June 11, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

We are still in need of 8 half-gallons of ice cream for our Banana Split Party for Tuesday, June 15^th.  If you are willing to donate a half-gallon of ice cream, and can get them to school at 12:20, please email Mrs. Haller. Thank you!

We had a wonderful Japan Day celebration today!  The kids got to experience what life would be like for Japanese students.  Ask them which they would rather be…   The kids experimented with Japanese calligraphy, made sushi and tasted green tea, played a variety of Japanese games, tried on Japanese clothing, learned about Japanese culture on a Japanese website, and folded origami cranes.  You might also have seen the carp the kids brought home in honor of Children’s Day festival in Japan.  Many thanks go out to the parents who came in to help– we could never have done it without you!

We enjoyed a wonderful field trip to the International District yesterday.  The children behaved just as Japanese children would – respectfully and politely.  The time to explore Uwajimaya and eat delicious Japanese food at Bush Garden Restaurant was according to one student, “the best field trip ever!”   It has been great to see the students accept and respect the differences of the Japanese culture!

In literacy centers we’ve been working on finishing The Big Wave – with all the end of the year activities, and our field trip we’re not quite finished!  Our last spelling unit of the year focused on compound words, spelling patterns for double letters, adding suffixes to base words.

Important Dates:

June 15^th – End of the year Banana Split Party 12:45-2:45 We still need ice cream!

June 16^th – Field Day! Volunteers: Merlino, Dunlap, Navone and Martin

June 17^th – Last day of school, kids out at noon

June 4, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

This week we had the opportunity to meet and visit with our pen pals at St. Joe’s.  Thank you to all the parents who were able to volunteer to make that field trip possible.  The kids had a blast!

In literacy centers we’ve finished reading our non-fiction information packets about tsunami and ocean waves, and have started to read The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck.  We’ve started practicing a way of visualization (a strategy to increase comprehension) where students draw and/or write any words that stand out to them as they listen or read a passage.  Students have done a great job using their pictures as a jumping point for wonderful discussion about the story so far.  This week our spelling unit had us learning when h follows c, s, t or w, the combination stands for a new sound, and reviewing suffixes, homophones and homographs.

In writing this week we continued our focused on revision with our creative writing stories.  Students have also just completed their Japan report.  Today we wrote an introductory and concluding paragraph to add to the beginning and end of our report.  Students have worked hard and are very proud of their product!

This week we have been thinking critically about fractions!  We learned how to model and find equivalent fractions using our fraction strips – some students were even able to do this in their head!  We also worked to solve word problems involving fraction concepts, and began to compare and order multiple fractions.

Japan Day is Friday, June 11^th!

We would like the children to come to school dressed as Japanese children would:

• Bring a pair of extra shoes to wear as indoor shoes (slip-on style tennis shoes such as “Keds”, “Crocs”, etc., work best).  They will change into these when they enter and again at each recess.  Use what you have – we do not want anyone buying anything new for this day.
• Girls wear the school uniform plaid jumper, skirt, or skort (no navy blue skirts or skorts – which do not conform to our uniform policy), white collared shirt (tucked in), white tights or socks (no leggings).
• Boys wear navy blue pants (absolutely no shorts) with white collared shirts (tucked in).
• Sweatshirts are fine, but will be kept in the cubbies during the day.  If your child is really cold, please have him/her wear a crew neck sweatshirt or sweater that will allow the collar to show.

Parent Connections

We are looking for parents to help out with parent education and family events next year.  We will be meeting together to do some preliminary planning June 8^th at 8:30 AM after drop off.  If you are interested in attending this meeting or helping with an event, please contact Lori Landes at llandes@asbschool.org.

Important Dates:

June 10^th – Field trip to Bush Garden and Uwajimaya

June 11^th – Japan Day! Origami Center – Flora, and Rose. Calligraphy Center – Worthington and Haller.  We would still love more parent volunteers for this day.  If you can spend the afternoon with us, please email me as soon as possible!

June 15^th – End of the year Banana Split Party 12:45-2:45

June 16^th – Field Day! Volunteers: Merlino, Dunlap, Navone and Martin

June 17^th – Last day of school, kids out at noon

May 28, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

This week we finished our Talking About Touching Program.  We focused on how to get help or support from a trusted adult if you need to talk about upsetting experiences (present or past).  We also introduced and defined harassment as behavior that includes an unwanted touch, rude comments or actions.  We discussed why children should respond assertively to harassments and tell a trusted grown-up immediately.

In literacy centers, our final class novel will be The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck.  This story details the lives of two boys living in Japan when a tsunami hits their village – a great connection to student learning in social studies.   In order to increase our background knowledge and prepare ourselves for this story, we are spending some time reading a non-fiction article explaining how ocean waves can create a tsunami.  We practiced comprehending this non-fiction article by highlighting the important information from each paragraph, and answering comprehension questions about the vocabulary and topic.  This week our spelling unit focused on contractions, possessive apostrophes and the letter y makes the long e and long i sound (ex. try, easy, etc).

In writing, students are continuing their hard work on revising their creative-writing stories.  They are really beginning to understand that revising is much more than editing.  Revising requires the writer to be more engaged in their writing.  The author needs to change the plot, characters, or setting of the story.  Editing is simply fixing spelling, and punctuation errors.

This week in math we began formally learning about fractions and created fraction strips (different colored paper cut into a variety of fractions that, when put together, make a whole).  We spent our time learning to read and write fractions as part of a whole and as part of a set.  In addition, we spent some time this week reviewing the graphing concepts of our previous unit.  We took an assessment at the end of the week to re-check our understanding of graphs.  The mnemonic device we developed seems to have really helped the kids to remember the necessary components of a variety of graph types.  Next week we will continue learning about fractions, as well as reviewing the concept of measurement.

In science, students took a test of their learning on our Earth Materials unit.  For the remainder of the year we will be working on extending our knowledge of the topic through extra research and small projects related to the rocks and minerals on Earth.

We studied the similarities and differences of school life in Japan and wrote a paragraph today summarizing our learning of this topic.  We will add to our growing Japan report when we have finished editing these school-life paragraphs.  We will send out a volunteer list and explanation of Japan Day next week for those interested in coming in for this fun day.

Important Dates:

May 31^st – No school, Memorial Day observed

June 2^nd – Pen pal picnic to St. Joe’s

June 10^th – Field trip to Bush Garden and Uwajimaya

June 11^th – Japan Day

June 14^th – End of the year Banana Split Party

June 16^th – Field Day! Volunteers: Merlino, Dunlap, Navone… We need more parent volunteers to take groups of students to each activity.  If you would like to volunteer, please let me know as soon as possible.

June 17^th – Last day of school, kids out at noon

May 21, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

In religion we focused on the Catholic Social Teaching The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers. Students created mini flip posters with examples of “work” they can do with dignity.  Students brainstormed ideas such as using their free time to pick up litter around the neighborhood instead of watching TV or playing video games.  We also talked about the fact that each job is important and meaningful, regardless of what the job is.

This week in our Talking About Touching Program, our learning extended our discussion about the Touching Rule – no one should touch your private parts except to keep you clean and/or healthy.  Students practiced how to be assertive – look the person in the eye, stand up tall, and use a strong voice.  The class also practiced telling various adults that someone broke the Touching Rule until they received the help they need.

In literacy centers we finished reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. The kids have been working hard to finish several writing activities related to the story.  Students focused on how Sadako and her family brought hope to one another and to their country despite her illness and death.  At the end of the novel, we discussed how Sadako’s spirit continues to live on and bring hope to the world through the Folded Crane Club started in her honor. The crane is a symbol of hope and life in Japanese culture.  We are considering the possibility of folding one thousand cranes for our Sparrow Club child, Emilio.  Folding paper cranes today was an adventure for our class!

Writing this week continued our focus on revision.  In addition to revising the paragraphs they’ve written about Japan, students are continuing the process of revising one of their creative-writing stories.  They’ve been asked to add or delete sentences, phrases or words in order to make their story clearer.  We are working on pushing the kids to add cause and effect sentences to their Japan paragraphs as it is a perfect way to explain many of the details about Japanese culture.  Both of these projects should be manageable in these beginning stages of revision.

In math this week we finished up our measurement and graphing units and took our end-of-the-chapter test.  Many students missed points for failing to label the graphs or for not completing a word problem completely.  This is a reminder to students to be sure they take their time and read and complete all directions carefully.  Next week we will begin our final math topic for third grade: fractions.

In science, students used all their geologist tricks and knowledge to determine which minerals made up their granite rock.  Throughout this unit, students have become familiar with the following minerals: feldspar, hornblende, mica, calcite, and quartz.  Ask your child which minerals are in granite, and to tell you how they know!

We learned about Japan’s home life this week in social studies.  Students continued making cause and effect statements and connected the home life of the country to its geography.  They learned of the Japanese respect for their resources and how they take care of everything they have (shoes off in the house, re-using water in the bath, etc.).  They were especially fascinated by Japanese bathrooms, both traditional and modern.  We hope to see some good cause and effect sentences in their home life paragraphs this week.  Next week it’s off to school in Japan!

Important Dates:

May 28^th – May Book Report (Free Choice) Due.  Kids out at noon, faculty luncheon

May 31^st – No school, Memorial Day observed

June 2^nd – Pen pal picnic to St. Joe’s (details to come)

June 10^th – Field trip to Bush Garden and Uwajimaya (confirmed date!) Please look for permission slips in the Friday folder

June 11^th – Japan Day (details to come)

June 14^th – End of the year Banana Split Party (details to come)

June 16^th – Field Day! Volunteers: Merlino… We need more parent volunteers to take groups of students to each activity.  If you would like to volunteer, please let me know as soon as possible.

June 17^th – Last day of school, kids out at noon

May 14, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

In religion we focused on the Catholic Social Teaching Rights and Responsibilities of the Human Person.  Students discussed that as Catholics we have a special responsibility to carry out Jesus’ work.  When someone’s human rights are taken away, we must work to help that person regain their rights.  To internalize this learning, students chose a situation in which people needed help, and created a solution they could do to improve the lives of others.  Students learned that helping a group of people who has lost their human rights is doing Jesus’ work.

This week in our Talking About Touching Program we learned about the Touching Rule – no one should touch your private parts except to keep you clean and/or healthy, and this would most likely be a parent or health care professional.  Students discussed and practiced the safety steps in case someone breaks the Touching Rule: 1) Say no; 2) get away; 3) tell an adult.  Please look for more information about this in your child’s Friday Folder.

In literacy centers we continued reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Students are using this novel to practice their critical thinking skills.  We’ve had many great discussions about Sadako, and have continued to compare her life in Japan to our lives in the U.S.A.  Spelling had us reviewing sounds for the following letter pairs; le, al, el, er, or, ar, ou, and ow.  Students also spent time in centers this week reading non-fiction passages related to our learning in social studies and science.

In writing this week, we focused on revision.  Students chose one story from earlier in the year to first revise independently.  After students had a chance to look at their work with fresh eyes, they had the opportunity to share their writing with a peer in order to receive more positive suggestions to improve their writing.  Students also practiced their revising skills on their Friday paragraph from last week.  They used their scores from their graded rubric to write a “new and improved” paragraph.  We will continue to practice revising our Friday paragraphs in the remaining weeks of school.

We began a math unit on constructing and analyzing data.  We are working with pictographs, bar graphs, tally charts, and line plots.  The kids took their mid-chapter check yesterday to see how they are doing so far.  I noticed that most of the errors are due to not labeling or displaying their graphs completely.  We will work to reinforce this important part of graph making this week.

Science had our little geologists examining the results of the evaporation dishes they prepared last week.  After the vinegar (acid) evaporated, students were able to see the calcite crystals left in the marble and limestone dishes.  This information proves that calcite is indeed an ingredient in the rocks limestone and marble.  Later on in the week, students used all of their knowledge about rocks and minerals to find the one rock out of six Earth materials.  Students had to provide evidence to prove why they know the rock was not a mineral.

In our social studies lessons this week we learned about how the geography of Japan influences the kind of food they eat.  The kids continued to practice note-taking skills while learning about Japan’s food.  We are really emphasizing the use of more culturally sensitive words when expressing an opinion about Japanese food: “Sushi is not to my taste” rather than “Sushi is disgusting.”  The kids wrote a paragraph about food today that they will add to their written report about Japan.  They began learning how to use a topic sentence that leads/connects from one paragraph to the next:  “The geography of Japan affects the food they eat.” (Remember that their first paragraph was about geography.)  We are really trying to broaden our skills away from sentences like, “Japan’s food is very interesting.”

Important Dates:

May 18^th – Thanks-a-latte

May 19^th – All school Mass – 1:30 – appropriate uniforms, please!

May 21^st – Principal for a Day!

May 28^th – May Book Report (Free Choice) Due.  Kids out at noon, faculty luncheon

May 31^st – No school, Memorial Day observed

June 2^nd – Pen pal picnic to St. Joe’s (details to come)

June 10^th – Field trip to Bush Garden and Uwajimaya (tentative date – waiting for confirmation)

June 11^th – Japan Day (details to come)

June 14^th – End of the year Banana Split Party (details to come)

June 16^th – Field Day! We need parent volunteers to take groups of students to each activity.  If you would like to volunteer, please let me know as soon as possible.

June 17^th – Last day of school, kids out at noon

May 7, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

We managed to squeeze in quite a bit of learning this week, despite the half day on Monday and the promise of a fun swim party and sleepover tonight.  Please drop your children off at the FAFC at 7:45 tonight.  They should already be wearing their swimsuit, and should also have dry clothes to change into, a towel, and sleepover gear (sleeping bag, pillow, sleeping pad if desired, toothbrush).  Pick up is at 8:00 Saturday morning.  For more details, please refer to the email that was sent earlier in the week.

Our religion lessons have focused on Catholic Social Teachings.  We began with Care for God’s Creation, and then moved on to Life and Dignity of the Human Person. We will continue to explore the social teachings of our faith through the end of the year.

We talked about two different concepts during our Talking About Touching lessons this week.  The first concept was identifying touches.  We discussed the difference between safe, unsafe, and unwanted touches.  Students role-played what they could do to refuse an unwanted touch.  The second concept taught children about what to do if someone asks them to keep a secret about an unsafe touch.  Students learned why it is important to tell a trusted adult about any and all unsafe touches immediately.

Literacy centers consisted of spelling lessons reviewing prefixes and suffixes, and words that don’t use affixes.  We wrapped up our poetry unit by learning about several types of figurative language (metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and personification), and also practiced writing the Japanese poetry form of haiku.  The writing we did this week centered on writing Haiku – students are getting very creative with these nature poems!  We began a short novel that takes place in Japan, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr.  This novel allows the kids the opportunity to compare life in Japan with life here, and also offers many chances to reflect on and write about some important topics such as war, friendship, secrets, sickness, and hope.

In math centers this week we learned the customary units of capacity (cups, pints, quarts, and gallons).   We also learned that mass is the amount of material in an object and is measured using grams and kilograms.  We worked with a number of story problems dealing with measurement and will continue next week exploring metric units of capacity.

In science this week, students continued on their “Calcite Quest” to see if any of the four rocks we are studying (basalt, limestone, sandstone, and marble) contain calcite. After observing each rock’s reaction to vinegar, our little geologists poured just the liquid (vinegar) from each vial into an evaporation dish.  After the liquid evaporates, we will be able to see if calcite truly is in any of the rocks…if it has left something behind!

In social studies began learning to take notes during a class discussion.  This is a skill the kids will need throughout their school years.  They began during a geography lesson about Japan and took notes on large index cards.  The kids learned that notes need only be words or short phrases – just enough information to remind us of the important points of the lesson.  I will continue to do lots of modeling of note taking for the kids as we work through other topics in our study of Japan.  We will use our notes in our Friday paragraphs which we will assemble to create a longer written report about Japan.

Upcoming Reminders:

May 7^th – Swim party and sleepover in gym: be at FAFC at 7:45PM, pick up Sat. at 8:00AM

May 10^th – Faculty/8^th grade basketball game at 1PM in gym

May 10-13 – Spring Book Fair in library

May 11^th – Ida Culver

May 13^th – 16^th – ASB musical “Oklahoma” at Seattle Prep

May 18^th – Thanks-a-latte

May 19^th – All school Mass – 1:30 – appropriate uniforms, please!

May 21^st – Principal for a Day!

May 28^th – May Book Report (Free Choice) Due.  Kids out at noon, faculty luncheon

May 31^st – No school, Memorial Day observed

June 2^nd – Pen pal picnic to St. Joe’s (details to come)

June 10^th – Field trip to Bush Garden and Uwajimaya (tentative date – waiting for confirmation)

June 11^th – Japan Day (details to come)

June 14^th – End of the year Banana Split Party (details to come)

June 17^th – Last day of school, kids out at noon

You are all invited to my first solo art exhibit!

Patty Haller

Greenwood-Phinney ArtWalk

Friday, May 14, 6-9p and Saturday, May 15, 12p-5p

I’ll be at the Woodland Park Presbyterian Church, 225 North 70th Street

(Greenwood Avenue up on Phinney Ridge, across from Red Mill Burgers)

This is a big event with dozens of artists, live entertainment, food, wine tastings – all family friendly.

The venues stretch all along Greenwood Avenue from North 59th Street to North 87th.

I have one of the big venues, and plan to fill it with my contemporary oil landscapes.

www.greenwoodphinneyartwalk.com

Hope to see you there!

Patty Haller

http://www.pattyhaller.com

Greenwood-Phinney Artwalk is presented by the Greenwood Arts Council and sponsored by the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture Affairs, with support from the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce and ArtUp Phinney-Greenwood monthly art walk.

April 30, 2010

Hi 3B Families,

We’ve completed the ITBS!  Thank you for all your support at home during our testing.  However, if your child was absent during a test, we will continue to do make-ups into next week.

In literacy centers week, students have been learning all about figurative language.  Students are now familiar with similes, metaphors, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification.  We have had many fun learning opportunities to write our own poetry using these techniques.  Our spelling unit focused on the /k/ sound, reviewing homographs, and compound words.

Students have very much enjoyed presenting their poems (April book report) this week.  The poems and illustrations are on display in our classroom, and will come home later.  They did an excellent job sharing their poems in front of the class.  What great oral speaking practice!

We began math this week by reviewing temperature (degrees Fahrenheit).  Then we moved onto learning about the customary units of weight (ounces, pounds and tons), as well as metric units (grams and kilograms).  Students are doing an excellent job of deciding the appropriate unit of measure for a variety of different objects!

We talked about two different concepts during our Talking About Touching lessons this week.  The first concept was gun safety.  We discussed and reviewed why handling and playing with guns is dangerous for children.  Students role-played how they could quickly get out of a situation where a gun was involved.  The second concept taught children to always ask their parents or the person in charge first when someone wants them to do something or go somewhere with him or her.

In science, students used clues to rank each mineral by hardness.  Then we discovered that when the mineral Calcite is exposed to acid (vinegar), it reacts in a special way.  Ask your student!  Next, students were introduced to four rocks (basalt, limestone, sandstone, and marble).  We are going to find out if calcite exists in any of the four rocks by observing their reaction to the vinegar.

Upcoming events:

April 30^th – PROGRESS REPORTS COME HOME

May 3^rd – Noon Dismissal (faculty in-service)

May 7^th – Third grade overnight: swimming, and pizza!

April 23, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

We had a wonderful field trip to the Seattle Underground and to the Pike Place Market today.  The kids enjoyed the underground, but the highlight of the trip was the Pike Place Market where they had a picnic lunch, participated in a fun scavenger hunt, and shopped ‘til they dropped.  This was the perfect day to spend at the market and a fun way to end our study of Seattle’s history.

We’ve had a demanding week of testing, but students have remained confident.  We finished all of the language testing and will move on to the math portion of the test next week.  The testing schedule for our classroom is included below today’s newsletter.  Please remember to continue sending in healthy snacks next week and to be sure that your child is getting plenty of rest each night.

This week we began our “Talking About Touching” program. This program teaches children skills that will help keep them safe from dangerous or abusive situations.  This week we discussed walking and fire safety.  Students discussed why we should walk on the side of the road facing drivers, wear light-colored clothes, and use the buddy system as much as possible when we walk.  In terms of fire safety, students reviewed the, “stop, drop and roll” technique and when and why it would be used.

Most of our reading and writing time this week was taken up by testing, but we did manage to squeeze in some practice with figurative language through our homework in the Daybook.  Thank you for your support with these assignments.  Students have had fun sharing their work with the class!  We are really focusing on adding interesting language consistently into our writing.  Next week we will continue to work on figurative language to finish out April (poetry month).  We are also beginning to practice revising and editing skills.  Students will spend some time revising (adding and/or deleting parts of their writing) and editing (checking for correct grammar and punctuation) their writing pieces from earlier in the year.

In science students were true Geologists this week.  We made accurate observations about four “mystery” minerals.  Next, we practiced and performed a geological scratch test on the “mystery” minerals to test the hardness of each.    Next week, students will be given clues about each mineral that will require them to use their knowledge of each minerals’ hardness to rank and identify each (Quartz – a white mineral that is the hardest of the common minerals on Earth, Gypsum, Fluorite, and Calcite).

In social studies we began our thematic unit on cultural understanding.  Mrs. Eusebio told the kids that this is not a unit on Japan, but rather a unit that uses Japan to study how cultures develop and how their geography affects this development. This social studies unit will carry us to the end of the year.  The kids enjoyed a Power Point slide show about what they will be learning, and then brainstormed what they thought they already knew about the geography, food, home life and school life of Japan.  We will begin studying the geography next week in order to begin understanding how much this affects the way people live.

CYO Soccer for Fall 2010:  Registration forms for participation this fall on an ASB CYO soccer team are currently available on the school’s web-site.  Go to the “forms” link and then choose the soccer form to print-out and send with payment to the school office.  Soccer is open to all students entering grades K-8 in the fall.  The registration deadline is Wednesday, May 5th. We are also looking for a soccer coordinator for the 6th-8th grades, as well as coaches for all grade levels.  Please contact Robin Hendricks at rhendricks@asbschool.org if you are interested in volunteering or if you have any questions.

Annual ASB Parent Basketball Tournament: The annual parent basketball tournament will be held the week of May 3 – 7, 2010 from 6:00-9:00pm each evening.  If you are interested in participating, please contact Damien King at king.df@ghc.org.

Upcoming events:

April 26^th – April 30^th – Second week of ITBS testing (MATH)

April 30^th – Poetry book report due (Students are free to present as soon as they turn in their report.)  PROGRESS REPORTS COME HOME

May 3^rd – Noon Dismissal (faculty in-service)

May 7^th – Third grade overnight: swimming, pizza – if you have not turned in the permission slip, please do so as soon as possible

3B ITBS Schedule ~ Ms. Gonzales 2009–2010

April 16, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

This has been a whirlwind week in 3B!  We had a wonderful day full of sharing our LRS projects with one another and with the entire school!  The students were clearly well prepared and knowledgeable about their topics.  They handled the excitement very well and were quite the experts as people visited their tables.  Hopefully, they’ve learned some essential skills throughout the process – how to manage their time, how to research, how to divide a broad topic into manageable categories, how to take notes and rewrite information into their own words, how to make a presentation board interesting, how to present to a variety of audiences – among many other skills.  I hope the experience was helpful to you as well.  The parent and student feedback forms (in your children’s binders or on the website) are due Thursday, February 22^nd.  These feedback forms are very important to us, as they help us to rethink and revise the LRS program.  If you could take some time to fill them out, we’d really appreciate getting them back.

We had a wonderful field trip to the Lakeview Cemetery and The Museum of History and Industry.  Next Friday we will be going on the Seattle Underground Tour, and the Pike Place Market.  These trips help students grasp Seattle’s history “in the real.”  We will be moving out of our study of Seattle history and into our study of Japan next week.

ITBS testing begins next week.  We will be completing the majority of our testing in the mornings, leaving most afternoons free for normal learning.  Please see the attachment for our schedule.  Please avoid making appointments for your children during testing times.  You will notice that I have left the third week of testing free for make-up tests.  If your child is going to miss a test, please let me know so that I can plan a make-up time for him/her.

Also, please look for the Third Grade Overnight permission slip in your child’s Friday folder.  This is approaching fast – Friday, May 7^th!

March 26, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

3B has been busy!  We spent much time this week preparing our hearts for Easter.  We began by learning about the Triduum, the three days leading up to Easter, and created triptychs (three-paneled art) to represent these three days.  The kids learned that Jesus, being a Jew, had gathered his disciples together to celebrate Passover.  This became the first celebration of the Eucharist and became known as Holy Thursday.  Good Friday, the second panel on the triptych, is represented by the cross on which Jesus was crucified.  The third panel represents the Easter vigil, or waiting for Jesus to rise from the dead.  These will come home next week, and I hope you enjoy these beautiful pieces of art.  Mrs. Landes came in and spoke about her experience in celebrating Passover.  We began creating our own Seder Plate and learning about the significance of each item.  We will finish our plate, and proceed with our study of Passover and Easter next week.

Spelling centers this week included further study of apostrophes used in contractions and apostrophes used to show possession.  We also reviewed prefixes and suffixes.  As a culmination to our Helen Keller novel, we invited a speaker from the Community Services for the Blind and Partially Sighted to come speak to the kids.  Meegan Kirby teaches Braille to the blind and explained about this system which allows those without sight to read.  She was impressed by the depth and thoughtfulness of the questions the students asked.  The kids were each given a copy of their name in Braille – they are small, so please look carefully for them in your child’s Friday folder.  If you wish to learn more about Braille, you may explore this great website:  www.afb.orgraillebug/louis_braille_bio.asp .  We are getting farther in our class novel, Kneeknock Rise by Natalie Babbitt and will try to finish this novel next week.

Since we have finished learning our basic cursive alphabet, we have started to practice writing with more fluency (speed and consistency).  Students have completed several assignments completely in cursive.  I am encouraging (but not demanding) the kids to use cursive as much as possible, and as much as they are comfortable – this applies to homework, too.  Our creative-writing unit continued this week with the kids writing about a kid who has been invited to a swim party but who doesn’t know how to swim.

We are continuing to study the concept of division.  Students are becoming more comfortable with this concept as they relate it to repeated subtraction and to multiplication.  Multiplication and division fact families are helpful in solving division problems, and checking the quotient!  The kids are getting more comfortable using the vocabulary dividend, divisor, and quotient when they describe their thought process – which is great!  These skills and strategies are all necessary as we continue to practice solving multi-step word problems that require more than one type of operation.  We also spent some time this week reviewing place value concepts and regrouping in subtraction.

This week in science we finished breaking apart our mock rocks, and have started to investigate whether we can find more minerals in our rock – minerals that may not be easy to see with the naked eye.  Students added the smallest mineral we found from our mock rock to 35mL of water, and let it settle overnight.  The next day, the kids poured just enough of the liquid from the vial to cover the bottom of a plastic dish in the hopes of discovering that something dissolved in the water overnight!  Each morning students check out their dishes, and are beginning to notice something interesting forming as the water evaporates!  We will study what is left in the dishes next week.

Social studies lessons focused on the arrival at and founding of the city of Seattle.  The kids will spend time working in groups to research and plan a presentation about various Seattle pioneers during social studies lessons next week.  These will be presented to the rest of the class at the Lakeview Cemetery field trip Wednesday, April 14^th (the week we return from spring break).  We will visit the cemetery in the morning, have a sack lunch at Volunteer Park (right next door to the cemetery), then drive to the Museum of History and Industry to explore some aspects and artifacts of Seattle history.  Please look for your child’s permission slip in today’s Friday folder and return to school as soon as possible so that we have ample time to arrange for drivers.

LRS:  Your child should begin putting the LRS board together at this time. Next week, the kids will need to turn in their “Student Needs” sheet.  By that date they should know what type of special needs they have (electrical outlet, larger table space, etc.), so they should be thinking about that (with your help).

Reminders:

Wednesday, March 31^st – Non-fiction book report due

April 2^nd – 3^rd grade attends Stations of the Cross 11:10-11:40, parents welcome to attend with us (meet in 3B at 11AM).

April 2^nd (Good Friday, Noon-dismissal) – LRS Student Needs Due, and beginning of Spring Break

April 8^th – 12^th – Spring Break

April 14^th – Lakeview Cemetery, MOHAI field trip (drivers here at 8:45AM, return 2:20PM).

April 16^th – LRS Presentation Day

April 19^th – 30^th – ITBS Testing

May 7^th – Third grade overnight in the gym

Have a great weekend!

March 18, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

We had a wonderful Art Parents lesson this week. Students explored the work of French artist Henry Matisse.  The student masterpieces will be on display in our room for the next few weeks!

This week in religion we spent time talking about God’s promise to us (covenant).  We discussed that all followers of Jesus and members of the Church are saved from the power of sin and will have an everlasting life with God.  In connection to Lent, students created a picture illustrating their life, and how we try to follow the path of God’s love.  Sometimes we may veer off the path (by making bad choices), but if we ask for forgiveness we will get back on God’s path!

In literacy centers we learned spelling patterns for the /k/ sound, and reviewed homophones.  We also began a new novel, Kneeknock Rise by Natalie Babbitt.  This Newberry Award winning novel is about a young boy named Egan, and a curious cliff called “Kneeknock Rise”.  This story will take us on Egan’s journey to discover what is so mysterious about the cliff, and why the people of the town are both proud and scared of it.  This book provides lots of details which are perfect for helping us visualize the plot which aides in our comprehension of the text.  The author’s descriptions give us great examples for our own writing.  Next week we will practice writing with great detail as we work on including similes in our writing.  Students are working hard on their third creative writing story about a kid who finds a magic object that causes a problem!  We’ve also spent time learning how to identify and avoid run-on sentences, as well as describing people and common nouns.

We’ve started studying the concept of division, by relating it to repeated subtraction and to multiplication!  Students have learned how fact families can be used for multiplication and division and how these families can help them solve division problems or check division answers.  The kids are beginning to learn that a dividend is something we divide up, a divisor is what we divide it by, and a quotient is the answer we get in a division problem.  We’ve already solved many story problems that included division, and even solved some multi-step problems that used more than one type of operation.

This week in science we measured the circumference, diameter and depth of our mock rocks.  We also practiced writing observations so specific and accurate that our classmates could guess our rock out of a group of rocks just by listening to our observations. We have also begun to break apart our mock rocks in order to find out what the rocks are made of.

LRS: The LRS is fast approaching!  Please continue to help your child find at least 40 facts by Friday, March 26^th.  Thank you for helping your child plan his or her presentation board – the plans look great!  This is the time to really begin narrowing down the items and information that need to be included on the board, from the items that aren’t as important.  Please be as specific as possible on the LRS Student Needs form that is due Friday, April 2^nd.  This is the sheet we use to plan where students will be in the gym on presentation day (April 16^th).  If your child needs to be near an outlet, or has another special request, please be sure to let us know on that sheet!

Third grade will begin our Talking About Touching personal safety program after Spring Break.  Please read below about informational meetings regarding the program.

Students in grades K-3 will soon be learning personal safety skills.  These skills include the skills needed to be safe with water, fire, and bicycles.  Of course, it also includes ways to keep our bodies safe.  In these grades teachers use the Talking About Touching curriculum developed by the Committee for Children. Please see their website at cfchildren.org/programs/tat/overview/ for more information.

We invite you to preview our Talking About Touching curriculum on March 23^rd after drop off at 8:45 AM at Mary House and again on March 25^th at 2:15 PM before pick up also at Mary House.  If you are planning to attend either of these informational sessions, please RSVP to Lori Landes at llandes@asbschoool.org.

Reminders:

March 19^th– No school: Deanery In-service

March 24^th – Class Pictures in Uniform at 9:45

March 26^th – 40 LRS Facts due

Wednesday, March 31^st – Non-fiction book report due

April 2^nd (Good Friday, Noon-dismissal) – LRS Student Needs Due, and beginning of Spring Break

May 7^th – Third grade overnight in the gym

March 12, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

As we progress through Lent, we continue to learn what we can do to prepare for the celebration of Easter.  Students were reminded to be a “cheerful giver”.  As we give up our favorite snacks, television show, or volunteer our personal time to help others, we need to remember to stay positive!  We are performing these tasks in order to grow closer to Jesus.   Connecting to staying positive – students worked on completing positive “compliment sandwiches” for a fellow classmate.  These compliments included something they have noticed about each other, a quality they admire in the other person, and something they have in common.  Students had the opportunity to share these compliments in front of the class, and their smiles were ear to ear!

In literacy centers, we finished reading The Hundred Dresses – the Newberry Award winning novel that tied in so closely with our bullying unit.  We have also been using our Daybooks to practice our summarization and sequencing skills in non-fiction text.  Students know that summarization requires the ability to decipher the most important details from the “extra” facts.  We learned that recognizing the correct sequence of a text allows you to keep track of the most important events as they happen.   In spelling, we reviewed spelling patterns for the long e and long i sound and worked with the –ly and -ing suffixes.  Students discovered that we drop the silent e in words when we add a suffix that begins with a vowel.  Students have also started to write their third story in our creative writing unit, and we have officially finished learning all lowercase and capital cursive letters!  Students were very proud of themselves!

We wrapped up our multiplication unit this week and will move on to division next week.  Most of the kids have a solid understanding of the concept of multiplication and it seems the most helpful support at home should come as continued practice with multiplication math facts.  Again, students are only expected to master facts for factors 1, 2, 5 and 10.  Practice with this can be in the form of flash cards or computer programs.  Memorizing the multiplication facts will really help when it comes time to memorize the division facts, as they are related to one another, so please keep practicing!

Our class is beginning a new science unit using the FOSS Earth Materials Kit.  We will investigate a selection of the most common rocks and minerals that make up Earth’s crust and learn some techniques used by geologists to identify them.  Geology requires analysis.  To develop analytical skills and techniques, we will first take apart a simulated rock called a Mock Rock.  We will observe them, break them apart, dissolve them in water and evaporate the liquid to discover the ingredients from which our rocks are made.  We will then move on to real rocks and minerals, using scratch tools and acid (vinegar) to test for specific minerals.  Finally, we will look at granite, the base rock from which continents are made, and analyze it to discover the minerals it contains.  You can increase your child’s understanding and interest in earth materials by asking him or her to talk about the investigations we are doing at school.  Rocks, which appear so commonplace, may become objects that inspire questions and promote close observation.  We’re looking forward to weeks of fun with rocks and minerals!  If you have questions or comments, or have expertise you would like to share with the class, feel free to email me.

The pioneers we are studying have now reached the Puget Sound.  The kids are learning why this area was such an ideal place for the early White settlers – mainly because of the resources it offered.  This is a key concept in social studies, and one that we will come back to time and again.  Soon, we will begin learning about other pioneers besides the Denny and Low Parties and about the impact they had on the building of our city.

Report Cards: Report cards came home today.  Please notethat  in the math section of the report card, “Recalls number facts accurately, computes quickly, and applies math knowledge to solve problems,” all refer to these skills in MULTIPLICATION, not addition and subtraction, as in the first trimester.  You may also notice that your child has not moved to a higher level on the reading or writing continuum.  This is a developmental stage and the kids must be showing strength in all areas of a particular stage for us to have marked it.  Inside the report card envelope is a sample of your child’s writing.  Please sign and return this story to school in the envelope on Monday. You child may choose to this story when we learn and practice our revising and editing skills.

LRS:   The Interview Completion was due today, and the LRS Presentation Board Plan is due Thursday, March 18^th.  I am not going to compare their board plans to the real thing.  The purpose of this being an assignment so far in advance is to keep students organized and on track.  In two weeks the Student Needs form is due.  By that date your child should know whether or not he or she will need to be placed next to an outlet, or need any other special accommodations.  Please email me if you have any other questions or comments.

Reminders:

March 18^th – LRS presentation plan due

March 19^th– No school: Deanery In-service

March 24^th – Class Pictures in Uniform at 9:45

March 26^th – 40 LRS Facts due

March 31^st – Non-fiction book report due (this can be an LRS related book).

April 2^nd – Good Friday – Noon-dismissal and LRS Student Needs Due and beginning of Spring Break

May 7^th – Third grade overnight in the gym

March 5, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

This week we spent time discussing why we need to spend the season of Lent preparing for Easter.  It was helpful for students to think about what they do to get ready for a big event – like a family trip.  Before we leave on a trip we need to pack appropriate clothes for our destination.  If we packed shorts and t-shirts when we are going skiing, we wouldn’t be prepared to enjoy the snow.  Similarly, we need to prepare our hearts and minds for the Easter celebration by trying extra hard to live as Jesus did.  This makes the celebration of Easter more meaningful.

One way we can prepare for Easter is to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and students had the opportunity to do this today.  Yesterday, students created a “Sacrament of Healing: Reconciliation” wheel to prepare for the Sacrament.  These wheels highlight the process we go through for our sins to be forgiven.  When we make a bad choice, we must examine our conscience, then we can receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and finally we can have our sins forgiven! These wheels will be on display in our classroom until the end of Lent.

In literacy centers this week we continued working with prefixes, and suffixes, learning to add suffixes appropriately to words that end in consonant – y, and reviewing when to double a letter when adding a suffix.  We started reading the novel, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  This novel ties in perfectly with the end of our Steps to Respect unit because it discusses bullying, and the relationships between friends and peers.  In addition, students presented a variety of skits, posters, videos, and artwork demonstrating their understanding of positive friendships, under the guidance of our school counselor, Lori Landes.  This has been a good opportunity for them to put their anti-bullying strategies into action.  We continued working on the capital cursive letters and have only a few to go.  Most kids have finished their second story in our creative-writing unit, although a few have some finish-up work to do.

We continued our study of multiplication and will wrap up our exploration of this concept next week, although we have not finished memorizing our multiplication math facts.  Practice of these facts should continue to be a part of each night’s homework and will likely continue through the rest of the school year so that your child knows them “in a snap.”  Again, they are responsible for the facts for 1, 2, 5, and 10.  They will learn the others next year in 4^th grade.

In science this week, we wrapped up our Physics of Sound Unit with an assessment and a field trip to Soundbridge Seattle Music Discovery Center and a tour of Benaroya Hall.  Thank you so much to those who volunteered to drive us.  Students had a great time applying their knowledge of sound to real-life instruments!  Next week we begin our study of Earth Materials.

LRS:  It was pretty amazing to listen as students shared their LRS facts on Monday.  They are taking ownership of their topic, and really are becoming “mini-experts”.  Now that interviews are nearly complete and facts continue to be discovered, students need to start thinking about how they are going to present all their information to the school.  We recommend purchasing a tri-fold presentation board from any office supply store.  If your child has a different idea about how to present his/her information, that is fine; however, please keep in mind that we will set up in the gym and have limited availability of outlets and tables.  The LRS presentation board plan is due Thursday, March 18^th (there is no school Friday, the 19^th).  It is important that your child turns this is on time so we can plan in advance for any special needs or requests for LRS presentation day (April 3^rd)!

Reminders:

March 8^th – 1:30 Lenten Prayer Service in church

March 10^th – 3^rd grade goes to Mass at 9AM

March 12^th – LRS interview completion sheet due, report cards come home

March 18^th – LRS presentation plan due

March 19^th – No school: North Deanery schools meet

March 22^nd – 1:30 Lenten Prayer Service in church

March 24^th – 9:45AM Class Pictures in uniform

March 26^th – A minimum of 40 LRS facts due

March 31^st – Non-fiction book report due (can be an LRS-related book)

February 26, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

As we progress through Lent, we continue to learn about the amazing forgiveness God offers us.  This week we spent time writing in our Lenten Journals.  Students know that their journals are a place for honest, prayerful reflection.  These are meant to help us examine our lives in order to be the best person we can be.  We talked about how it is not always easy to forgive, especially when we have been hurt in some way. The kids will have the opportunity to experience God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Friday, March 5^th here at school.  Homework on Thursday will be an Examination of Conscience in order to prepare students to receive the Sacrament. Children are not required to receive the Sacrament, but they are encouraged to do so.

Literacy Centers had us learning that double letters stand for one sound (room, sunny), compound words, spelling patterns for words that require double letters when adding the suffix

–ing, and reviewing homophones (words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings (creak/creek, suite, sweet).  This week, we finished the biography of Helen Keller.  Students are really gaining practice demonstrating their ability to comprehend text by accurately retelling the events of a chapter in correct sequence.  In writing this week, students learned about alternating names and pronouns to vary sentence structure.  They practiced applying this new learning as they continued their second creative writing story.  These stories are kept in their writing portfolios at school.  We will be using these soon as we learn and practice editing and revising skills.

We are continuing our study of multiplication.  This week we added the factors 7, to the list of facts we’ve learned!  We also practiced some problem solving skills, made flash cards for factors 2 and 5, and took a Mid-Chapter Check to see how we’re doing.  I can see the students’ confidence growing as their ability to answer questions accurately and quickly improves.  However, please remember that the third grade standard is for students to master only multiplication facts for the 1, 2, 5, and 10 facts. We are exposing students to facts 0-12, but only expecting them to master the facts for 1, 2, 5, and 10. Thank you for helping your child learn the facts, and remember that any and all practice at home will benefit!

In science this week, students learned how a megaphone amplifies sound, and that our outer ears are similar!  In fact, our ears are designed to receive sounds, focus them and amplify them for us!  We also spent time playing a review game in preparation for our end of module test next week.  Next week, we will end our learning of sound with a test and our field trip to Soundbridge Seattle Symphony Music Discovery Center!

In social studies our Seattle pioneers have now left Cherry Grove, Illinois and are on their way to Portland.  We are learning about the different places they stopped along the way, including the Platte River (a mile wide and a foot deep) that had dangerous quick sand, Chimney Rock, and Independence Rock (the great “register” on the trip west).  We are learning about the last stages of their journey, fraught with Indian attacks, sickness, boiling hot springs, and drudgery.  We are also learning about what made the Puget Sound region so favorable for these early settlers.  Next week we will arrive at Alki…

LRS:  Students should continue gathering facts for their LRS topic. Your child will need to bring their 40 LRS Facts to school on March 26^th. In order for us to help keep your child on track with the goal of collecting 40 facts, your child will need to bring in their LRS folder (with as many facts as they have collected so far) on Friday, March 5^th so facts can be shared with tablemates.  It will be great for students to share what they have already learned, and to hear ideas from their peers of what they find most interesting etc.

Reminders:

March 3^rd – Field trip to Soundbridge and Benaroya Hall 11-2PM (drivers be here by 10:45)

Friday, March 5^th

1.  Bring in LRS folders to share facts with table mates.  (Students DO NOT need 40 facts by

today. We are just checking to see how fact-gathering is going.)  Students will take folders home

after sharing.

2.  Reconciliation Service 1:00-1:30

March 12^th

1.  LRS Interview completion sheet due

2.  Second Trimester Report Cards go home

March 18^th – LRS Presentation Board Plan Due

March 19^th – NO SCHOOL – Deanery In-Service

March 24^th – Class pictures in uniform

March 26^th – 40 LRS facts in LRS folder due

March 31^st – Non-Fiction Book Report due (this can be an LRS related book).  This will go out next week.

February 19, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

This week, we have been learning about the season of Lent.  Students know that the next forty days are to be spent getting ready for the celebration of Easter.  We can prepare for Easter by striving to love God and others as we should.  Lent can be more than a time of fasting from favorite pastimes (playing the Wii, watching television, surfing the internet etc.) or snacks (candy, cookies, pop etc).  Lent can be a season of joy because of the extra prayer and good deeds we make time for.  The reason we make sacrifices during Lent is to acknowledge God’s greatest sacrifice (His only son) to show His love for us.  Today we made beautiful stained glass windows to enjoy in our classroom. We also began our Lenten Journals; a place to respond to questions about this special season, and reflect on our own lives in order to grow closer to Jesus.

Art Parents this week taught our students to draw beautiful landscapes with pastels.  They look beautiful, and are hanging up in our classroom for our class to enjoy.  Thank you to all the parents who volunteered to make this Art Parent session possible.

Last week we finished our Steps to Respect program by focusing on the term bystander and the responsibility you have to report bullying as one.  Students learned that “reporting is not tattling”.  Reporting bullying is necessary when someone is unsafe, in physical harm or when refusing the bullying behavior has not worked.  Although we have finished our Steps to Respect program, we will continue to discuss the topic of bullying for the rest of the year.

Literacy Centers had us continuing to read the biography of Helen Keller.  Students have spent some time discussing what life would be like for someone who is blind, deaf and cannot speak.  Through our discussions and learning of Helen Keller, we have realized how truly lucky we are and how we may sometimes take things in life for granted – like our eyesight.  While reading this biography, students have been practicing their ability to retell the events of the story in correct sequence.  We are working on this strategy to increase our comprehension.

Last week we completed our chapter four test on multiplication!  We are beginning chapter five to learn the strategies and concepts behind the more difficult multiplication facts.    Students now know strategies to solve multiplication facts 0-6 and 10.  Students are becoming comfortable with the concept of multiplication and know many of their facts (or helpful strategies).  However, please remember that the third grade standard is for students to master only multiplication facts for the 1, 2, 5, and 10 facts. We are exposing students to facts 0-12, but only expecting them to master the facts for 1, 2, 5, and 10.

In science students have been learning how sound travels through air, water, and solids.  In one activity, we used a stethoscope to see if we could hear our fingers tap underwater.  Students learned that sound can travel through water!  In fact, sounds can be louder and clearer when they travel through water.  In the second activity, students experimented with a tuning fork and a long paper tube to see how sound can be gathered and directed to another source. Students experimented with wood and string to discover that sound can seem loud traveling through solids and softer traveling through air.

We continued our study of Seattle’s history this week.  We learned that the Denny Party consisted of 15 people, four dogs, and four horse-drawn wagons.  We even learned that they left Cherry Grove, Illinois at 3PM on April 10, 1851.  What kind of family leaves for a cross-country trek at 3PM?  We mentioned the route they took and will continue to follow their path and learn about the many adventures that took place along the way next week.

LRS:  Students should continue gathering facts for their LRS topic.  They know that they have a goal of collecting a minimum of 40 facts by the middle of March; most will have many more than that.  Remember, the information they discover from their interview may count as facts for their LRS folder. We will ask students to bring in LRS folders to share facts with table mates sometime in March so we can check to see how fact-gathering is going. Remember, they are becoming mini “experts” on their topic and will need to know enough about it to include facts on their presentation board, and to explain more to those visiting their project on April 16^th.

Reminders:

February 26^th – Biography book report due

March 3^rd – Field trip to Soundbridge and Benaroya Hall to study the science of sound. 11:00 – 2:00PM (We do not have enough drivers.  If you are available and willing to drive, please email me.)

March 12^th – Interview completion sheet due and Second Trimester Report Cards go home

March 18^th – LRS Presentation Board Plan due

March 24^th – Class pictures in Uniform

February 11, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

We had a wonderful Valentine’s Day breakfast today!  The students enjoyed their meal of heart-shaped French toast, waffles, sausages, fresh fruit, cereal, juice, and hot chocolate. Not to mention all the candy from their Valentines!  Thank you so much to everyone who brought in food, or cooking materials, and to the parents who came in to decorate, cook and serve.  The kids and I had a ton of fun! J

We learned about making good choices this week in religion.  We were also reminded that everyone makes bad choices once in awhile, and that’s okay. The most important thing is that we learn from those mistakes, and ask for forgiveness.

Literacy Centers had us reviewing homophones (words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings, (sum and some, maid and made).  Students also practiced frequent spelling patterns for J (j, ge, gi, and gy), and frequent spelling patterns for S (s, ss, ce, ci, and cy).  This week we started reading a biography of Helen Keller.  Students are practicing understanding and recognizing story sequence while reading this incredible account of Helen’s life.

In math this week, we continued looking at strategies to help us solve our math facts for the different times tables.  We learned the Zero Property of Multiplication (0 X any number or any number X 0 = 0), the Identity Property of Multiplication (1 x any number or any number X 1 = that number), and the Commutative Property of Multiplication (2 X 5 = 10, so 5 X 2 = 10).  The kids are enjoying learning these “rules”, and are also being challenged by some multi-step story problems.  If you are working on multiplication facts at home with your child that is great, but please don’t forget to practice addition and subtraction facts as well!

LRS:  Students should begin gathering facts for their LRS topic.  Their LRS folders came home today in their Friday folders (they’re blue).  We discussed that these folders are a tool to help them stay organized during their research.  They know that they have a goal of collecting a minimum of 40 facts by the middle of March; most will have many more than that.  We will ask students to bring in LRS folders to share facts with table mates sometime in March so we can check to see how fact-gathering is going. Remember, they are becoming mini “experts” on their topic and will need to know enough about it to include facts on their presentation board, and to explain more to those visiting their project on April 16^th.

Have a wonderful and restful mini-vacation!

Reminders:

February 12^th – Faculty retreat, no school

February 15^th, 16^th – Presidents’ Day vacation

March 3^rd – Field trip to Soundbridge and Benaroya Hall to study the science of sound. 11:00 – 2:00PM (So far, we only have enough drivers for 14 students.  If you are available and willing to drive, please email me.)

February 17^th – Third graders lead all-school Ash Wednesday Mass at 9AM – you are more than welcome to attend

February 19^th – LRS interview questions due

February 26^th – Biography book report due

February 5, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

We learned about sharing our light with the world this week in religion, and in our Mass for Catholic Schools Week.  Students created personal candles to highlight the ways in which they can share their light with others.  These are on display in our classroom, and look great!

Literacy Centers had us reviewing homophones, and learning more about affixes (prefixes and suffixes).  Homophones do not seem to be a challenge when students are asked to verbally use examples however; we are still working on mastering the differences in spelling. When working with prefixes and suffixes, we reviewed the spelling rules we follow when adding them to our base (or root) word.  We have been working hard to finish our Little House in the Big Woods novel; most were able to finish it (and all our projects and activities associated with it) by today.  The students have really gained practice in listening and speaking with each other through our small group discussions about the characters and events in the book.

In writing, students spent time finishing up their first short story.  We learned about staying on topic, and reviewed making sure we include proper punctuation at the end of each sentence.  Next week we will begin a new story, which will allow students to continue to practice the five steps to Super Stories.  These weekly stories will remain in your child’s writing portfolio at school.  The reason for this is to allow students continued access to their stories as we progress through this writing program.  This will allow students to continue to practice their revising and editing skills

In math we continued looking at a variety of strategies to help us solve our math facts for the different times tables.  We have gone through the 1’s, 2’s, 4’s, 5’s, and 10’s.  In addition to learning strategies for these multiplication facts, students practiced their problem solving skills.  Students have learned these steps in order to solve word problems:  1. Understand 2.  Plan 3. Solve 4. Check.

This will be a skill we continue to work on throughout the year.

Students have been very busy in science learning how vibrations and length change a sound’s pitch.  In addition to length, this week learned that tension also affects a sound’s pitch.  Through two mini-activities, students discovered that the greater the tension on a source, the higher the sound.  We have an upcoming science field trip to the Seattle Symphony Music Discovery Center (at Benaroya Hall).  This experience will allow us to extend our learning of sound through observation and experimentation with different instruments.  More information about this field trip will be sent home shortly.

Reach for the Stars! – Scrip @ ASB

Thanks for your ongoing support of scrip at ASB!  You’re encouraged this month to convert to a monthly standing order for your basic scrip needs, if you don’t already have one.  We are having a school-wide contest to increase support of this important fund-raiser. Students in the classroom with the most standing orders at the end of February will receive free dress coupons.  Visit:  http://www.asbschool.org and click on “scrip” to find the form.

Standing orders help us anticipate demand so that we have the cards you need. They also help us anticipate our earnings for the year. You can help us reach for the stars and meet our goal for ASB!  Thanks again for your support of ASB!

Reminders:

Thursday, February 11^th

1.  LRS Four Categories of Topic due – Students will go home with their LRS folders, ready to start gathering facts!

2.  Valentine’s Day Breakfast – 8:30-10:00!  Students are welcome to bring cards and/or treats for classmates, as long as they bring one for everyone. Please do not personally address valentines or treats.  This allows for a much smoother distribution process.

Friday, February 12^th – Faculty Retreat NO SCHOOL

Monday, February 15 – Tuesday, 16^th – President’s Holiday NO SCHOOL

Friday, February 26^th – Biography book report is due (check homework page on the website for an extra copy).

January 29, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

In religion students discussed the importance of allowing love and respect to guide us through all our decisions.  Students created posters or stories as a reminder for how forgiveness is a specific way to show our love and respect for others.  Our Steps to Respect lessons this week taught the kids how to recognize bullying.  They learned that bullying is unfair and one-sided and that it happens when someone keeps hurting, frightening, threatening, or leaving someone out on purpose.  The kids also learned the “three Rs” of bullying:  Recognize, Refuse, and Report.  These Steps to Respect lessons follow a play about bullying that was presented to our school last Tuesday by Taproot Theatre.  We will continue to talk about issues dealing with bullying in the next few weeks.

In literacy centers we worked on mastering contractions, and reviewing spelling patterns for silent letters.  We continued reading Little House in the Big Woods.  We’re getting close to finishing our work with this novel, and it is great to listen in on detailed student discussions about each chapter.  Students are able to tie in their learning about pioneers during social studies to this literature unit as they compare and contrast their lives with the life of Laura Ingalls and her family.

We have entered our multiplication unit by recognizing the connection between repeated addition and multiplication.  Students used their prior experience with the “Circles and Stars” game to help them understand that multiplication is really just a faster way to add. Students are becoming very comfortable creating arrays to represent multiplication sentences – their array homework was awesome!  They also learned the Commutative Property of Multiplication (2 X 7 = 14, therefore 7 X 2 = 14).  According to the Washington State Math Standards, third graders are required to master the 1, 2, 5, and 10 multiplication facts.  Therefore, these facts will be our first priority in class.  Of course, we will teach your child background knowledge and strategies for the other facts up to 10, but our first goal is for your child to master the 1, 2, 5, and 10 facts.  There are many ways to practice these facts at home for five minutes a night – flash cards, math websites (check out the third grade resource page on the ASB website) etc.  Once your child has mastered those facts (or would like a challenge), please have your child start working through the multiplication section of the Math Fact Binder.

In science this week the students experimented with pitch (how high or low a sound is).  They learned that a high-pitched noise could be described as a squeak, and a low-pitched noise could sound like a grumble.  The students performed two investigations that helped them to recognize that fast vibrations cause high pitched sounds, and low vibrations cause low pitched sounds.  Next week we will explore frequency.

Progress Reports come home today.  Please sign the envelope and return just the envelope to school on Monday.

Reminders:

January 30^th and 31^st – ASB students will be lectors at Masses at Assumption & St. Bridget. The choir will sing at the 10:30 Mass on Sunday at Assumption. We are asking students to wear their uniforms to Mass this weekend.

Week of January 31^st – Catholic Schools Week

February 4^th – Open house 9-12 and Catholic Schools Week Mass at 1:30 in the gym. We are asking students to wear their uniforms to school today.  Please join us for Mass.

February 11^th – LRS Four Categories of Topic due and Valentine’s Day Breakfast in 3B!

January 22, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

This week we spent time learning about the mission of the Church – to spread Jesus’ good news with the people of all nations.  Students had a chance to represent “one seed” they plan to plant that will spread a positive change in their lives or the lives of others with an artistic poster.

In literacy centers we reviewed spelling patterns for the long a sound, ow and ou words, and words in the “tough” group (words that use the ou spelling pattern in a way that doesn’t sound like the ou in house).  We are continuing to learn the capital cursive letters.  So far, students have learned A, C, O, D, and E.  As many students finish reading Little House in the Big Woods, they are moving on to practice their summarizing skills through designing their own book jacket for the novel.  Students are required to put their best summarization skills to work by giving enough information to hook a perspective reader, but not too much to give away the whole story!

To go along with the game “Circles and Stars” (introduced last week in math) students also practiced thinking about the concept of multiplication through the use of candy box arrangements.  Students used their exploration of candy boxes to help them learn that multiplication uses rows or same-sized groups/sets of things.  Also, that the answer you get when you multiply is called the product (kind of like the candy in the box).  The students wrote a persuasive paragraph convincing a “president” of a candy box company what shape candy box they should produce (3 by 2, 2 by 12, 3 by 8, or 4 by 6).  They shared some thoughtful reasons:  “The 4 by 6 size box looks like you’re getting a lot of candy, and it is a great shaped box.”  “The 2 by 12 box looks like a lot, even though it holds the same as the other boxes we created that hold 24 candies.”  We will continue our study of multiplication over the next couple of weeks and will begin learning the accompanying math facts soon.

In addition to our writing in math, we’ve begun our narrative writing program.  Students have learned there are five simple steps to follow in order to write a “super story”.  Here are the steps: 1.The main character has a problem 2. The character solves their problem 3. The character learns something 4. Include two descriptions per paragraph, and 5. Write at least one feeling sentence per paragraph.  Students have also completed a detailed brainstorm for their first story, and will begin writing next week!  The goal of this program is for students to learn one writing tip or strategy each writing session, while having time to practice applying these tips in short stories that they create.

In science this week students further explored vibrations and sound through three investigations.  We made a “door fiddle” with string and a block of wood that allowed us to observe slow and fast vibrations and their affect on volume.  As we moved the wood up and down the door, we found that slow vibrations produce a soft sound, while fast vibrations produce a loud sound.  We were also able to listen and feel vibration travel as we experimented with a “gong” made out of hangers and plastic cups.  Students also witnessed vibrations powerful enough to move an object! We watched beans go from lying still to bouncing just by turning up the volume on a tone generator.

In social studies we reviewed the reasons the pioneers began heading west, which included a brief history of our acquisition of land from the Colonial Period through 1803 when Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France.  The kids should be able to tell you why we wanted to purchase just New Orleans, but ended up being able to buy the entire Louisiana Territory (the transaction known as “The Louisiana Purchase”).

Reminders:

Spirit Week is January 25-29. The days are as follows:

Monday: Matching Day – Dress the same colors/clothes as someone else or with a group of people. You can also dress up all in one color or as two things that go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Tuesday: Sports Day – Dress up as your favorite athlete or as a fan of your favorite sports team.

Wednesday: Comfy Day – Wear flannel pants or sweats – just be as comfortable as possible. No tank tops or short shorts, though. You can wear slippers but make sure to bring appropriate PE shoes if you have PE.

Thursday: Mythical Creature/Character Day – Dress up as your favorite character from a book, movie, or TV show, or dress up as your favorite mythical creature. You can also make up your own magical creature and dress up as that.

Friday: Crazy Day – Dress up as crazy as you can! The key is to be creative and not hold back. Free dress coupons will be given to students who are dressed the CRAZIEST!

January 29 – Progress Reports come home

January 29 – Historical fiction book report due (check website if you need a form)

Week of January 31^st – Catholic Schools Week

January 30^th and 31^st – ASB students will be lectors at Masses at Assumption & St. Bridget. The choir will sing at the 10:30 Mass on Sunday at Assumption. We are asking students to wear their uniforms to Mass that weekend.

February 4^th – Open house 9-12 and Catholic Schools Week Mass at 1:30 in the gym. Please join us for Mass.

February 11^th – LRS Four Categories of Topic due

January 15, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

In religion this week we learned about how the Church is one – that although we may have small differences in the way we worship in various parts of the world, the Holy Spirit unites us and makes us one.  We also learned about how saints inspire us to be better Catholics by leading a holy life.  Students created “tiles” to demonstrate their unique qualities.  We then used those “tiles” to build a church to symbolize that “We are one Holy Church”.  Our “Church” is on display in out classroom.

Our literacy centers had us learning the sound that –er, -ar, and –or make at the end of a word, that vowels followed by r change their sound (deep – deer), and the rules for adding suffixes to words. (Remember “Change the y to i and add es”?)  We are continuing to read our pioneer novel Little House in the Big Woods.  This story raises lots of curious questions and allows for rich discussion about this unique time period.  As we learn about the lifestyle of pioneers through this book, we are learning many new vocabulary words while continuing to practice our comprehension skills.  In writing, we continued to practice using quotation marks correctly, and applied those skills to our own version of a “Garfield” comic.  Students are gaining practice using dialogue appropriately, and have started to practice adding more detail to describe what is happening while the conversation is taking place.  We also spent time reviewing the ways to join lower-case cursive letters.  This seems to be a tricky skill to master and we will continue working on it.  We are finished learning all the lower-case cursive letters and have started learning the capital letters!

This week our Steps to Respect lessons had us reviewing appropriate ways to join a group.  This is a critical social skill, and can be difficult to master.  In order to gain confidence with this skill, we will continue to practice ways to join a group throughout the year.  We have also started to review what we know about bullying by evaluating scenarios in order to decipher bullying from non-desirable behavior.

The students entered the realm of multiplication by exploring the concept using a story problem involving chopsticks, and by playing a game called “Circles and Stars”.  We will continue next week with a conversation about the game we played so that students can understand that multiplication is really just repeated addition and that 5 X 2 can be read “five groups of two” or “2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2”.  We will continue exploring the concept and usefulness of multiplication over the next couple weeks and will only begin memorizing multiplication math facts once the concept of multiplication is clear.  Please continue to increase the kids’ speed with addition and subtraction math facts by having them practice at home.  If they have gone through those facts, decrease the amount of time they get and start them again to increase their speed!

In science, students learned the importance of sound discrimination, especially to those who are blind.  Since people who are blind are unable to use their sight, they must rely on their hearing to help them understand the world around them.  Students were introduced to the concept that vibrations create sound.  We will continue to explore this important fact as we move through our upcoming science investigations to study sound.

We began our social studies unit on the pioneers.  This will allow us opportunities to explore the concept of economics and its ties to the resources available to an area, to explore our nation’s history, and to review the use of maps and compasses.  We are reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder and are learning what life was like for families who moved west to find new opportunities.  Reading this book has allowed us to explore the concept of “point of view” and we will continue to explore this concept as we learn about pioneer interactions with Native Americans.  Our pioneer unit should lead us nicely into our study of Seattle’s history and its pioneers in February.

Reminders:

January 18^th – No school: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 22^nd – LRS Resources list due (minimum six)

January 25-29 – Spirit Week

January 29 – Progress Reports come home

January 29 – Historical fiction book report due (check website if you need a form)

January 8, 2010

Dear 3B Families,

Welcome back! The kids got right back into the swing of things and are ready to start a new year filled with learning and fun. In religion, we learned about what it means to be a leader and the types of leaders our Church has, (from Laity all the way to The Pope).  Students each worked on a project to help them remember the hierarchy of Church leaders.

In literacy centers this week we learned that the letter c followed by e, i or y, and the s and ss make the /s/ sound (e.g. receipt, city).  We also learned rules for adding the er, and est to words.  We continued learning the lower case letters in cursive and will begin learning capital letters next week.  We may send home an additional practice sheets as we learn new letters.  This will help the students improve more quickly – we know they are anxious to put their new skills to work!

This week in writing we learned all about quotation marks – when to use them, and how.  This is in preparation for our creative writing unit in which students will be given weekly story prompts to practice key lessons we learn in class.  While our new focus will be creative writing, we will continue to hone our skills in paragraph writing.

We used our time in math this week to review the important concepts of rounding to estimate, adding and subtracting large numbers, and using regrouping when necessary.  The students took a chapter test on Thursday.  We will begin our study of the concept of multiplication next week using the experiential work of mathematician/teacher Marilyn Burns.  The students are sure to be engaged in the many creative, hands-on activities she uses to introduce this concept.

In social studies this week the students finished their research on their Pilgrim topics and then used the facts they found to write an expository (explaining) paragraph.  They will share these paragraphs with one another next week before we move on to our unit on westward expansion and the pioneers.  It will be fun to tie this learning to our class novel this month – Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Our class is beginning a new science unit using the FOSS Physics of Sound Module. In this unit your child will investigate the fundamental principles of sound generation, how sound travels, and some of the physical characteristics of the energy form we call sound. This is an exciting unit for students. Over the next 6 to 8 weeks they will engage in active investigations of vibrating systems and musical instruments to see what they can find out about pitch and volume, and how to control or modify systems to control the sounds they make. This is the basic premise of music.

Your child’s interest in sounds, sound sources, and sound receivers can be increased by asking about the investigations at school and by providing additional experiences at home. Do you have a musical instrument at home? Study its design and figure out together how it makes sound, what is vibrating, and how the player controls the rate of vibration to create different pitches. Or you might want to make musical instruments by assembling a pot-and-pan orchestra, some kind of stringed (or rubber-band) instrument, or something you blow. Another activity that is fun for the whole family is listening to the sounds of silence–finding a quiet location and identifying the sounds that invade even the quietest places.

We are looking forward to many weeks of investigations with our Physics of Sound Module. If you have any questions or comments, please email me.

We have begun our Long Range Study in third grade!  Today your student received his or her topic and should begin working to gather resources.  We hope you have found the packet we placed in your child’s binder helpful.  The LRS overview should answer most questions about the project, and the calendar, due dates, and other sheets/forms should fill in the rest.  If, however, you still have questions about the LRS, please feel free to email me.  If you have lost any forms, or if you need to check due dates, you can find all these on the Special Events tab on the Third Grade page of the ASB website.  Please be sure to read about one of the major objectives of the LRS project – organization, and help your child stay organized and on time with the multiple due dates.

I am so glad to be back to the joy and excitement of the classroom.  Please know that your support is much appreciated!

Have a great weekend!

Reminders:

January 11^th – Noon dismissal for faculty in-service

January 13^th – Dress Uniform – Third grade attends daily Mass

January 15^th – Dress Uniform – 2:15 Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Service in the gym

January 18^th – No school for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

January 22^nd – LRS Topic Resources Due (minimum of six)

January 25^th-29^th – Spirit Week

January 29^th – Historical fiction book report due (see link on 3^rd grade homework site for a copy of this book report form)

December 11, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

In religion this week, students spent time discussing Jesus’ work.  Students shared stories of successful team work, and also discussed the importance of working together for a common goal.  We discussed how, from the moment we are baptized, we become a member of the Church – the Body of Christ.  Students learned that when we help others, we are also helping the son of God because Jesus is in each one of us.

In literacy centers this week, students focused on compound words, and suffixes in spelling.  In reading students finished up their mini-book on their Beverly Cleary novel to practice their summary skills.  Students also began working on a vocabulary game with important vocabulary words we have encountered through our Beverly Clearly reading.  We spent writing time this week responding to our pen pals at St. Joe’s.  Students are learning much about the writing process as they brainstorm, create a rough draft, edit with a teacher and use their best writing skills on their final draft.

Students have been working on reviewing and extending their knowledge of addition and subtraction of larger numbers. Students learned how to estimate differences by rounding to the nearest ten or hundred before subtracting. We have also begun to practice regrouping in subtraction with two and three-digit numbers.  Next week, we will begin to practice subtracting across zeros. Students are really realizing how important their knowledge of place value is, as well as the importance of showing their work to make sure they are regrouping correctly.  Reinforcement of showing their work neatly would be greatly appreciated!

This was our last week of our FOSS Kit – Structures of Life.  Students reviewed the key concepts we have learned and took a test to demonstrate their knowledge. Although, we are moving on to our second FOSS Kit – Physics of Sound, we still have a few crayfish and beetles living in 3B!

This week in socials studies the students began researching a specific topic about the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians.  They worked in pairs to read and highlight an information sheet about their topic and will learn to take notes from their highlights next week.  They will then write their notes into a complete, detailed expository paragraph.  They will share these with their classmates so that they can learn from one another (“each one teach one”).  The highlighting and note taking skills we are working on now will come in handy as we move into our LRS study in January.

Thank you very much for your donations to the Lakewood Police Officer lunch.  Also, thank you to all who have sent in toys for St. Francis House this week! Your donations are greatly appreciated.  Thank you also to those who sent in glass jars for our Christmas craft project. Look for these to come home next week.

Our entire third grade will be walking to Ida Culver on Thursday, December 17^th at 1:00 and returning around 2:00.  The kids will be singing Christmas songs to the residents.  If you would like to join us for the walk, please email me and be here by 12:50pm.

Students are bringing home their Math Fact Binders today. We may ask for the binders to return to school when we begin learning our multiplication facts, but for now, they will stay at home.  Please have your child use these as a resource to master their math facts.  Look for your child’s report card tucked in their Math Fact Binder.

Reminders:

**Please remember the $8 per family contribution for the 3B auction class project.  Payable to Mrs. Haller.  Thank you to Daniel Smith Artist Materials for generously discounting our costs.

Christmas Donations:  Third graders can bring in toys for the families at Francis House at any time.  The deadline for these donations is Wednesday, December 16^th.

-  December 15^th –Ida Culver 12:40-1:45pm

-  December 15^th – Christmas concert (grades 1, 2 and 3 with choir, band & strings) begins at 7:00 P.M.  Please arrive by 6:45 so you child can be ready.

-  December 17^th – Ida Culver Christmas Concert 1:00-2:00

-  December 18^th – 3B Christmas party 8:30am-9:55am, all-school Liturgy at 11:00am, noon dismissal

-  December/January book report is to read two novels by the same author.  This book report is due January 4^th, 2010. If you need help deciding on a second novel, please feel free to email me.

Have a wonderful weekend!

December 4, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

Today, our third graders had the privilege of leading the Advent prayer over the intercom.  Students shared the meaning of the star during this religious season – most significantly that Jesus is the light of the world.  The students created three dimensional stars for each classroom, and delivered them this morning.  These symbols are meant to remind the school that Advent is the time to prepare for the light of Jesus.

In religion this week, students learned about Jesus’ sacrifice.  Students discussed the meaning of Jesus’ death – to save all people from the power of sin.  We talked about ways we can make small (yet meaningful) sacrifices to improve the lives of others.  This tied in nicely with our discussions of Advent.  During this season, we actively wait for Jesus’ birth, and one way we can actively wait is by going out of our way for others.

In literacy centers this week we focused on homographs, homophones, and silent letters.  We also started reading our Beverly Cleary novels in groups.  To practice and strengthen comprehension, students are creating mini-books based on their novel.  After each chapter or section of the story, students write down the main event, or most important idea.  In addition, students are drawing pictures to represent the chapter.  After learning about Beverly Cleary as an author, students are really enjoying these stories!

Students have been working on reviewing and extending their knowledge of addition with regrouping involving larger numbers. Students have been practicing estimating sums by rounding to the nearest ten or hundred before adding.  Next week, we will practice regrouping in subtraction, and subtracting across zeros. Students are really realizing how important their knowledge of place value is, as well as the importance of showing their work to make sure they are regrouping correctly.  Reinforcement of showing their work neatly would be greatly appreciated!

In science the kids worked in groups to conduct an experiment to answer the question, “Can Bess beetles pull their own weight?”  Students first weighed their group beetle to find its weight in paperclips.  Then, students carefully added paperclips one-by-one to a harness attached to the beetle to see if the beetle would continue to move forward successfully.  Students discovered these beetles are very strong insects!  Ask your child how strong their beetle was!

In social studies this week, students learned more about why the Pilgrims decided to leave England.  Pilgrims first went to Holland before returning to England and eventually coming to the New World.  They also learned what it must have been like to travel on the Mayflower as we learned how large (or small) the ship was, and that it wasn’t meant to carry passengers at all.  We will continue studying this topic next week in preparation for our unit on the Westward Movement and Pioneers.

Reminders:

-  If you would like your child to participate in the Lakewood Police Officer pizza lunch next Tuesday, December 8^th, please send a check for $5 made out to ASB.

-  The Holiday by the Sea Assumption St. Bridget Auction is Saturday, December 5^th at 5:30PM.  Hope to see you there!

-  Christmas Donations:  Third graders can bring in toys for the families at Francis House at any time.  The deadline for these donations is Wednesday, December 16^th.

-  December 15^th – Christmas concert (grades 1, 2 and 3 with choir, band & strings) begins at 7:00 P.M.  Please arrive by 6:45 so you child can be ready.

-  Please send in any empty, clean glass jar (approximately 18-24 oz. size is best) for a class art project by Friday, December 11^th.  If you have more you can share, it would be appreciated.  Thank you!

-  December/January book report is to read two novels by the same author.  This book report is due January 4^th, 2010. If you need help deciding on a second novel, please feel free to email me.

November 20, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

We’ve had a busy, fun-filled week.  The Art Parents treated us to a lesson on cartooning.  The kids were able to recreate many well-known cartoons as well as create new cartoons of their own!  Thank you to all who helped make this lesson possible.

Our religion chapter this week taught us about the Good News – that God loves us and saves us from sin.  Students created colorful kites with the Good News written on the ribbons.  These kites symbolize that we can share the Good News of eternal life with God with everyone we meet, just like a kite is an experience shared by many.  These colorful works of art are hanging in our classroom!

In literacy centers students worked on recognizing the spelling patterns for the /j/ and /o/ sound as well as homographs.  This week students learned about the famous author, Beverly Cleary.  Her writing gives the kids great examples of clear, descriptive details, and good character development.  The week after Thanksgiving, students will begin reading books by Beverly Cleary in small groups.  Students also worked hard to complete their letters to soldiers today.  The kids put a lot of thought and care into these letters, and I am sure the soldiers will enjoy them immensely!

This week in math, students took their chapter test on rounding, identifying the three different forms of numbers, and comparing and ordering numbers.  Students did very well on this assessment.  Please look for these in the Friday folder today.  We also began our unit on addition and subtraction.  Students reviewed addition with two-digit numbers, and began practicing addition with three or more digits.  This is the beginning of a critical unit involving skills and concepts your child will need to master.  Thank you in advance for any support or additional practice you can provide at home.

In science this week we continued to get to know our class beetles.  Students spent time carefully observing the unique structures and behaviors of the beetles.  We are still in need of some wood for their habitat.  The beetles thrive in a habitat of decaying deciduous wood (oak, elm or maple).  If you have any decaying wood in your backyards, we would love to take it off your hands!  You may send in small chunks that should be able to fit in a 1’ X 1’ container.

In social studies this week, students began a unit focusing on the Pilgrims.  During this unit students will touch on the four strands of social studies: geography (what causes groups to change location, reading maps), history (what happened, when, why), civics (how they governed themselves), and economics (bartering system, jobs/roles). 

Monday is Grandparents/Grandfriends Day.  We will be welcoming these special guests into our classroom from 9-11AM.  At 11AM we will celebrate Mass in the gym.  Grandparents/Grandfriends Day officially ends at noon.  However, if these guests wish to take your child off-campus for lunch, we must have written permission from you (an email or note from you is fine) and they must sign your child out in the classroom before leaving.

Reminders:

November 22^nd – Grandparents’/Grandfriends’ Day – 9AM-Noon (Mass at 11AM in the gym full dress uniform – no free dress)

November 25^th – Noon Dismissal Thanksgiving vacation – No school Wednesday, November 26^th – November 30^th

December 1^st – Auction Preview Night – 5:30-7:00 – FAFC/4^th grade classroom

December 5^th – School Auction

December 15^th – Christmas concert, grades 1, 2 and 3 with choir, band & strings

December 18^th – Noon dismissal – Christmas vacation until January 1^st 2010

November 13, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

Our religion text this week taught the different types of prayer – prayers of blessing (responding to God’s love), praise (expressing God’s greatness), petition (asking  for help for yourself), intercession (asking for help for others), and prayers of thanksgiving (thanking God).  To extend this idea, students created a flip chart with their own prayers of each type.  These charts are on display in our classroom.  This chapter reminds us that prayer can be any kind of communication with God, and that any time can be a great moment to pray.

In literacy centers students worked on recognizing homophones, and spelling patterns for long i.  We continued reading our food novels and are doing so independently at this point, with the goal of finishing these soon.  Most students have completed their sandwich book reports.  Look for these to come home soon.  Students began writing letters to veterans.  We will try to finish these early next week so that we can send them to an uncle of a student in 3A who is a commander in the U.S. Navy, currently serving in Afghanistan.

Our math centers focused on rounding to the tens, hundreds and thousands, identifying the three different forms of numbers (standard, expanded and word form), comparing and ordering numbers and rounding to estimate a sum.  We also discussed the different times giving an estimate rather than an exact number was appropriate.  Students are working hard to become proficient in these areas!

In science last week we furnished our crayfish habitat with “permanent” housing (green plastic plant pots cut in half).  The crayfish enjoy the shade the houses provide so much that we have to pick up the houses to observe them!  This week, we formally met our second class pets – Bess beetles.  Next week we will spend some time comparing the structure of the crayfish to that of the beetles.  The beetles thrive in a habitat of decaying deciduous wood (oak, elm or maple).  If you have any decaying wood in your backyards, we would love to take it off your hands!  You may send in small chunks that should be able to fit in a 1’ X 1’ container.

We finished our civics unit in social studies with lessons on patriotism and some of its symbols – the American flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, our national anthem, and the bald eagle.  We learned about Veteran’s Day and its origins.  We will begin a history unit about the Pilgrims next week, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Reminders:

November 13^th -15^th: ­Fall production of “Time for Truffles”

November 17^th – Ida Culver (see volunteer calendar for names)

November 19^th – Art Parents 10:20 – 11:50

November 22^nd – Grandparents’/Grandfriends’ Day – 9AM-Noon (liturgy at 11AM)

November 25^th – Noon Dismissal Thanksgiving vacation – No school Wednesday, November 26^th – November 30^th

December 5^th – School Auction

Enjoy your weekend!

October 30, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

What an amazing fall we are having!  We had a wonderful Halloween party thanks to our Halloween Party coordinator Jill and her helpers: Kelley, Patty, and Monica.  The kids played Halloween Bingo, decorated mini pumpkins, enjoyed “trick-or-treat” trail mix, and completed activities in a fun Halloween activity book!  Today we were able to watch the classic “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” during lunch.

In literacy centers this week, we continued sharing our “food” novels in small groups.  The kids are becoming very skilled in recognizing the most important part (main idea) of each chapter.  We spent time getting comfortable using a thesaurus and students created posters with words they found that can make our writing better!  Our spelling focus this week was compound words and the /oi/ sound, as in boy or coil.  In cursive we continued practicing lowercase l.  We use the strokes in this letter to make several other letters, so we won’t continue until students can do this very well.

Writing this week focused on finishing our first pen pal letters to third graders at St. Joe’s on Capitol Hill.  We began by explaining the steps of the writing process: pre-writing (we created an idea web), rough draft, revising (we skipped this step and will teach it later), editing, and publishing.  Students worked hard on these and wrote at least three complete paragraphs introducing themselves to their new friend.  At the end of the year we will get to meet our friends at St. Joe’s when we have our pen pal picnic.

Our math centers focused again on place value (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands), an important concept.   We learned to write numbers in a variety of forms: standard form (the normal or regular way – 236), expanded form (200 + 30 + 6), and word form (two hundred thirty-six).  Students made their very own place value charts that are on display in our classroom – what great homemade resources!  We will continue to work with place value, (especially with higher numbers) estimates, and rounding in the weeks ahead.

We had a fabulous field trip to Cougar Mountain Zoo on Wednesday.  Thank you so much to our drivers, (Maureen, Stephanie, Eileen, Anthony, Monica, Jill and Tiffany).  Students learned a lot about the different endangered animals at the zoo.  We will use that experience in the coming weeks as we welcome our new class pet (beetles – coming next week) and begin to compare their structures (parts)!

Reminders:

November 2^nd – Nice free dress (first Monday of the month, plus we have a prayer service at 1:15 in the gym for All Saints’ Day)

November 3^rd – Class pictures for the auction at 12:30.  Please dress in proper uniform.

November 3^rd – Ida Culver

November 4^th-6^th – Noon dismissal for conferences (please remember to bring your student)

November 11^th – No School for Veteran’s Day

Have a fun and safe weekend!

Happy Halloween!

October 23, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

Progress reports are coming home today.  These should give you a glimpse of how your child is doing so far this year.  You may keep the report, but please sign and return the envelope along with the conference planning sheet.   I hope to receive a conference planning sheet for each student so that I can be prepared for any concerns you might have.  The conference sign-up sheets have been posted since Monday in the front hall.  Please sign up as soon as possible.  If none of the times listed work for you, please email me for other options.  Remember that your child should come with you to the conference and will “lead the way.”  It is always valuable to gain an understanding from the child about how he/she thinks things are going.

We had our first Art Parent project this week.  The kids created decorations for the ASB Holiday by the Sea auction.  Students created a watercolor painting of a beach, starfish, lighthouse or other image related to the sea.  These pictures will include a photograph of each of our students on the back of the watercolor painting and will be a wonderful addition to the auction décor!

In literacy centers students began reading novels in small groups this week.  Each group book involves food in some way.  The kids will read together and share activities involving these novels for the next few weeks.  We also spent time reviewing how to alphabetize words and practiced using the dictionary.  Any help and support with this at home would be greatly appreciated!  Our spelling unit focused on the long e and u vowel sounds, the /yu/ sound (as in mule and few), and the new sound made when h follows c, s, t or w.  This week students learned that they will have pen pals from St. Joe’s third grade class.  We brainstormed ideas for our first letter to them and used a web to keep our ideas organized.  We reviewed the friendly letter format working on our first draft of the letter.

Our math centers focused on place value and number patterns.  We took a pre-assessment to see how the students are doing in this area so far.  This week students spent a lot of time exploring number charts, and lists of numbers to find number patterns.  Students applied their thinking about numbers and patterns to solve higher-level thinking story problems.

This week in science we observed and documented the behavior of the crayfish.  For example, what happens when you touch the carapace?  Or, what happens when you touch the antennae?  The kids are really enjoying the “class pets”.

Our social studies lessons focused on using a coordinate grid to find our way on a map.  We looked at a map of Seattle and understood how handy a coordinate grid would be for finding a street that is on “A-7.”

Our Second Step lessons this week focused on dealing with disappointment and making a complaint.  In dealing with disappointment, students were introduced to the word perseverance and learned that it is important to set realistic goals.  In the making a complaint lesson, students discussed how to express their frustration with something in an appropriate and respectful way.

Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to tell of the Greek victory over the Persians. Now your child can do the same…The Seattle Kids Marathon is a fun and easy way to become active in running.   Your child runs 25 honor miles between when they sign up and November 27th.  On November 28th they gather with thousands of others at Memorial Stadium to run their final 1.2 miles around the Seattle Center and back into Memorial Stadium. There are many ways to earn honor miles including soccer practice, dance class, swimming and raking leaves.  If you are interested, go to seattlemarathon.org and register under the Kids section.  If you have any questions please contact Eric Dresbeck at edresbeck@asbschool.org

Reminders

• October 23^rd – Progress reports go home
• October 24^th – ASB Halloween Carnival 4pm-7pm in the FAFC
• October 30^th – Mystery Book Report due (binders are coming home today)
• October 28^th – Cougar Mountain Zoo Field Trip!
• October 29^{th -} 3B class Halloween Party!  Please make sure students wait to wear their costumes until Friday, October 30^th. Following school policy however, they will not be allowed to wear masks or to have weapons, blood or gore as a part of their school costume.
• November 4^th, 5^th, 6^th – Half days for fall conferences
• THANK YOU to our Cougar Mountain Zoo field trip drivers: Judy – 3 students, Fallarme – 3 students, Johnston – 5 students, Navone – 6 students, Flora – 5 students, Merriman – 5 students and Anderson – 3 students)

Have a great weekend! Christina and Christine

October 16, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

The first two weeks of October have been full of learning.  This week, third grade was able to attend daily Mass on Wednesday.  In religion, we spent time discussing the importance of the Last Supper, and recognizing Mass as a celebration.  It is a privilege that we get to celebrate and worship together with the members of our parish community.  To extend our learning, students created a mini-book with actions we perform in church to demonstrate our respect for God.

In literacy centers students worked in their Daybooks to learn about the narrative elements of a story – characters, setting and plot.  Next week we will continue our study of narrative elements when students begin literature circles with food novels (each group will read a different novel somehow related to food).  Our spelling unit had us revisit the concept of homophones, something they were introduced to in second grade.  We also learned that a vowel followed by r makes a new sound (consider moth and north).  We spent a large portion of our writing time this week learning about the parts of a paragraph and how to make these parts (especially the topic and closing sentences) clear and effective.  The kids learned how to use a writing rubric to help guide their writing.  We continue to model and share examples of what constitutes the various marks on the rubric (“no,” “sort of,” and “yes”).  Showing them real examples of a good topic sentence or neat printing, for example, really helps them to understand what their target is.

Our math lessons included learning the difference between congruent and similar, and also included exploring the concept of perimeter.  We took a checkpoint early in the week to see how kids were doing and then gave the unit today.  This wrapped up our study of 2-dimensional geometry.  We will move into the study of place value and money next week.

We have completed the first two units of our Second Step program.  These units focused on empathy training and impulse control/problem solving.   This week we began a new unit of anger management and had lessons about dealing with accusations and about controlling your anger.  We will continue to talk about these things in class and would appreciate any support you bring to our Second Step program from home.

Our social studies unit continues its focus on geography – specifically, maps.  We learned about map keys (also called legends).  The kids learned that symbols on map keys are typically fairly simple and should make sense.  They created their own symbols for a variety of items that might occur on a map.  Next week we will explore the concept of scale.

In science we continued our study of crustaceans.  We learned the scientific names of the structures of a crayfish and labeled a diagram with these names. Our study of the structures of life in science focuses not only on the environment’s affect on organisms, but also on how these organisms adapt to thrive in a variety of environments.  This fits in nicely with our first field trip – a tour of the Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah.  This zoo is dedicated to educating people about endangered wildlife.  Our field trip will be Wednesday, October 28^th.  If you have not returned the field trip form, there is an extra one in your child’s Friday Folder today.  Please return it to school on Monday.

Reminders:

October 19^th to October 22^nd – Fall Book Fair after school in the library

October 20^th– Ida Culver (see volunteer calendar)

October 23^rd – Progress reports go home

October 28^th – Cougar Mountain Zoo field trip

October 30^th – Mystery Book Report due

November 4^th, 5^th, 6^th – Half days for fall conferences

Have a wonderful weekend!

Christina and Christine

October 8, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

What a beautiful Autumn we’re having!  Our four-day week just flew by.  We finished our class novel 26 Fairmont Ave. and began working on a story wheel to illustrate the different parts of the story (characters, setting and plot).  We will continue our study of the parts of a story next week.   We have used journaling as our entry point into paragraph writing – - a major focus in third grade.  We’ve reviewed the parts of a solid, complete paragraph (topic sentence, at least three detail sentences, and a closing/concluding sentence) and talked about the writing rubric we will be using in third grade.  We completed Unit 4 in spelling which focused on the “ow” sound, silent letters, and contractions.  For an extension, the kids created a chart with words that have the ou spelling pattern, but that don’t create the “ow” sound (this is called the “tough group”).  Since we had such a short week, in cursive we were only able to spend time perfecting our undercurve stroke and then began practicing the slant.  Next week we will be able to create several cursive letters using these two basic strokes.

In science this week, our students finished their hydroponic posters and continued to learn the names and functions for the different structures of our plants (dormant seed, embryo, cotyledon, roots, stem, seedling, leaves etc).  Students were also introduced to our class pet for this section of our FOSS Kit – 15 crayfish!  Students learned the safe way to pick up the crayfish, and have really enjoyed getting acquainted with them!

In social studies, students were able to create their own compass roses using their knowledge of less than right angles and their “angle maker” tools.  Look for their compass roses in the Friday Folder.  They may wish to hang these in their bedrooms – just be sure they know where north is!

We continued working in our math textbook to study geometry.  Our focus in geometry has been 2-D figures.  We have been learning to recognize and form lines, line segments, rays and angles, and to name congruent and similar figures.  We will have a “Checkpoint” next week to see how the kids are coming along with these concepts.  Yesterday we created tangrams (shapes using seven standard geometric pieces).  This fun project incorporated math, art, and writing.  Look for these to come home soon.  We also continued to practice our math fact binders and will soon feel comfortable enough to send them for home use.

Reminders:

Friday, October 9^th – Archdiocesan in-service, no school.

Monday, October 12^th– Faculty in-service, students out at noon.

Monday, October 12^th – Book orders due (make one check to Scholastic Books, no cash)

Wednesday, October 14^th – 3^rd grade attends morning Mass (dress uniform, please)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Christina and Christine

October 2, 2009

Dear 3B Families,

Happy October!  We’ve had a busy week in 3B!  We completed out first religion unit with a chapter focusing on recognizing God and His presence in our families and our home lives.  Students learned that our families are like domestic Churches. Our families reinforce the Church’s teachings about treating one another with respect and love.  Students spent time reflecting on these ideas while decorating a picture of a present to represent how each of us is a “gift” from God.  Students also created smaller presents to show the gifts that each of us can give to others.  Look for these in our Friday folders this week. In Literacy Centers, we began our class novel, 26 Fairmont Avenue – an autobiography by Tomie DePaola.  Students have spent time reading this novel independently, in partners and listening to parts read aloud.  Experiencing text in a variety of ways can help to strengthen understanding and the overall reading experience.  We also made time to journal about each chapter to practice some reading strategies that connect the reading and writing processes.

We also spent the majority of our lunch times this week watching the Disney version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A chapter in our class novel described Tomie’s reaction (ask your student, it is pretty funny!) to watching Snow White, the movie.  The kids also enjoyed tasting some old fashioned candy that was mentioned in the novel – Crows (which are actually just black licorice, shaped like Dots). We hope to finish this novel next week.

We completed Unit 3 in spelling which focused on the frequent spelling patterns for long a, frequent spelling patterns for the /j/ sound and, a review of long o and long i.  In cursive we were only able to spend time perfecting our undercurve stroke and will soon begin practicing the downcurve stroke.

We continued our math focus on geometry and began working in one of our math textbooks to review polygons and the vocabulary associated with them (e.g. congruent, symmetry, parallel, right angle).  We practiced our addition and subtraction facts in our binders and employed some mental math strategies such as counting on or using doubles to help us.  When the students are comfortable using the math fact binders, we will no longer take our class time to work on them but will send them home as part of their daily math-fact practice.  We will need about two more weeks working together in class before you will see the binders come home.  Don’t worry, we will send home instructions at that time.

In science, students learned that seeds use the food stored in the cotyledon structure of a plant to grow.  The time when seeds begin to grow and develop is called germination.  We were able to witness first hand that some seeds (just like humans) grow faster than others!  We also learned the name for growing plants in water – hydroponics.  Students started creating a poster to illustrate when and why hydroponics would be used instead of soil.

In social studies, we continued learning about geography.  The kids learned the cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west) and also the intercardinal directions (northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast) which are also sometimes referred to as intermediate directions.  We will continue these lessons next week through the use of art and maps.

Please help your child remember to select one assignment as their “proud paper” and complete the reflection sheet about it.  The proud paper and reflection sheet should come back to school on Monday in the Friday folder.  I’m hoping for full participation this week.  J

Reminders:

• All classroom volunteers must attend a Safe Environment Training.  See below for details about how to sign up.  For more information, please refer to Ms. Hand’s letter send out in the September 23^rd Wednesday envelope.

The training takes between 2 and 3 hours, depending on the presenter and length of Q and A.  Please plan on attending the training as soon as possible. You can do the training here or at any other parish/school in the archdiocese. I’ve listed a few of the options here.

October 4 at St. Benedict Parish – 1:30 p.m.

October 6 at Our Lady of the Lake Parish – 6:30 p.m.

October 8 at St. Benedict Parish – 6:30 p.m.

October 12 at Assumption Parish Fellowship Hall – 8:45 a.m.

October 22, Assumption Parish Fellowship Hall – 7:00 p.m.

To register, or to find additional sessions:

1. Go to the Archdiocese of Seattle website: http://www.seattlearch.org.

2. Click on the Safe Environment logo.

3. Click: Register for classes.

• Please continue to sell giftwrap.  The third and Final Tally Day is October 7^th.  Third grade is currently in third place—we can do it!
• Thursday, October 7th – Individual picture day and Mass.  Nice free dress.
• Friday, October 9^th – Archdiocesan in-service, no school.
  • Friday, October 30^th – Next book report due – Mystery (look for a form in your child’s binder next Monday, or click on the link above)

. Have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Gonzales and Ms. Cahill