The Evil Hungry Hamburgers Poet Society is very appreciative of your support!  Thank you for coming and cheering us on.

Over break keep practicing reading skills as well as math facts.  We are moving into multiplication (with a little division), but don't forget that we have to keep up with our addition and subtraction as well.

See you after break!  Hope you have a wonderful time.

We are all very excited for the break, but we managed to focus in and learn about how to use number lines and array models to help us multiply.  We also practiced our poems for you, and we are ready to recite.  The slam is scheduled until 10:50, but we may be done as early as 10:30.  We did vote on a name for our Poet Society today.  We are the Evil Hungry Hamburger Poet Society...

Today we started learning about multiplication.  In third grade it is important to know your addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts.  It is also important to know the reasons behind addition, subtraction, and multiplication.  That is why our manipulatives are so important this year. 
For multiplication we will be using area models, number lines, and array models to illustrate the reason 6x3=18.  Knowing the reasons helps us to be logical mathematicians in a way that knowing facts alone does not.

Next week is a two day week, and we look forward to seeing you on Tuesday.  Please do not feel the need to bring in treats for us.  Understanding why it is important to eat healthy is one of the things that we work on in third grade, and while having treats is nice every once in a while it is also important to know that we can show off our hard work and get together without treats as well.  Thank you for understanding!

I feel so privileged to get to sped this time with your kids.  We are memorizing our poems and reciting them for one another.  It is wonderful to see how deep and introspective these guys are.

Tonight we have Drama Club auditions as well as parent math night.  I hope to see a lot of you tonight at 6:00 to learn about the math that we are working on in school.

We are wrapping up our poetry, and memorizing poems that we've written so that we can recite them for you when you come!

In math we are doing centers so that we can work on our own personal problem areas.

I can feel everyone getting ready for the long break.  We are doing a good job of staying focused despite the excitement. We have earned out button party for getting compliments and following direction in class.  On Tuesday afternoon we will be watching The Muppets and eating popcorn to celebrate our hard work.

The math test did not go well for most people today, so we will be going back a little in math for the next few days.  We will be doing math centers and focusing on our personal struggles so that everyone gets what they need the most.

We worked on writing narrative poems today, and on Wednesday we are going to choose which poem we will read to you and begin to prepare for our Slam!

In math today we did more work on visualizing story problems.  We are becoming very efficient at finding the proper equation to solve real world problems, and well as recognizing when there is a second step to complete to find the answer.

Today for social studies we talked about ways that America's First Nations (Native Americans) used the natural resources around them to meet all of their basic needs. 

Today we had a little change of pace from reading and writing poetry.  We read an article about the election results, and about the electoral college.  Then we had a debate over the importance of the electoral college.  It was very inspiring to watch them.

Hello Families!  We have been working on our narrative poems, and finishing the publishing process for the other poems that we've written. 

I hope to see you all at the parent math night on December 12th at 6:00.  Mrs. Walle and I will be pulling a group to talk specifically about 2nd and 3rd grade bar modeling, and how parents can offer support at home for what we are teaching at school.

We worked really hard today on reading poetry with feeling and inflection.  We read 'Sick' by Shel Silverstein.  It was a hoot.  I look forward to having you here on the 18th to watch us read our own poems.

We had a lot of fun today writing poetry, and we are getting excited for you to come to hear us perform our own verbal works of art at our Poetry Slam on December 18th from 9:20-10:50.

Next week we will be taking a test on healthy eating and digestion.  We will be continuing our expoloration of early Pacific Northwest cultures.  We will be reading and writing poems.  We are also going to continue working on visualizing story problems. 

Today for reading we read a non-fiction article about a new exhibit coming to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. The exhibit features Native American art that was inspired by horses.  Tomorrow we will be writing poems about how horses affected Native American culture, and we will be using alliteration in the poetry we write. 

We also read a Pacific Northwest Native American legend of how the Seven Devils and Hell's Canyon came to be. 

In math we are working on our bar modeling.  Parent math night is going to be on December 12th from 6:00pm to 7:00pm, and we will be splitting into groups.  Mrs. Walle and I will be there to teach the parents of the 3nd and 3rd graders all about bar modeling. 

I am so proud of the way this class has returned from break ready to learn.

Today in writing we started practicing character development.  We are developing interesting characters that we might use later to write a fantasy story.  Developing our own characters for future stories will be very helpful to us later when we start our reading unit on fiction texts.  This winter in reading we will be learning about personality traits and physical characteristics, and using that information to help us make predictions and inferences to better understand a story.

Poetry Slam!
We will be having a Poetry Slam on December 18th.  Please come and join us while we read the poems we've been writing.  The Slam will begin at 9:20 am and go until 10:50 am.  Please do not feel the need to bring anything other than your support.  Details are included in the Tuesday folder.  Please R.S.V.P.

In math we are working on visualizing story problems.

In social studies we are learning about the environment that Early Northwest Coastal People lived in and how it affected their culture.

Welcome back!

Today we started talking about onomatopoeias.  We did some solid prewriting for our new onomatopoeia poems, and tomorrow we will start drafting them.

In math we took a pretest on bar modeling.  The important thing to remember about bar modeling is that it is a way to visualize a story problem and to keep track of your thinking.  I love bar models!

We started learning about Native Americans today.  We are going to be running our own village of Early Northwest Coastal People.  Tomorrow we will build the environment that our village is in.

    In reading this week we talked about making text-to-self and text-to-text connections in poems.  We are still writing our poems as well.
    For math we are working on visualizing story problems.  This is the beginning of our work with bar models.  This link will take you to a copy of the story problem that we solved today: http://www.worksheetworks.com/pdf/6e1/1218280d47e/WorksheetWorks_Drainpipe_Dreams_2.pdf  This problem is a good example of math being much easier when we make a picture of the problem first.

    Happy Friday!  Today we learned what a thesaurus is, and how to use one.  We applied that information to our poetry by writing synonym poems.  We wrote synonym poems by choosing an emotion, looking it up in the dictionary and finding a few synonyms for it.  We chose our favorites, and wrote them in as a line of poetry.  We then wrote a second line of poetry to tell the reader something that gives us that feeling.  We learned the words rhythm (the rhythm for this poem was iambic pentameter), rhyme, and couplet.  We wrote a few as a class before we went off to do our own.  Here is an example from the whole class:

Sad
Morose, sullen, dejected, and blue;
All because I've lost my shoe.

    We also spent some time talking about being proactive and how keeping a good attitude and being proactive can help you become a more successful person.

   We are continuing our work on poetry.  We learned about three types of poetry today.  Descriptive poems are the color poems we have been working on, and I also introduced narrative and concrete poems today.  We will be writing our own narrative and concrete poems to go along with our descriptive poems.  Hopefully by winter break we will have published books of poetry to share with you.
    We are going to take our subtraction with regrouping test on Friday.  Our next chapter is on bar models.  We will be starting that next week.  Bar models are a wonderful visualization to help us understand story problems.  They are especially handy with multi-step word problems.
    We are getting excited about seeing you at school during conference week!

    We had a wonderful day today.  We are working on understanding figurative language that poets use to help us find meaning and visualize their poem.  One of the things we are doing to help us understand is writing our own poems.  We are using poetry to describe our favorite color.  I am really impressed with some of the work these guys are producing.  Tomorrow we will be talking about three different types of poems: descriptive, narrative, and concrete.
    We are doing well in subtraction with regrouping, and we are close to ready to move on.
    In health today we learned a bit about our eyes.  We read about how to keep our eyes safe and healthy, as well as how our eyes work.  We did a couple of interesting experiments, and looked at some optical illusions. 
    We had a pretty great day!

    Today we started our unit on poetry.  We talked about metaphors, similes, and imagery.  We read a poem by Mary O'neil that describes the color gold.  We then wrote our own poems about color.  I was very impressed with some of the emotion this group of kiddos is putting into their writing, and I am even more excited about our poetry unit now. 
    We played a game called "Go for the Smallest" in math.  It was a lot of fun, and the game reinforces our subtractions with regrouping skills.
    We also put a lot of hard work in today on our personal narratives.  We are working on using interesting adjectives, and describing our emotions to make our personal narratives fun stories to read.

    Happy Friday!  I know that I haven't been keeping up with the blog as much as I was at the start of the year.  I apologize for the lack of communication of late.
    We are plugging away at subtraction with regrouping.  Right now a lot of us are finding it a struggle (which is okay), and we have a little extra time because we were so successful with addition, so we are slowing down a little and making sure we all have a solid understanding of how and why subtraction with regrouping works the way it works.
    Today we took the final test on our first unit of non-fiction.  We will be revisiting non-fiction texts throughout the year, and doing another unit on them later in the year in reading.  The new unit that we start next week is POETRY!!!  I am very excited about this unit!
    Have a wonderful weekend.

    Harvest Festival was today.  Sorry that they all came home pretty wound up.  We are working really hard on our non-fiction and subtraction skills.  We have finished our Rocks and Minerals Science Kit.  We will be focusing more on social studies and health over the next couple of weeks.  We are also working on writing personal narratives. 

    Today we continued working on finding the main idea of non-fiction texts.  We read about Thomas Jefferson.  Tomorrow we will be taking a test on finding the main idea of an article. 
    I have noticed that subtraction with regrouping is a lot more difficult for this group of kids in general.  We will continue to practice this skill for a while.
    We had our last rocks and minerals lesson today.  Tomorrow we will have a little rocks and minerals celebration at the end of the day.

    It is so wonderful to be back with your kids today!  I heard wonderful things from the guest teacher, and I promised them a treat when I got back if they were respectful and responsible for her...so, it is true....I gave them doughnuts.  I promise not to do it all the time :).  A couple of students even earned prizes from my prize box. 
    In reading we are working really hard on identifying the main idea of a non-fiction text.  Finding the main idea of a text is tricky for third graders, and it is something that will require a lot of practice. 
    In math we are working on subtraction with regrouping.

    Just a reminder that I am in a training this week.  I will be in each evening to check my phone messages and email.

    Today we worked in our science kits identifying minerals.  Tomorrow we will be taking two tests!  We will be taking a test on Maintaining Meaning in non-fiction, as well as a test on addition with regrouping in math.

    Tonight is Parent Math Night with Ms. Debbie Lane!  Please come and join us.  We will be learning a fun game that we like to play here at school.  The game is fun for kiddos who struggle with math, as well as those who are very skilled mathematicians.  Many of you have noticed that Math in Focus is quite different from the way that we learned math, but it is truly an amazing program.  If you come you will learn new ways to support what your kids are doing in math here at school. 
    Today we talked a bit about the fact that I am going to be gone next week from Monday October 22nd- Thursday October 25th.  I let the class know that I used to be a substitute teacher, and I know that it is a very difficult job.  I expect them on their very best behavior and make the guest's job easier rather than more difficult.  I will be back on Friday to reward all respectful, responsible, kind behavior over the week.  I will be at trainings during the week next week, so I will be around.  I plan to come in to check voicemail and email each day next week.  Please feel free to email or call.  It may take me a day to get back to you, but I will do it a.s.a.p. 

    We had our first art lesson with Mrs. Ryan today.  We had a lot of fun imagining places where Leaf Man could go and Thinking of interesting figures that we can make with leaves.  Thank you for the wonderful project Mrs. Ryan!
    Progress Reports came home today.  I am very proud of every one's hard work.

    More minerals today.  We started a contest to identify the minerals in our mineral kit.  We talked a little bit about science safety, and how we need to wear gloves because some minerals can be harmful to us if we get them all over our skin.  Please rest at ease that all of our minerals are safe for students to work with.  We just like to form good science habits.  Today we learned some of the properties of Feldspar, Sulfur, Hematite, and Graphite, and we ran tests on them to try and discover which minerals from our kit match the properties.
   Progress Reports will be coming home tomorrow. 

    I apologize that I haven't been very communicative this week.
    Yesterday we talked about the steps we take when we add three and four digit numbers.  We made sure to talk about the reasons why we start at the one's place and move up to the thousand's place.  Today we worked on actually regrouping numbers, and we took some time to talk about what regrouping means and why we need to do it.  I do my best to use our vocabulary word "sum" often enough that they remember it, but the more you can enforce that vocabulary at home, the better it will stick with them.
    Today in non-fiction we took our first test.  The students were asked to identify three different functional documents, their text features, and their purposes, as well as make a prediction about an article based on text features, and confirm or revise that prediction. 
    We also worked on science a little bit.  Learned and wrote about the different properties we use to classify minerals, and the tests that we run on them to learn learn about their properties.  Next week we will be going back to our own rocks and minerals kit, running tests, and competing to see who can properly identify the most minerals.  I will be giving them the uses and properties of each mineral, and they will be running tests to identify them. 
    I will also be putting the book order in next week, so if you would like to order books then please make sure to send your check made out to Scholastic Inc., and your order form in by Wednesday. 
    Thank you for your continued support.  I really appreciate everything you do to help us here at school.

    We started our chapter on addition today in math.  Everyone was so excited to be back in familiar waters!  Tomorrow we are going to be working on four digit addition without regrouping.  I don't want us to leave behind the difficult material we have been working on though so I will be continuing to push students to think flexibly about place value, round numbers, estimate, and do math mentally using efficient strategies. 
    We finished our first read aloud book There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the book immensely.  Our next read aloud will go along with our social studies unit on Elections.  It is called How Not to Run for President.
    In non-fiction work we read an article today about Olympic Athletes.  We practiced making predictions, and asking questions before we read a text.  Tomorrow we will be looking at functional documents like calendars, schedules, the food pyramid, brochures, flyers, and lunch menus. 
    The PTA's fall fundraiser has started.  The coupon book that came home today is for sale for $30.  If you have any questions please let me know.  If you do not plan to allow your child to sell coupon books, that is understandable.  Please make sure that they bring the book back to school and we will make sure it gets returned. 

    Today we checked out books using our new classroom library system.  The wonderful thing about the new system is that it will prompt students to write a review each time they return a book to the book library.  This will increase my ability to monitor students progress and help them find interesting books that are at their level.
    We are continuing our work in non-fiction texts for a couple of weeks to come.  We have been talking about how to find the right non-fiction text, and how we can use text features when we are pre-reading non-fiction.
    Tomorrow is our test on Mental Math and Estimation.  Those rounding skills are going to be important.  We have been talking about how to use rounding to help us check our work to see if our answer is reasonable.  It is also important that students understand that 68 tens is equal to 680.  Next week we are going to start our chapter on addition with regrouping.  We play a game in this chapter called "Go for the Smallest".  If you would like to stop by and learn the game just send me an email.  This is a game that is fun even for me and would be easy to learn and play at home!  Mrs. Lane, our excellent Math Coach is going to host another parent math night this month.  It will be on October 17 from 6:00-7:00.  That would be an excellent night if you and interested in learning about how we teach addition with regrouping.

    Today is the first day of Drama Club!  I hope to continue to blog about our room every day, but please forgive me if I tend to miss on Wednesdays as I will be doing Drama right after school. 
    Today in reading we really started to dig into non-fiction texts!  We broke up into small groups and talked about text features and how we can use the text features in our non-fiction books to help us understand what we are reading.

    Today we practiced our descriptive writing skills.  We had a lot of fun doing it.  I gave each table group a picture of something and the group needed to write a few sentences describing what was in the picture without using it's name.  I then switched descriptions and had a different group draw what was being described.  Two of my favorites were the iceberg that was drawn as a whale, and the lemur that was drawn as a polar bear.

    We worked really hard in math today.  We learned about how the English language began years and years ago.  We learned about how King Alfred had to turn English into a written language, and it was hard for him because he had to make 18 different vowel sounds with only 5 different vowel letters.  We learned how he gave each vowel letter a short sound and a long sound, then started teaming vowels up, and even used the consonants r, w, and y to work with vowels to make new vowel sounds. 
    We have been using the mental math strategies we've practiced to solve for mystery numbers.
    We also got new desk spots today!

    Happy Friday!  Next week we will be starting our second unit in reading.  We will be learning about non-fiction texts.  We will practice identifying and using text features of non-fiction texts as well as adjusting our reading rate in order to understand non-fiction texts.  It would be wonderful if you practiced non-fiction at home.  We will be talking about functional documents as well as books, so sharing with brochures that come from school, or the lunch menu are great ways to practice real world skills for our non-fiction unit.  We will be talking about text boxes, pictures, captions, glossaries, and subtitles.
    In science we will start running tests on the minerals that we have in our kit.  I know that a few of you got to check out the game we play on brainpop.com to enhance our understanding of the properties that minerals have and how we can test minerals to identify them.
    Next week we plan to wrap up our chapter on mental math and estimation.  Our next chapter is on additions with regrouping (that is the same process that used to be called barrow and carry when we learned math).  If you came to our math night last month and received your free base ten blocks, those blocks will come in especially handy as you practice addition with regrouping at home.

    It was so nice to see everyone at the open house last night.  Today we practiced writing topic summary sentences and began our work on the body of the summary.  We also learned to write cursive letter c.  We did some freewriting today as well.  Freewriting is important this year because we have to do a lot of writing during the day for math, reading, and science.  Getting a chance to write whatever we choose is important to our ability to sustain a love of writing.    
    I am personally thrilled with all of the amazing new books we have in our book library.  There are so many skilled readers in this class and I am glad that the advanced end of my book library is growing with high vocabulary books that are appropriate for our third graders. Thank you Ryan Family, Odiorne Family, and thank you again Allen Family!
   

    Open House is tonight, so I hope to see you soon.  Today we logged on to our online math program called ST Math.  Everyone was really excited to get the laptops out and get into the program.  I was impressed with how calm and respectful everyone was during our first experience with computers out together. 
    We also played a game for Science today.  In the game we went into a couple of different mines, excavated minerals, brought the minerals to our laboratory, and ran tests on the minerals in order to identify them based on their properties.  In the coming weeks we will be using what we learned from this game while we run tests on our own minerals in classroom. 
    Thank you for the amazing donations to our book library Allen Family and Ruby!  New books are always inspiring to young readers.

   Today we learned the difference between rocks and minerals.  We also learned how to round numbers to the nearest 10 and 100.  I hope that I will see most of to tomorrow at Open House tomorrow!

    Today we worked on using dictionaries, and we practiced more mental math strategies.  We also continued our work on classifying rocks based on their properties.  I have noticed a big improvement in our mental math strategy building.  I understand that the concepts we are using are not the same ones that us adults learned to use, but using the strategy we teach students now helps them to math quickly and accurately.  Practice is a big part of building this strategy, so don't be concerned if it is still a struggle.
    The Book Fair is on now, and our library day is tomorrow so we will have a chance to be looking at all the amazing things for sale in the library.  Thank you so much Setter Family for the new book for our book library!  I also want to thank our volunteers.  It is because of your help that our classroom library is now online.  This week I will be teaching students how to use the library online to check out books on their own. 

    Another wonderful day in third grade.  Today we worked on some mental math strategies.  One valueable method that we are practicing is taking a number and bringing it to the nearest ten in order to make the number easier to work with.  For example: 

63-48

is easiest to do in your head if you add 2 to 48 and make it 50.

63-50 is equal to 13.

The toughest part for our third graders is remembering to add the two extra that you took away back on.

13+2 is equal to 15.

You might notice that this strategy is a struggle for them if you practice it at home.  The end result is efficient mental math, but it takes some practice to get there.  The best way to quickly support your student at home (without frustration) is by asking them to find the nearest 10 to any two or three digit number.  Mental math is a challenge for kids this age, but it truly is a real world skill! 

    We read our article today on the two candidates chosen to run for President.  The article mentioned that there are three political debates coming up, but most of us weren't sure what a debate really is, so we had one.  We broke up into groups based on what we think is most important in life (I asked them to choose between clean water and food, education, or a family and a home.)  Each group chose a representative.  Once we had our representatives chosen each group discussed how best to argue their decision on what is most important in life.  We heard one another's arguments, and then made counter arguments.  I was incredibly impressed with some of the thoughtful and interesting arguments that were made today in class.  I am so excited to have such a bunch of intelligent, thoughtful, passionate students who can appreciate and respect one each other's opinions.  Having debates is one of my favorite learning activities in social studies, and I am glad to know that this class can gracefully handle listening to and disagreeing with one another in appropriate ways.  I was especially impressed with our well spoken, cleverly chosen representatives.
    In math we are working really hard on our mental math strategies.  We are mentally adding two digit numbers at this point.  If you have free time in the car or while you are cooking or eating, it would be excellent practice to ask them to add two digit numbers in their head.  Asking your child what steps they took in their mind is great too because it forces them to think about their own thinking (metacognition), and the ability to explain your thinking is important to your ability to retain information and in this case do math efficiently in your head. 

    We did not get to our talk about the election today.  By the end of the day the class was feeling frisky and having a very hard time staying focused, so it didn't make much sense to have them sit and read.  Instead we played charades with some of our vocabulary words and then made chalk number bonds outside.  Both of those activities were key to what we are learning right now, and they got us up and moving. 
    We will save the Time For Kids article on the election for tomorrow morning. 

    I was so proud of these 3rd graders today.  We spent a long time sitting on the carpet this morning talking about how to do turn and talks, practicing how to use academic language, and being active listeners.  We were on the carpet for an hour of reading, 30 minutes of social skills lessons, and 15 minutes of calendar work all in a row.  That is a long time for third graders to stay focused on the carpet!
    We learned about the rock cycle today, and used that information as well as our own observations to categorize rocks by their properties. 
    Tomorrow we will be learning a bit more about our upcoming election.  I know that the Presidential Race is important and can be controversial.  Please feel free to come to me with any questions or comments that you have on what we are learning in class.  I always appreciate your help and feedback, and I love to see and hear from families.
   

    We learned a little bit about this election process this Friday.  We talked about what slogans, rallies, and constituents are, and well as what electoral votes are.  We also took our test on place value today. 
    I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

    I did find an article for us to read about asteroids and comets.  I always love it when I can connect what we are learning in class to what kids are actually curious about.  Today we read an article from Time for Kids about Jupiter's gravitational pull, and how it protects our planet from asteroids.  You can access this article at www.timeforkids.com.  It is their featured article this week.  We used the article to practice our vocabulary building skills, and using academic language when we talk to one another.
    Homework is due tomorrow!  I always tell students that it is their responsibility to get their homework finished and to me by Friday.  That being said, I would love it if you would help them to remember that their reading log needs to be signed, and they need to bring their homework back in that beautiful Shorewood Seagulls Tuesday Folder.
    Don't forget our math family night next Wednesday!  I hope to see you there.

    Today we started SCIENCE! We came up with a lot of things that we already know about rocks and minerals, but we were also able to come up with a lot of interesting questions.  Most of the students in class are especially interested in learning about rocks from outer space.  There was a question about asteroids hitting Earth and ending the world which I don't believe I will get around to covering :), but I will look for some articles on rocks and minerals in space. One of the things that students already know about rocks and minerals is that sand can be made into glass, and that glass can be blown to make interesting shapes.  We looked up Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly and saw pictures of some of his art to end our science lesson for today.

    Another wonderful day in the third grade.  We decorated our writing journals today to reflect our personalities.  This will help us to take ownership of our own writing. 
    I was very proud of everyone today during reading.  We practiced our skills at giving text evidence to support what we know, and predictions that we make in reading.  If you are reading with your child at home it is great practice for them if you ask them to tell you what happened in the story to support any inferences or predictions that they make.  For example, today we read a book called Louise the Big Cheese. I asked the class if Louise was excited about her new teacher, and everyone agreed that Louise was not excited.  The text evidence we used to support our answer was that Louise's goal for the new school year was to get straight As, but she heard that her new teacher never gives As.  Using text evidence is an important skill, but also difficult for kids this age. 
   Special thanks to the parents who have stopped in to volunteer!  I can't even tell you how nice it is to see your faces here at school supporting our learning. 

    Happy Friday!  Let's hope that the weather holds out for our weekend.  Today we learned a bit about how our brains work.  We learned about which sections of our brains are working when we read, and we learned about the different parts of our brains, and what they do.
    I apologize for the paperwork that has been coming home on random days.  Today there is a letter from Principal Ryan, and a message about Skate Night because those things needed to get out a.s.a.p.  I will do my best to make sure that paperwork comes home on Tuesdays in the Tuesday folder. 
    Next week we will be starting our science unit, Rocks and Minerals!

I have a big job to do in the classroom and I would love some help!  There is a way for me to put my classroom library online so that students can check out books on their own on the computer.  They will also be able to search for books by their reading levels.  They will be able to write reviews for one another to read, and to rate books on a five start rating system.  In order to get them started I have to type and/or scan the ISBNs from all of my books.  If there is someone who wouldn't mind coming in some afternoon soon to help I would truly appreciate it, and the kids would be happy to get the extra practice on their computer skills.

    Today we learned a bit about our current President, and what the President's job entails.  We wrote paragraphs about him to practice our paragraph structure.
    We also talked a lot about how to choose a Just Right Book.  We decided that in order for a book to be a good choice during school it should have around two to four words per page that are new to the reader and be interesting to the reader. 
    In math we are working on reading, writing, and counting numbers to 10,000.  Over the next week we will be learning how to write numbers in standard, word, and expanded forms.  We will be looking for patterns in skip counting (which can be more complicated than you might guess for example if the pattern is:
 6,029     6,019      6,009      _______    _______ 
it is complicated because you have to understand place value and know that you are not just going to change the digit in the ten's place, but you will also have to change the digits in the thousand's and hundred's places in order to follow the pattern).  In addition, we are working on thinking flexibly about numbers.  For example we might say that 4,500 has no tens or we might see 4,500 as having 450 tens.  I make the distinction by saying that 4,500 has a zero for the digit in the tens place, but there are 450 tens in the number.  This helps them to see the differences in the meanings of their vocabulary words digit, number, and value. 
   Thanks for your support, and I hope you are getting a chance to enjoy the sun while we still have it.

    We had a very interesting discussion today around an article that we read in Time For Kids magazine.  We read an article called "Rain Forest for Sale" and discussed the importance of rain forests as well as the needs of the people who live in Ecuador.  We came up with ideas for how to problem solve so that we can keep the rain forests safe as well as take care of the people who live near them.  The magazine that I sent home today is actually from last year's subscription.  Our new subscription should start up shortly.  Thank you for getting your $6.00 to the office so we can continue having these interesting discussions. 

        I know I have said it before, but I am super excited about this school year.  Thank you for your support this week!  Next week we will be starting some wonderful things in both math and in writing.
    In math we will be starting our Math in Focus program.  Math in Focus is a wonderful program that teaches our students to think flexibly, problem solve, and understand not just the 'how' of math, but the 'why' of math.  They learn the processes for computation, but they also learn why those processes work the way they work.  They learn how to add and subtract with regrouping, but they also learn that we operate on a base ten system which is why you need to regroup by groups of ten.  Math in Focus is often confusing at first glance (especially for adults), which is why our wonderful Math Coach, Mrs. Debbie Lane has offered to host Family Math Nights here at Shorewood.  Math nights will happen once a month.  The first one is going to be on the 19th of September from 6:00pm-7:00pm.  These nights are for parents to come and learn about our new math program, and I am sure they will be interesting and fun. 
    We have a couple of new things starting up in writing next week.  We are going to start working on personal narratives.  I am asking students to bring in an 'artifact' from their summer.  This artifact can be anything (please make sure it is school appropriate and fits in the backpack) that reminds a student of his/her summer break.  We will be using this artifact as inspiration while we brainstorm ideas for a personal narrative. On top of working on personal narratives we will be practicing proper paragraph and sentence structure by writing about our 'Star of the Week'.  With the upcoming election, I have decided that our first Star of the Week will be Barack Obama.  We will learn a few things about our President and write a paragraph about him. (Star of the Week is going to link closely to Social Studies this year.)
 

    I was really impressed by this group of kids today on the first day of school.  We had a wonderful day!  I learned that we have a lot of excited mathematicians, a few passionate readers, some budding scientist, and one eager author.  I learned that this group of students loves to talk to one another and share ideas, and that they are willing to work hard! 
    I am thrilled to start a new day tomorrow and learn more.

    It was so wonderful to meet so many of you over the past couple of days.  I was joyfully overwhelmed by how many of you offered to volunteer for our classroom! I have finally pulled together my volunteer sign-up sheet so please feel free to stop by or email me and let me know what volunteer activities you are interested in doing (one time projects from home, weekly projects from home, art docent, field trips, one time projects at school, or weekly projects at school) along with you name, and the easiest email or phone number to reach you at.  I anticipate a magnificent year this year, and your help will make a huge difference in creating a great third grade experience for our class.
    I was also greatful to everyone who brought their school supplies!  If you didn't get the chance to bring them in already, please feel free to do so at your soonest convinience.  Book boxes (called magazine files on the supply list) and the spiral and composition notebooks are especially important for us to have as soon as possible.
    I am excited for tomorrow morning since it's THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!

      Welcome to Ms. Childs' class!  I am so excited to be starting a new school year with you. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts from Washington State University (Go Cougs!), and a Master's in Teaching from City University of Seattle.  This is my second year teaching 3rd grade here at Shorewood.   I work with Shorewood Elementary's After School Drama Club, and After School Book Club.
     We have a lot to learn and do in 3rd grade, so I hope you are ready for a year of hard work and tons of fun!  I will be using this blog to keep you updated on what is happening in our classroom and around our school.  I will do my best to keep you posted a couple of times a week so that you can support your child's learning experience at home.  I have also added links to some fun learning sites for kids.  These sites are related to our curriculum for third grade and geared toward your child's education (please supervise your child anytime they are online as it is easy to get redirected.) 

~Ms. Childs

For the talent show at the end of last school year the teachers got together to do a surprise talent.  We danced to music from each decade since the '50's.  If you missed the opportunity to be there to see it, then you are in luck.  One of our fabulous parents took a video and posted it on youtube for us.  Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS8PwzHqycY&feature=youtu.be