Wild About September...

     

We made it through the first week of school and I can already see my class changing from end-of-year second graders into third graders! As I stated in my Welcome letter last week, 3rd grade is a year full of transitions. Students take on more responsibility for taking care of, and organizing, their materials and time.

Headphones/earbuds: We will be using Chromebooks in the classroom. Each student will need to bring their own earbuds or headphones to school.  If you prefer, I have some at school that I purchased from the Dollar Tree, so you may send a dollar to school to buy one of mine.

Home/School folder aka Important Folder: This is one item that really shows how students are taking on more responsibility. Students need to remember to take these home each night and bring them back each day.

Homework: Your child works hard at school. I believe that children should have time to enjoy being a child, exercise, play, help with chores, and spend time with family. Newberg’s policy is that 3rd graders should have 30 minutes of homework a night. To that end, for the next couple of weeks your child will have basic homework with flexibility. However, homework is the student’s responsibility even though they may try to convince you otherwise. Here are some key things parents can do to help.

• Have a set homework time
• Have a place for keeping/doing homework
• Have a system for making sure the Homework/Important folder is returned everyday-especially on Friday.

Homework, for the next couple of weeks, consists of:

• Reading: students may read whatever they like, please have them record their efforts. See Ideas in their Important folder for ideas.
• Math Facts: I cannot stress how important it is that students know their math facts. For the first few weeks this is addition/subtraction fluency. We move quickly into multiplication, fluency in adding/subtracting makes fluency in multiplication/division. They may study using flashcards or on the computer. I have seen flash cards at Target and The Dollar Tree for $1.00.  This past week I set up their new Mobymax. Username and password are your child’s first name. I will change this to their district username and password as soon as I have access to printing information cards for the class. I will let you and your child know when the change has been made.
• Spelling: For the few weeks students should review and study the most common English words list. The best way to do this is to give your child a pretest on the words and have them study any they missed.  (I know it is a long list. Just do 10 or 20 a night)

Supply Night

Supply Night was a great event-we started a little early and went a little late. That's okay with me because it means I got to meet more parents and students! 

Here is a great place for me to explain about classroom supplies. At the beginning of the year all students start with these supplies only in their desk:

• pencil box

• 3 sharp pencils

• sharpener

• eraser

• glue stick

• crayons/markers/colored pencils

• 1 pocket folder

• 2 spiral notebooks

Any other supplies go into the classroom supply box. We have a set of class scissors, so if your child brought a pair they have the choice to keep them in the class box or take them home.

Not on the list-but welcomed:

• personal calculator

We will not be using them in class, but I feel that students need to feel comfortable using them, that calculators encourage more thinking, reduce math fear, and at appropriate times are a great toy. During certain times students will be allowed to "play" with them and explore higher level math concepts with them.

For those of you who were able to make it to supply night-Thank you, it was nice to meet you.
For those of you who were unable to make it to supply night-I'm sorry we didn't get to meet. Please stop in before or after school to say, "Hi." I look forward to meeting you.

Welcome to the 2015-2016 classroom!

Welcome!
More information coming soon.

Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve

My group watching an American Robin. After the bird flew away we tried to identify the different types of feet we saw in the sand. According to our station guide, this is one way they track the birds at the Preserve. We returned to discovering which beak type works best for which food for the birds. This was a highly interactive and very interesting field trip.

Comparing life cycles....

As an ongoing part of our cooperative learning about birds, we compared/contrasted the life cycles of plants and birds. This comparative life cycle is the culmination of this work.

Keeping the learning happening up until the end...

Welcome to May!

Where we are wild about learning~Let the learning rumpus continue!

Wow! It is hard to believe, but these not-quite-3rd graders-at-the-beginning-of-the-year are now almost-4th graders. Students have continued learning new curricula while showing what they know during Smarter Balanced Assessments. Students have done a good job focusing and doing their best and parents have done a great job supporting them by ensuring they’ve gotten plenty of rest and a good breakfast. Thank you and keep up the good work! We have this week and next week of scheduled testing for our class. Students who are not finished will have the time to finish up as needed.

Homework

Students have done a good job of remembering their homework. This shows how they have grown as independent learners. Homework will continue in paper form, however if you wish to have the option of online MobyMax only homework please email me and I will set up a plan for your child.

Birds!

You may have noticed a new obsession with your child-a specific bird or just birds in general. The third grade unit on native (and introduced but now naturalized to the area) birds has begun. Each student has been given their own bird to research, write a report on, and then present to the class. We are truly becoming bird brains!

Upcoming events

We have two field trips scheduled this month.

May 19th-Jackson Bottom Wetland Preserve. We have plenty of room for parent volunteers so please feel free to sign up or send me an email if you have returned the permission slip, but didn’t sign up to come along.

May 29th-Chehalem Cultural Center

Water Bottles-Reminder

Standing in line at the drinking fountain can waste a lot of time. I encourage students to bring a water bottle to school. They should take the bottle home on Fridays to wash.

Have you noticed?

We have an amazing group of students in this class and we are continuing to learn alongside each other.