Mrs. Adkins’ Class

Third Grade Newsletter

Volume 7, Number 10                  sadkins@pennoyerschool.org                 November 21, 2008

Hello Parents!  We have had an interesting week together.  We have been trying new things in reading (see below) and our class has really been working as a team to make things work.  The class filled their marble jar for the first time on Tuesday, so they were able to have a marble jar party yesterday.  Be sure to ask your child all about it if you haven’t heard already.  Today was spirit day, and we had an assembly at the end of the day.  Ask about that too!  We were busy this week, so here’s what’s been happening:

Reading ~ Our story this week was an autobiography called Author: A True Story.  This was a great inside look into the life of an author, and the frustrations that she has dealt with.  I think it was insightful for the kids to see how she repeatedly got rejected, but kept trying until she was successful.  I reassessed each child in our room last week with a running record, and I have revamped our groups and how we run our reading time.  I now have four groups instead of three, and I really enjoy the small groups and the individual attention I am able to give them.  I have had some interesting insights into their reading behaviors that I am looking forward to sharing with you on Monday at Conferences.  Ask your child to tell you about the changes we have made during our reading time.  Since it was our first week there are still some rough patches, but we are working through them and will have our new reading program up and running smoothly in no time!

Language Arts ~ Our grammar lesson this week was on combining sentences.  The kids did very well with this lesson from our last unit, and I am expecting great test results from today.  We lost some of our writing time this week do to extended reading times while we worked out kinks, but we did get to buddy conferences.  All the children have finished their rough drafts, and they met with a partner to see what they could do to improve their writing.  I will do the final editing on their papers before they begin their final copy after Thanksgiving break.

Math ~ We spent this week on probability, and we got through the whole chapter.  This means that when the kids return from Thanksgiving break, we will review for a day, and then their test will be on Tuesday, December 2.  This was fun, short chapter, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.  Please practice some probability over the break so they don’t forget everything when they return.   The concepts that we focused on were certain, likely, unlikely, and impossible; recording data; calculating the probability of an event (6 out of 9); deciding if a game is fair or unfair; and using experiments to make predictions.  Your child will bring their workbook home over the weekend, so you can use that as a source to review sometime over the Thanksgiving break.

Science ~ We only had one day of science this week due to our marble jar party yesterday, and the kids took their weather test.  Those are graded and included in your child’s Friday papers.  Please look over it with your child.  We will start our new chapter on the solar system when we return from Thanksgiving break.

Social Studies ~ This past week in social studies we took the Chapter 2 Test.  We learned many new vocabulary terms and discussed many leaders that work in the capital city of Washington.  We read and discussed that the populations of Eagle, Colorado grew in the 1880s because silver was found there.  In 1890 there were 25 people.  As people moved into Eagle, the settlement grew from a few homes into a town.  By 1940 the town had 543 people.  Since then many people have moved to Eagle and the population has continued to rise.  We discussed our culture and customs by sharing special foods and music during  holidays.  Finally we learned that businesses are important to communities because they supply goods for people to buy and places for people to work.  We will begin chapter 3 after we return from Thanksgiving break.

Other Areas of Interest:

      We celebrated Zuleyha’s 9^th birthday with her yesterday.  Her actual birthday is this Sunday, November 23, and we were delighted to celebrate with her a few days early.  Happy birthday Zuleyha!

      Conferences reminders went home today to remind you of your scheduled time to meet with me on Monday.  Please try to be prompt, and I will do the same.  I was able to extend each conference time to 15 minutes this year (as opposed to 10 in previous years) and am looking forward to the extra time to spend with you.  Please bring any questions or concerns you may have with you and we can work together to come up with solutions.

      Your child has no school at all next week.   Enjoy the week off with your family!

      The November Book-It form is due back on Monday, December 1.  Your child should have read at least four chapter books by then.  Remember that this is part of your child’s reading grade and needs to be completed on time.

That’s it for now!  Brrr, it has been really cold this week.  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather with winter coats, hats, scarves, and gloves.  They say that a warm front is moving through the area and it should be back into the 40s by Sunday.  Let’s hope so!  I wish you all a wonderful weekend and Thanksgiving holiday, and remember to keep your child reading!

Mrs. Sarah Adkins

3^rd Grade Update

Friday, November 14, 2008

sadkins@pennoyerschool.org

Hello parents!  Even though there is no Newsletter this week, I do have a few updates for you that I would like to pass along:

      All third graders will need to purchase a large, plastic candy cane for our winter concert.  These can be found at the dollar store, Target, or most anyplace that sells Christmas stuff.  The candy cane should be at about the height of your child’s hip, no higher than their waist.  Please send those in to school as soon as you can get one.

      I wanted to remind you about the book preorders available for our guest Author this year, Aaron Reynolds.  Orders are due next Tuesday, November 18th.  Aaron will sign all books at Pennoyer’s Family Reading Night.  You could take a sneak peek at the website and get an idea of what his books are like.  Visit www.aaron-reynolds.com

      I wanted you to be aware that I am going to be teaching vocabulary a little differently starting next week.  I have been searching for a more effective way for the kids to learn their reading vocabulary, and I think I have found one.  Instead of copying the definitions in their notebooks, we will instead take time to discuss each word and use them in sentences.  The kids will create their own sentences using these words, and sketch an illustration to go along with it.  The idea is for the kids to start using our vocabulary words in everyday language, so please reinforce this at home.  On Mondays, ask your child what their vocabulary words are (they are also listed on the spelling page I send home every Monday) and encourage them to use the words at home as well.  We will keep track at school of how many times we hear these words in everyday conversation.  Hopefully this will allow the kids to have a deeper understanding of our new words we learn.

      We celebrated Dylon’s 9^th birthday this past Wednesday.  His actual birthday was on Monday, and we were delighted to celebrate with him a couple of days late.  Happy birthday Dylon!

That’s it for now!  Please remember that your child has a science test this Monday on weather.  Based on our review we had yesterday, many of them still need to learn their vocabulary definitions.  We are in for a chilly weekend, and that is perfect weather to snuggle up and read!

Mrs. Sarah Adkins

Third Grade Newsletter

Volume 7, Number 9                    sadkins@pennoyerschool.org                 November 7, 2008

Hello Parents!  We had a really great week together, and it was full of election coverage.  We held a mock vote here on Tuesday afternoon, and Obama won over McCain, 23 to 13.  We spent our computer time looking at Barack Obama’s web site and each child learned at least five new facts about our President elect.  Ask your child what they learned about!  Since we only have three days of school next week (no school Monday and Tuesday due to Veteran’s Day) I will not write a Newsletter next week and we will not have new reading, spelling, or grammar.  We had a busy week, so here’s what’s been happening:

Reading ~ Our story for this week is a wonderful preview into our next weather chapter – Planets in our Solar System!  Much noise was created over the fact that this story had a lot of student pencil writing in it.  I am here to assure you that I told my previous students to put those marks in so that the story will be accurate.  This book was published before Pluto was reduced to dwarf planet status, and we now teach the kids that there are only 8 planets in our solar system.  This caused great confusion, and I hope I got it sorted out. We will go into more depth on this topic of Pluto when we start our new science unit before Thanksgiving.

Language Arts ~ Our grammar lesson this week was on possessive nouns.  The rule for these is in order to make a word possessive, you add ‘s to the end of the word.  If the word already ends in an s, you only add an apostrophe to the end, after the s.  The kids actually did a great job with this in class.  The test shall tell!  We spent our writing time working on our rough drafts.  Hopefully they all got their rough drafts done by today.  The kids have been doing a really great job with their expository writing, and I am excited to see how the final product turns out!

Math ~ We worked on chapter 6 this week which was on graphing and analyzing data.  We actually started the week with a Unit 2 test which was multiple choice and covered addition and subtraction.  From there we learned about surveys, finding the range, median, mode, and mean of a set of numbers, reading and making line plots, making a table to solve problems, and pictographs and bar graphs.  Whew.  We will just have one more lesson next week in this chapter on ordered pairs, then we will have a review day and chapter 6 test will be given next Friday.  Fortunately there will be no other tests that day due to the short week.

Science ~ We have finished up our chapter on weather and are now starting to review.  Yesterday the kids watched a short movie on weather, and we got started on our review homework.  The homework is page D52, numbers 1 – 19, all answers to be written in complete sentences.  This review is due next Friday, November 14, and the test on weather will be given on Monday, November 17.  Please make sure your child is studying for this test a little bit every night.

Social Studies ~ Unfortunately, Mrs. Michaels has been out sick this whole week with pneumonia, and I was unable to get a paragraph from her describing what they did in social studies.  I know that they did some reading and some vocabulary definitions, but you will have to ask your child for more specifics on what they did in social studies this week.

Other Areas of Interest:

      Szymon’s 9^th birthday was this past Tuesday, and we were delighted to celebrate with him on Election Day.  Happy birthday Szymon!

      Report cards went home today.  Please look for these and go over them with your child.  I will need the empty envelope back next week with your signature on it, please.  I am looking forward to discussing your child’s progress with you coming up on Monday, November 24.  The time of you scheduled conference is located at the top right of your child’s report card, and I highlighted it in yellow.

      The kids attended a Veteran’s Day assembly this morning.  Be sure to ask your child all about it!

      As of this week, the kids have officially learned all of their lower case letters in cursive.  They are invited to start writing in cursive (anything except spelling words) at home and at school, and I will certainly start writing things in cursive to get the kids used to reading it.  Starting in January in the 3^rd quarter, all third graders will be expected to write everything (except spelling words) in cursive.

      The November Scholastic book order form went home today.  If you would like to order books for this month, please return your order form and money to me by Thursday, November 13.

That’s it for now!  I couldn’t believe how beautiful the weather turned out on Halloween last week.  I can’t remember a better day of trick-or-treating in my life.  My own children certainly enjoyed quite a bounty because of it!  It is looking like a cold front is coming through town, and we are in for cold weather now for many months.  Please remember to dress your child appropriately for the weather.  The kids will continue to have recess outside unless the temperature or wind chill reach below zero.  I wish you all a wonderful weekend, and remember to keep your child reading!

Mrs. Sarah Adkins