Monday, March 21, 2011

Spring Has Sprung!

Well, it's official spring has arrived! I love the picture above showing one lone flower.  That's how it starts, a bud here, a flower there and before you know it --- we are bursting with color and enthusiasm for the promise of the warm weather to come.. The world around us is filled with sights to behold.  Just look at this photo of the recent  super moon.  All I can say is WOW!  Can the students guess what national monument this is? 



Here is what's happening this week:

Math Placement Test:  All third grade students will be taking the district math placement test on Monday. This is a test of math skills to see where the students will be placed for math next year.  It is not part of their math grade.

Art Awareness - Mrs. Huang will be coming on Tuesday to give an Art Awareness presentation.  We welcome her to our classroom!

Field Trip - Our field trip to Rialto Theater to see a musical about Ellis Island is Wednesday. Don't be tardy!  We will be leaving as soon as we can, around 9:15.  Please make sure your student eats a large, healthy breakfast Wednesday morning.  We will not be having a snack in the morning before lunch like we usually do.  Feel free to still send a snack, the students can eat it in the afternoon. We will be eating lunch when we return.  Hot lunch and milk will be available.

Great America Tickets - Mrs.May wanted the classroom teachers to pass this information along.  Those students who participated on the reading incentive will receive their free tickets in May sometime.  It takes that long to process everything.

REPORT CARDS GO HOME FRIDAY!

Citizenship We will continue our Cool Tool on respecting substitutes and other adults in the school building.  The students have been encouraged to greet the staff  and demonstrate good behavior for substitutes. Students showing their personal best behavior this week will be rewarded with extra special "green" paw prints cards to use towards the weekly raffle or other fabulous school rewards.  Think Green!

Reading - This week we  are reading the story Cocoa Ice by Dianna Appelbaum. A girl in nineteenth century Santo Domingo tells how her family harvests cocoa, and a girl from nineteenth century Maine tells how her family cuts ice from a river. Both girls are delighted when their communities become neighbors by trading the goods each has to offer.  Our reading strategy this week is to create mental images and compare and contrast the two communities.  The will be a reading quiz Friday, March 25th on the story.

Writing - We will continue to explore the components of expository writing writing and multi-paragraph papers.  We will start with teacher modeling and move to shared writing (the students and I write a paper together)  until finally, they will be ready to fly on their own after break.  We will continue with verb forms in grammar.

Spelling - The pattern this week is VCCV words. This pattern has two short vowel sounds. The Spelling test and spelling menu are due Friday, March 25th.

Base list #22 -  cowboy, horses, corral, winter, always, cactus, garden, tender, fifteen, basket, welcome, lasso, market, until, Monday


Alternate list #22 - shrugged, service, expected, successful, harvest, basket, chimney, challenged, determined, autobiography, suspended , pretzel, college, attack, helmet


Math - Again this week, we will be reviewing secure skills from the past quarter.  This  week we will focus on right angles and symmetry.   I wold also like to review time and money as well.  We will start unit 9 on multi-digit multiplication when we return from break.

Science - The students are doing an amazing job on their rainforest animal mobiles.  We will finish these up the beginning of the week and present to the class the end of the week. 

Current Events -  News Teams for Friday,  March 25

News Team #1                                  News Team #2
Anchor – Michael                               Anchor – Daylin
Book – Anthony                                 Book –
Commercial – Ishaan                          Commercial – Sophia
Food –   Rose                                    Food-  Ryan S.
Movie- Sydney                                   Movie- Q’Damien
Sports – Adira                                   Sports – Joreal



NO SCHOOL  MARCH 28 -APRIL 1 --- SPRING BREAK

"Young people, I want to beg of you always keep your eyes open to what Mother Nature has to teach you. By so doing you will learn many valuable things every day of your life. "-~ George Washington Carver~