The Clubs Grow in Size!

Congratulations to Kassie! She is our newest member to the 2000 page club! Amazing job! Can you be the first 3000 page club member? Let's keep that reading high and anything is possible!

Excellent work, Ernest! You are our newest 1000 page club member! Read, read, read and 2000 pages will be here before you know it!

March Madness!

Today was such a quick day! Plus it was the last day of March! Wow, this year will be over before I even know what happened!

Today we spent time learning how to use specific describing words in order to add detail to our writing. To do this, we all put our shoes in the front of the classroom and had to describe the shoes in enough detail so that the classmates could guess the object. Specific descriptions will always make it so that you can identify what object you are talking about! Great job on the descriptions!

We also spent time working on our spelling rules and spelling activities for the week. Many students chose not to work on these during class (which I couldn't quite understand why!) and so they will have both their spelling hard and soft G packet, and their spelling contract as homework. Those things are due tomorrow morning. If you aren't here tomorrow, they will be due Tuesday, first thing when you walk in.

This afternoon we had two things going on at the same time: science and social studies! In science, students were continuing our tour through the human body with the muscular system and were completing a variety of activities related to that bodily system to help them understand the function and how our muscles work. In social studies we were learning about women's suffrage (which is the right to vote, right 3rd graders! :)). The students travelled via the Internet to Scholastic's website to find out when different countries and states allowed women the right to vote. We are going to continue this activity next week as well and create time lines to show our information. It is very exciting! Thank goodness we have the computers in our rooms so we can all be working on different things at the same time!

In other exciting news, we finally made it to our math goal! Every day (or it was every day for a while but has been less often lately) we spend a minute at the beginning of math doing a timed selection of math problems. There are 15 problems that the students are asked to do in one minute. They all started at +1 facts and have progressed as they mastered that section. Today the entire class passed through their +3, 4, 5 facts! Yay! So next week we will have our reward which is a free choice period where students can do activities in the class that they choose to do! Great job third grade! Our next reward day is coming up quickly with everyone passing +8,9,10 to earn a game day. Keep practicing those facts and keep up the great work!

Have a great evening, finish that homework and we will see you all tomorrow - the first day of April!

Spelling Words for March 29 to April 2nd

Here are the spelling words for this week:

engine imagine original gentle orange energy
gym digital fugitive frigid kangaroo guard
guess guest regular gum goose garden
gaze goal guide

Here are the challenge words for EU, KK, JH, and CB

geography maximize proportion technique
annual approximate dimension hypothesis
implement professional statistic compound
fundamental perspective license orient accuracy
enhance flexible intelligence identical

This week the class is working on the Hard and Soft G sound. The "hard" G sound sounds like /j/ like in gym or engine. The soft G, on the other hand, sounds like a /g/ like in gum or garden.

This week we will be learning some rules for when to use the short or hard G and doing some activities to practice those rules. Since we have no school on Friday, the spelling quiz will be Thursday so make sure you are practicing extra hard this week since you have one less day to study. Good luck!

The 100th Post!

Well today is a special day because this is my 100th post of the year on the blog! Yay!

Today went pretty well for us in class. Most of us finished labelling our big body tracings and finished drawing in the bones which was great! We also had a science quiz at the end of the day. For the science quizzes, the students are all allowed to use their materials that they have in their science pocketbook so there is not reason that everyone shouldn't be doing really well! That is why they can use their resources because I ask them questions that are directly from the papers that we have in our folders!

Tomorrow we will be starting to multiply by 4 and will continue our journey of the skeletal system by looking at joints in the body and do some pretty fun experiments with that! I can't wait!

Have a great evening with no homework and see you tomorrow!

Life-sized Skeletons and Giggles Galore!

In the spirit of our human body unit where we are learning about the skeletal system right now, we did a really fun activity this afternoon! Each of the students had their body outline traced on a large piece of paper. This was quite a giggle-fest, I have to say! Something about the pencil and just the idea of a classmate tracing their body was just about more than some of us could handle! I don't think I have heard this much giggling in a LONG time! :)

Once we got past the tracing (and the giggling!) the students started drawing their bones on the skeletons. Some people realized how hard it is to take the bones on a picture and transfer them to be life-sized! :) Some people started out with teeny-tiny heads and ribs and quickly realized that it was not going to fill up their bodies. :)

I am pretty happy with how things are turning out so far! We are going to finish them tomorrow and label each of the major bones in the body. The class is doing really well so far with memorizing the names of these bones. I am very impressed! I will post pictures of the finished products so everyone can see our beautiful skeletons!

Thank you for those people who submitted book orders! Tomorrow is PE so make sure you have your PE shoes at school. See you all tomorrow morning on time! :)

The Start to a Short Week

Well Monday has came and gone. What a fast day it was! I can't believe today is our 130th day already. Wow, where has the year gone?

Today we started a new mystery state. Our mystery state morning activity is something that we started last week where every day I give the students a clue about a certain state. Then, they have to make guesses about the state and on Friday I reveal what the mystery state really was. Last week we appropriately started with Montana! This week our first clue was "This state has the lowest water-to-land ratio of all 50 states." Families, if you know the answer, don't give it away! I want the students to try and figure it out! :)

We also continued our Human Body unit and put together a model skeleton of my friend, Mr. Bones. He was a skeleton that got blown over by these strong prairie winds and so we had to help out and put him back together correctly. Even though the students were allowed to use their human body worksheets, we weren't all correct in our assembly. We definitely realized how many pieces our body has!

Tomorrow the book orders are due either online or in paper form by the end of the school day so make sure you have those in! There is homework this week, despite what students thought, because we still are here all five days of the week! See you tomorrow!

Spelling words for March 22 - 26th

Here are the new spelling words for the week!

ache anchor chemical choir echo
stomach school ghost rhino whale whistle
what white where which whine whisper
character rhyme wheel


Here are the challenge words for EU and KK (nice job you two!)

charisma archaeology architect technique
chlorine monarch orchestra mechanical
psychic melancholy ghastly spaghetti
khaki rhinoceros weather whether choreograph archive characteristic cholera

All of the words we are working on this week have a silent H in them so make sure you include that H... he's sneaky! Study hard and your quiz is Friday.

Reminder: Friday is a half-day so students are released at noon! Thank you!

Kiwis

Today for snack we had kiwi fruit in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day to keep with the green theme.

One student said she did not want kiwi. When I asked why she replied, "Because it reminds me of a big, fat guy's hair belly!"

I don't think that I will ever be able to look at kiwi the same again. :)

A Wild Tuesday!

Well today was another lightning fast day for us in third grade! Behaviors were on a roller coaster of really good to really bad, and everything in between. Lately there has been a lot of emotions floating around between the students that may be due to the over saturation with one another or the weather... it's any one's guess! I am hoping that the upcoming Easter holiday will be just the time apart that we are all needing to get back to our well-behaved selves! :)

Today we added a new story to our fairy tales and folktales pocketbook called "The Frog Prince". The students were all really excited to hear that story since we just had The Princess and the Frog movie in town not too long ago. They were surprised that this story was somewhat different from the movie but overall they really enjoyed it.

This afternoon we spent some time learning about the skeletal system, which is our first body system that we have learned about so far. We learned about the different names of the bones and even had a brief song version from Mr. Young! That was entertaining for all of us! We will have to learn that song to help us remember!

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day so remember to wear green for an extra 20 Dunnies! See you tomorrow!

Book Orders and Pocket Books

Today just flew right by! My goodness!

Today we started a new genre in reading and we are going to spend the next couple of weeks reading about fairy tales and folktales - two of my favorites! We made big books that have pockets in them to keep track of all of the stories we cover and they were very time consuming but turned out really well!

We also started learning about the Human Body in science. To keep track of all of our human body information we made another pocket book with all of the different body systems on the pockets so the students can keep track of their information and use it for quizzes and tests. Plus, all of their work stays organized that way! Bonus! We are going to start with the skeletal system first starting tomorrow. I can't wait!

Book orders also came home today and are due March 23rd, which is next Tuesday. If you don't like having to keep track of the paper forms and write checks, feel free to order online. You get a free book and so does the class so we all win! The login information is as follows:

Go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs
Click on parent and continue
Then, login in with our information. The login name is FrontierThirdGrade and the password is order
Then, you are ready to order!

The orders usually arrive within 7 days of ordering so the books should be here before Easter break.

Just as a reminder, this week is a full week, with St. Patrick's Day on Wednesday (don't forget your green!). Also, next Friday is the end of the semester so the students are out at noon so the teachers can enter their grades. There is a lot of work that needs to be caught up on still so make sure your student is working hard and turning in their work!

Have a great evening, enjoy our beautiful weather, and see you tomorrow!

Enlightening Words from Third Grade

One of the students today told me the most enlightening thing that I had to share it with you all.

The student said, "There are only three things I don't like. Chinese sundaes for lunch, hunting, and people who don't like African Americans and Indians."

Wow! I love that the students are so tolerant of other cultures and honestly don't understand why people couldn't be friends at one time simply because of their skin tone. That is a great foundation to have at such a young age. I am so proud!

Spelling for March 15 - 19th

Here are the spelling words for the week!

badge ridge edge fudge bridge judge
hedge lodge page stage huge rage
cage smudge pledge wedge large dodge
change charge

Here are the challenge words for EU, KK, CB, and MB:

achieve acquire category significant theory
specific conclude injure purchase relevant
alternative circumstance coordinate document
initial philosophy physical scheme
specify technology

Good luck on your spelling and remember our spelling rules! Your spelling test is Friday and your spelling contract is due Friday, too! Make sure you are working hard!

What a Fast Week!

This has been such a week, I completely forgot to make a post this week! Wow!

Overall we had a pretty good week in class. The behavior was not it's best at times but we got through it fairly well. We finished our African American History month unit yesterday when we learned about Barack Obama. The students have done an amazing job with this social studies unit and I am SO impressed with how much they have learned and have retained! I will try to post pictures of our bulletin board this weekend so you can see all of the great artifacts we made for this unit! I can't wait to start something new though!

This week we also did a short writing assignment where the students were giving directions to a place in our building. They were really into this! I am impressed with how well they gave directions and how well they drew maps of the school to get there! On Monday we are going to follow their directions and see if the directions really get us to the places they wanted us to get! Hopefully we won't end up somewhere crazy!

Next week we are hopefully going to start a new science unit of study about the human body which will be very exciting. We are going to learn all about the different body systems and their functions, organs, and locations! That should be pretty fun and interesting!

Today we got through all of our lessons early so we even got to have an extra art lesson! These are pretty neat projects! We made alien portraits and we painted on foil! It was really fun to see the kids getting really creative with their work!

Have a great weekend and enjoy the great weather we are supposed to have!

Monday Madness

Another Monday came and went.

Today was a really good day for the kids overall. The seating arrangements got changed which is always nice for them. I may have to start changing the arrangement more often!

There are still many people who have a LOT of missing work that I am giving them a second chance to complete so there were a lot of people who missed their morning and afternoon recess today. I am glad to see that there are people who are learning their lesson though! After the morning recess I asked what lesson we are learning and the whole group said "We need to turn in our homework!" Thank goodness! That will help their grades immensely to have that homework turned in. Homework is not a huge portion of the grade but to have a lot of zeros in those homework spots really hurts things.

The quarter ends March 26th and on that day the kids have a half day release at noon.

The new spelling words are posted so make sure you are studying hard! See you tomorrow!

Spelling for March 8th to 12th

Here are the spelling words for this week! Study hard to get those grades up!

eight buy toast money window pie
beads stew glue jewel toe flies
tray train monkey sleigh bowl leaf weigh freight

These are the challenge words for KK, EU, IB, and CB

antifreeze classify independence underweight
international transportation communities invasion
continuous irresponsible deodorize misunderstand
discovery nonliving electricity performance
encouragement prehistoric impression signature

Good luck and your quiz is on Friday! Study hard!

It was fun while it lasted...

Well the great behavior trip is definitely over. It was fabulous while it lasted but I think it has run its course. The students were extremely picky with one another and were constantly getting in arguments. I think we have just all had about as much of one another as we can handle. Friendships seem to be at the breaking point which is so sad! It is really hard with a class this small to not get tired of seeing the same people all of the time though. I can understand where they are coming from but we have a whole three months left so we need to make it work! If we don't, it is going to be a very long and painful three months!

Just a reminder that we are still collecting Boxtops for Education, Campbells Soup Labels, old magazines and calendars (which are student appropriate of course!), and egg cartons of any size and shape.

Tomorrow the students have PE and their spelling test for extra points so study those words! Everyone in the class could definitely use the boost in their grades!

Starting next week, I also will be requiring students to stay in during their morning recess if they did not turn in their homework because homework return rate is at an all time low. That is a big reason that grades are so low. The homework itself is not worth that much but when you add up all of those zeros in the grade book, it makes a huge difference! If students can get it done during that recess time then great! If not, I will take what they have done and they will get graded on that portion. There is only so much I can do to help their grades. The STUDENTS have to put in the effort to EARN the grades that they receive. If it was based solely on how much I like the students I would have a LOT more A+ grades! I think both the students and I wish it was that easy! I really hope I see more effort put in by the students to raise their grades and really try. It is so important.

Missing: My Voice

What a great group of students. Today was day 2 of our CRTs and they handled it very well. I am a little concerned that they are rushing through the extended response but it is their test to take and up to them how they want their scores to look.

However, I came in today with a hoarse voice (at best) and the whole group did an excellent job of being quiet so my little voice could be heard through the whole class. That was GREATLY appreciated!

Today we studied George Washington Carver in our social studies period and the students were really excited to learn that he made shampoos, milk, cheese, soaps, and hundreds of other things all from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and pecans! He is definitely one of my favorite people to learn about in history because peanut cheese! Who would have thought of such a thing? :)

Tomorrow is our last day of testing so get plenty of rest and come in ready to do your best!

Extra Spelling for March 1st - March 5th

Since this week is CRTs (and the kids are doing great so far!) we are not going to have a normal spelling routine like we usually do. I don't want there to be any extra pressure added to the testing week so we are not going to have homework this week, and we are not going to do standard spelling which everyone is graded on this week.

Instead, we are going to do extra credit spelling tests. This will be a list of 24 words that students are working on during this week and practicing in the afternoons after testing is done. Students who wish to take the extra credit test will be able to do that and any words they get correct will be counted as extra credit in any subject they choose (which is something many of the students need right now!). The whole class will be given the challenge spelling test on Friday for those students who choose to take it. It is extra credit, after all, so I am not going to require anyone to take it!

The bonus words for this week are:

abbreviate accidentally balloon bicycle beautiful because dessert
equipment February friend interesting island people quiet
scissors tomorrow Wednesday weird arctic rhythm women
challenge does exercise

Good luck with the bonus words and keep up the good work on the CRTs! :)