hands often and well! We want to be healthy and happy as much as possible and there were an awful lot of coughs and sneezes today! I can feel the sickness starting in! Oh no!

Rest, rest, rest. Drink, drink, drink. See you tomorrow!

Life on a Plantation

Today during social studies we finished talking about the freedom quilts and the quilt squares that slaves used to signal others the way to freedom. We even made a quilt square book that will help us remember and understand what each of the quilt squares mean.

Then, we spent time using our awesome Smartboard to learn about what life was really like for slaves living on a plantation in the south during slavery. This really helped students get a better understanding of what slavery was really like because we saw real pictures from during this time! You can watch the video together if you follow the following link: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/plantation.htm
Scholastic has a very informative and interactive way for students to understand the Underground Railroad and slave life.

Today we also spent more time preparing for the CRTs which are next week. The students are doing MUCH better at reading carefully and using the information from the text to answer the questions! I have faith that they are going to all do their best next week. We will be doing CRTs during the morning on Monday through Wednesday and possibly Thursday morning depending on how much the students have done. Again, students are not going to be able to get up out of their seats when they are testing so it is a good idea to send your student with a water bottle so they can drink water at their leisure. There will be plenty of breaks, so don't worry about students getting restless or not being able to go to the bathroom! We want everyone to be comfortable afterall! :)

Today there is a form coming home with your student for the seventh grade fund raiser. The seventh grade students are selling cookie dough, pasta sauce mix, cheesecakes, and biscuit mix. The order forms and money need to be brought back to me by Tuesday, March 2nd. All of the orders are preorders and there will not be any extra for sale after Tuesday. Please make sure you have those order forms turned in as soon as possible to support our seventh grade class and get some tasty treats as well! :)

Have a great evening and get plenty of rest! See you Thursday!

Freedom Quilts

Today we finished our discussion on freedom quilts. Freedom quilts are quilts that the slaves would make that would help lead other slaves to freedom. The students learned about 12 different quilt patterns and got to try their hand at decorating the quilt squares. They are turning out pretty nice! Tomorrow we will be cutting out the finished quilt squares and making them into a book so we can remember the meaning of the squares.

At the end of social studies every day I have started giving a mini quiz to make sure that students are listening to the topics we are discussing every day. The questions are ones that every student can EASILY answer if they are paying attention to the discussions that we have every day and the material that we are learning about. This also reinforces the topics that we talk about every day so that students are retaining the information we discuss.

I have noticed that students aren't reading at home anymore. Of the 13 students in our class I only get reading logs back from about 3 students every week. It is so important that students are reading at home to improve their reading abilities and to practice. After all... practice makes perfect! So, reading is now going to be part of their reading grades. It is expected that students are reading 20 minutes every day. This can be time read independently, with a sibling or other family member, or aloud with a family member. The daily reading logs come home every Monday and are turned in the following Monday. These are going to be graded for completion only. It is important that students are doing this because not turning in these logs will make them have a really hard time bringing up those reading grades (all of which need serious help!).

Thank you for the book orders that were turned in! See you tomorrow!

Midterms come home this week!

Today we are officially more than half way through the third quarter of the school year! I can't believe it! Since that is the case, midterm grade reports are coming home this week. I have to say... grades are pretty bad overall. There has suddenly been a lack of motivation by the students overall. They are not reading at home anymore, not turning in homework, not following directions and listening very well, and not trying very hard at school. Everything they are presented with is met with "This is so hard!" The materials and assignments are not hard, they just require that the students have to try and that doesn't seem to be something they want to do much of. Hopefully we will get out of that phase soon! If your child's reading grade has gone down from last quarter, that is due to the reading comprehension practice that we have been doing. The reading passages are all at the students' reading level that they are capable of reading but often times the students aren't paying attention to their reading and just guessing an answer to quickly get done. Many of the students' grades are Fs at this point because of that fact. Also, they need to be writing in complete sentences to get credit on their answers so many are doing poorly on their reading assignments because their answers are correct but they are not using complete sentences, so they only get half credit.

CRTs are next week so make sure that your student gets plenty of sleep and healthy breakfast to make sure that they are as successful as possible. We will be doing one section of the test every day next week so they are not overwhelmed and completely exhausted after the first day! It is important that they are able to do their best so a good nights sleep and a full belly will always help that out! :) Also, I will have activities to do when they are done while the rest of the class finishes but I recommend that students bring a water bottle because they are not allowed out of their seat unless we are doing a group break to make sure they are not distracting others.

One last reminder, we have book orders due tomorrow! You may buy books online or send in a paper order form by the end of the day to order! For every item you order, your student gets 20 class dollars for their wallets.

Great job today with your work and getting assignments in. Remember, there is still half of the quarter left to lift those grades! Don't give up now! See you tomorrow!

New Spelling Words

Here are the spelling words for this week. This week our words all have the /oi/ sound which is spelled with oi or oy, or have the /ow/ sound which is spelled ou or ow. Make sure you have one of these spellings in all of your words when you practice! The test is Friday, as usual.

point oyster toys coins mouth clown
crown flour clouds poison mouse frown
royal coil drowsy mountain loyalty
turquoise annoyed moisture ointment
prowl allowance powder

Here are the challenge words for EU and KK:

rhombus perpendicular circumference avoidance
appointment doubtfully homonym committee
eccentric precipitation malignant miniscule
audience politician guardian trapezoid
mournfully government dumbfounded knuckle
streamlined eavesdrop subscription neighbor

Good luck and make sure you practice at home to be more successful!

Fast as Lightning!

Well that was a lightning fast day! Since we had the day off yesterday and Friday is a short day, this day just flew right by! Wow!

Overall things went very well! We had a vocabulary quiz and a phonics quiz. We spent time practicing our spelling words, and getting ready for the spelling quiz we had this afternoon. This afternoon we also had our class store. There were a couple of arguments over money this afternoon which started to teach the students about loaning their money to other classmates! I am always impressed when there are students who have so much money saved up. They are going to have a lot of financial stability in their futures!

Just as a reminder....

1. Book Orders are due February 23rd in class or online. Check out the great deals this weekend and get the orders in by Tuesday!
2. Tomorrow there are basketball tournaments all day at Wolf Point High School so come and see some great games and support the high school!
3. Today is the end of the midterm so grades will be sent home next week. Keep an eye out in the mail for those and feel free to contact me if there are any concerns or questions. Reading grades are very low so far because we have been doing a lot of reading comprehension practice and the students are not writing in complete sentences like we have practiced since the beginning of the year and are scoring very low as a result. We have gone over this several times so it is up to the students to use those skills now! We are getting toward the end of third grade and we are starting to get toward our fourth grade prep so we need to rise to those challenges!
4. CRTs are scheduled for March 1st to March 5th. Make sure your students get plenty of sleep that week and have healthy breakfasts and snacks to make sure they can do their best. Remember that, yes, these tests do matter but they are only one way of measuring success in your student. It is important that they try their best and do as much as they can though, and good sleep and healthy food are great ways to help that! Thank you for your support!

Have a great weekend and we will see you Monday!

No School and Book Orders

Some quick reminders for you all!

First of all, tomorrow (February 18th) there is not going to be school. The basement is currently flooded and our water had to be completely shut off. We are hoping to be back at school on Friday and right now we are planning on it! If we do not have class on Friday you will be getting a call tomorrow afternoon to let you know. So sleep in, relax, and enjoy your free day off!

Also, yesterday your student brought home book orders. There are so many great deals in the book orders this month so take advantage of them while you can! The book orders are due next Tuesday, February 23rd. The books can be ordered online for added convenience and extra support for the class! We get free books when you order online!

I hope you all have wonderful evenings and I will see you Friday (fingers crossed!). :)

Happy Tuesday!

Hi Everyone! Tuesday has come and gone already! Wow!

That weekend was well needed for all of us! The kids were great today: getting straight to work, not arguing, working well! I am very happy with how the day went!

The students got their new spelling words for the week and were shocked to see they might actually have to try and practice their words. For many of the students the words come fairly easily to them and as a result, they have been complaining and commenting that they are always getting the easy words. So, this week we kicked everything up a notch to make sure everyone was being challenged. They were pretty surprised! I know they are a smart group of kids though and will be up for the challenge!

Today we also did our Valentine's activity from Friday we didn't have time for. Each of the students got some heart Valentine candy and did some math activities related to them. They really enjoyed it and I will have some pictures of it soon!

This afternoon we continued our discussion on black history month and discussed the Emancipation Proclamation, where slaves were declared free. To remember this historic moment, we made small scrolls that represented the Emancipation Proclamation to add to our bulletin board in the hallway. They turned out so nice!

Great job once again! Rest up and have a great night. See you tomorrow!

Spelling for February 16-19

Several of the students have told me that their words are too easy so this week we are doing harder words to make sure that the students are being challenged like they would like to be. This week's spelling rules are endings of /see/ which is always spelled -cy, and endings of /kt/ which is always spelled -ct. This week will require more studying than before since most of the students didn't do very well on their pre-test this morning.

The general words for the class are:

agency frequency infancy privacy vacancy
bouncy congruency currency emergency fancy
act attract contract correct disconnect
distract exact object perfect predict
reject

The challenge words for EU are:

advertisement afterthought awkward beginner
ceiling cemetery conscious crouton
plantation medallion medicinal language
grateful preferred prejudice pronounce
quartet recitation simplicity televise
treachery

Good luck with studying!

Our Donor's Choose Photos

This was our smiling picture!
Here we are being silly!

As I mentioned earlier, we received a laptop from some very generous people on Donorschoose.org. We took a picture to post on our thank-you page and I thought I would post them here too so you can see our class together! :)

A New Leaf!

Today was MUCH better than the rest of the week has been. Thank goodness for all of us!

I was at a loss of what else to do, when the class finally decided that their days of bad behavior were behind them. And just in time for the Valentine's Party too!

Tomorrow will be our Valentines Party, starting at 1:20 p.m. or so. If you signed up to bring snacks feel free to drop them off in the morning or leave them in the office and I will make sure I pick them up at recess. I really appreciate the support you give us in our class!

Challenge for tomorrow: Wear Red, Pink, or Purple to earn an extra 20 Dunnies for yourself. Let's be the most Valentine's Spirited class out there! (If you couldn't tell, I love Valentine's Day!) :)

Have a great evening and make sure you remember homework and to study for those spelling tests! See you tomorrow!

Another Day of Poor Behavior

Well, today was another day of poor behavior. We started off the day very chatty and really not ready to work. Everyone was wanting to be incredibly lazy and absolutely not work on anything productive at all.

I am absolutely astounded in how far our behavior has fallen. We had such a great routine going and such wonderful behavior until Monday. Then, between the Superbowl, the upcoming Valentine's Day party and the three day weekend we have coming up, our behavior has been anything but good. By then end of the day, when most of the fun activities we normally do had been taken away, our behavior slowly progressed to tolerable. The last half an hour was actually somewhat good behavior. I am really not sure what is going on, but I expect so much more from my students than what I am seeing.

Tomorrow we are going to start the day off slow and see where things take us. I am really hoping (and expecting!) that things will be better. Tomorrow afternoon we have an art project planned so I really hope we can get there. I am looking forward (as are the students) to the Valentine's Day party on Friday and so I really hope we can get to the party and all be in good moods. Tomorrow, I am sure, will be a better day. Have a good evening.

Valentines List

Just a quick reminder that our class party for Valentines Day is on Friday and several of you have asked for a class list for Valentines.

Billy
Chevy
Dani
Ernest
Ezekiel
Imani
Jeremiah
Kassie
Kirsten
Mary
Paisley
Semarah
Theo

So far these are the students who have signed up for treats and what they are bringing:

Semarah - Cupcakes
Kassie - Cookies
Ezekiel - Chips or Pretzels
Billy - Cookies and Juice
Theo - Juice
Imani - Valentine's Candy, Cookies, and Crackers

Thank you for your support! See you Friday!

Slipping Backwards

Hello. Today was not a good day in our class for several reasons. We started off with several side conversations from the students while they should be working. During independent reading time, many of the students were playing around with one another, rolling on the ground, and playing hide and seek with one another instead of working on their reading. Students also would sit in their desk, staring at a blank piece of paper until I questioned them as to what they were working on. They would respond with.... My pencil broke. We have an entire cup of pencils that are sharpened for the students to use during the day which have been there since day 1! During writing (which we are now starting our poetry unit) most of the students complained that they didn't want to do poems, though last week those same students were begging me to do poems on their own! Following directions seemed like a foreign concept where students were doing things as they pleased and at a very slow pace, just because urgency clearly was not an option for them. During math when we were practicing math facts students were missing their basic facts that they have already proved they know and were fooling around with one another due to an obvious lack of care for the subject today (normally math is fairly well liked!).

Today it was like the entire class went back to the beginning of the year (or further in some cases!). The behavior was terrible and completely unacceptable for this group of students. By this point in third grade we should be transitioning more responsibility to get ready for next year and following the routines that we have set since the beginning of the year. Instead, students are deciding that now is a good time to fall backwards and act incredibly immature and throw all respect for their work and for others out of the window. It is hard, with the weather being so cold and students being forced to be inside, to get that space from one another that is even more essential with a class this small. However, they are still given recess time and time to relax away from academics during that time. It is important that they are using this time to the best of their abilities to help us all be successful.

I know that I hold these students to high standards, but they are not unrealistic based on this group of students. They are all very intelligent students but are incredibly lazy, especially recently, and need to understand that school is only going to become more and more difficult for them as years pass. The bare minimum is not good enough for me, nor should it be good enough for themselves. I expect much higher things from them and I expect them to rise to that challenge. When students decide they are going to skate by for the rest of the year, it is my job to get them back on track and have them redo assignments if necessary to make sure that they are prepared for their futures. I expect work to be done in third grade quality and if I do not see that, the work will be sent back and redone. This is the time to get our work done, and get it done well. Next week is the end of the midterm and grades will be sent home. For some of the students, these will be shocking because their effort (of lack there of) is showing very seriously in their grades. I can only do so much to help them before the work is in their hands and needs to be done.

Tonight, some of the students have extra homework due to their lack of work being completed in class. Please sit down with them tonight and talk about their grades and effort in school. It is important that they see that these skills are valued at home and at school. I appreciate your support, and so do they. Have a good evening.

I am Impressed!

On Monday we discussed as a group the Civil War in America and how slavery was one factor that contributed to the start of the Civil War. Then, to remind us of the information, we made an artifact of the Confederate Flag to hang out on out Black History timeline. With some spare time in the afternoon we talked about the Greensboro Four - the four African American who peacefully sat at a lunch counter but were refused service because of the color of their skin. This, in turn, lead to a larger demonstration where hundreds of people sat at lunch counters peacefully and were arrested for sitting there since they were African American. We talked about why they were arrested and what happened because of their actions. Then a student said, "But, I just don't understand why it matters that they were African American? What if things were switched and the white people were the slaves and had to be treated that way? Would they like to be treated that way?" The class paused for a minute, and vocally agreed. I was so impressed with their higher level thinking and their ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes. I am really glad that we are studying African American history this year, if, for no other reason, that this helps students gain a better perspective on what others have gone through and how since we have learned about it, we can learn from mistakes in the past and try to make sure those aren't repeated. What an impressive group of students!

Spelling Words - As promised! :)

Here are the general spelling words for this week:

deck lock luck neck pack shock
trick truck black speck creek leak
seek soak sleek weak week croak
hawk squawk

The challenge words for JH, EU, KK, and CB are:

estimate evident factor finance formula
function income indicate individual interpret
involve issue labor legislate major
method occur percent period

Good luck studying the words! Quiz on Friday!

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

Happy Superbowl Sunday, everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your Sunday and your football games!

First of all, I want to apologize for last week's spelling words. I completely forgot to post the spelling words for the week. We did practice them during class but I know that a couple of students mentioned they were trying to practice at home (which is fantastic!) and they couldn't on Thursday because the words weren't posted. If you ever notice that the words aren't posted feel free to email me and I will absolutely get the words online as quickly as possible.

For the spelling words, I used to decide which students got the challenge words and which got the standard words based on what I see during class - in writing and other classwork. However, there are several people who were getting the challenge words who were then not spelling the non-challenge words correctly! That isn't the point! I love that there are several students who really want the challenge words to challenge themselves, but those words need to be earned by spelling the standard words correctly first! For example, if you can spell photosynthesis correctly, but not the word very... I am more concerned that you can't spell very! We use that word far more often! :) So, first thing on Monday, I give the students a pre-assessment. Basically, they are given all 20 or so words that they will be given on Friday. Then, if ALL or all but one of those words are spelled correctly, they get to have the challenge words. That way, I know they can spell the standard words as well.

This week we are starting to have spelling lists that follow a certain spelling rule. I think it is important to teach these rules so that students understand why we spell words the way we do, AND gain a better understanding of their own spelling as well. This week we will be focusing on the /k/ sound at the end of words. The rule is that you only use the ck spelling if there is a short vowel sound right in front of it. I can't wait to see how we do!

Keep an eye out tomorrow for the spelling words and who they are assigned to! Have a great evening!

Our FIRST 2000 page club member!

Mary is our FIRST 2000 page club member! Amazing work so far and keep it up! :)

Thursday!

Wow! Today is already Thursday and the weather isn't looking so hot out there! Make sure you are all being careful!

Today wasn't our best day for behaviors this morning. When we tried to practice some questioning skills as a group it was viewed as a free/play time. Since that was the attitude we decided to have the students have extra homework with them tonight. Not using time in class, to me, means it isn't valued and they would rather do it on their free time so I sent the questioning homework with them in addition to their regular Thursday homework. I am hoping that next time they get time to work in class they use their time wiser to make me feel like that time is valued. Otherwise, homework is going to increase I suppose!

This afternoon we painted our animal portraits for the reports we are working on (which are due tomorrow and are a significant portion of their grades!) and the pictures turned out really well! I was very impressed! Tomorrow we will be putting our final touches on them!

We also continued our discussion of slavery by discussing the idea of slavery and slaves. The students got to see pictures of what a slave ship looked like and the conditions that African slaves traveled under. Then, we made ship artifacts for our wall timeline that will help remind us of this point in history, when slaves first were brought to America.

Make sure you do your homework and study those spelling words! Tomorrow is our spelling test! Also, be safe with the weather and see you tomorrow!

Pictures from the 100th Day!

Here are some snapshots from our 100th Day together! We had a lot of fun and it was a great time together!

Happy 100th Day!

Today was our 100th day of school! Wow! I can't believe we are already to that point in the year! It has absolutely flown by!

Today we spent time learning how to write 100 in other languages. It was so fun to see everyone try to write in those languages! Also we measured things in our classroom with a string that was 100 cm long. We found things that were shorter, the same, and longer than that string! They got pretty creative (and I will post pictures soon!).

Today we had the last day of working on our animal reports in class. We have 9 of 13 done which is amazing! The rest are going to have some extra homework and recess time to spend finishing. The reports are due on Friday so let's make sure we are doing them to our best ability! Tomorrow we will be creating our portraits of our animals and I can't wait to see how these artsy students do with that. I know they will be amazing!

This afternoon we spent time doing a science challenge! Since it was our 100th day the students were grouped into three teams and they created a plan to make the tallest structure they could using 100 Popsicle sticks and tape only. They had some very creative plans! We did have some issues with executing those plans though. As soon as we started working, two of the groups started on something completely different! It was like the plan didn't even exist! We will have to work more on following directions I am quickly learning! I will also be posting pictures of this fun experiment soon so keep an eye out!

Happy 100th day again and let's all get plenty of rest so we have a class full of students in great moods!

Monday Mayhem!

Today was a crazy day! First of all, Happy Birthday Kassie! I hope you have a great one!

I think we were all a little bit wound up from the birthday frenzy because today was not our best day for behaviors. Chattiness kept us from getting everything done we needed to but I know tomorrow will be a better day. It was a Monday, after all!

Today we started our journey through African American History since it is Black History Month! This is one of my favorite social studies topics to talk about so I can't wait to experience everything with the kids! Today we introduced the subject and made "Wanted" posters for the front of our journals. Tomorrow we will drive right into the our African American history content! I hope you are all ready! It is going to be a fun, educational adventure for us all!

Animal reports are turning out really well. The last day we are working on those in class is Wednesday so there are a couple of you that are going to have some homework coming home since you haven't been working very hard in class. After Wednesday you will have to spend recess finishing the project since we have had PLENTY of time to finish this on our own.

It is important that at this point in the school year we are starting to transition into the fourth grade standards and expectations. Granted, we are still in third grade but it is important that we are getting prepared early for this change. This way fourth grade won't be a HUGE shock! Expectations that I have for the class are going to be increasing but are by no means unreasonable. I expect great things from this class because I know they can achieve these standards if they really try, though this may be the hurdle we have to get over. This is a very smart and highly capable class and I expect them to live up to that potential!

I hope you all have great evenings! Tomorrow is library so remember those books!