School's Out!

Thank you to all of our many wonderful volunteers who helped wrap up our year, whether it was being a chaperone to the Planetarium, taking down bulletin boards, or helping with field day.  As usual, your generosity with your time made all the difference for all of us!

 
Thank you for the many sweet and wonderful parting gifts.  I have loved working with all of your students and will truly miss them.  Every student has worked so hard to see successes.  They pushed themselves to grow in everything they did.  Learning truly mattered to them.  Thank you for all of your support and encouragement. 
Enjoy your summer together and try to sneak in a few quiet moments where reading can occur.  There are adventures in a book that can take place in your own backyard.  Sign up for the reading programs at Draper and Sandy libraries and even Barnes and Noble for free books and incentives.  Because we weren't able to finish Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins- that's a great place to start.  It is still one of my favorite series books.  It's all about becoming a hero and saving the world.  Who could ask for anything more!  If you find any great books to read, leave a comment on our blog and I will share that information with others looking for a new read.

So it's time to sleep in a little, play in some water, hike, bike, camp, play with friends, eat popsicles, count stars, make smores, and get lost in a book!  Be safe and have fun- see you in August!

Many Thanks!

A big thank you goes out to all our moms and dads who were able to volunteer for our fieldtrip to This Is The Place, and also those brave moms who were on hand to scoop up some ice cream for our multiplication celebration. Thanks for making the time and effort to make our day!  We certainly couldn't have done it without you!  

We are beginning to wind down the year, so be sure you check out our Quick Date to Checkout to the right of the blog page so you won't miss a thing.  On May 27, we will be having our class talent show to share our "awesomeness" with each other.  Our 3rd grade talent show will be the following week on June 2, 10:20 a.m.  Of course, parents are always invited to attend. 

We look forward to riding TRAX to the Planetarium on June 3 for our final fieldtrip of the year.  Thanks to all who are volunteering that day to help us out.  I will be sending home a note with directions at the end of the week. Thank you! Thank you! 

 Third graders are looking forward to performing for parents on Friday, May 30,  10:00-10:45 a.m. 

We've also been asked to remind parents to park in designated parking stalls in the front and back of Altara, to leave the drop-off/pick-up zone free for Kindergarten transportation and school deliveries. We can hardly wait to share our talents- we are SUPERSTARS!

SAGE Tests and So Much More!

We are starting out the week with SAGE testing this Monday, 5/19 and Tuesday, 5/20.  When we finish this Tuesday we will really, truly be finished with all of our 3rd grade testing!  Your students are doing a wonderful job and are serious about their thinking.  They really have been fabulous this year and have made huge gains!  Please remind your student to get a good night's rest, bring a snack, and eat a good breakfast to be prepared.
We are finishing our book reports this year with a gameboard project.  The genre for this project is Realistic Fiction.  In simpler terms that just means a fictitious story that could really happen.  We will be playing our games in class to share our books. Book reports are due 5/28, but can be turned in early if desired.  Boards can be made from old gameboards, posterboard, and file folders.  Here are two examples- rubrics and directions are found inside homework folders.

SWEET!  Congratulations to all who have worked so hard to pass off multiplication and division facts this year!  Our sundae party will be on Wednesday, 5/21 at 2:00 p.m.  We would love for you to drop by, or even scoop away. Hope to see you there!
Our fieldtrip to This Is The Place is scheduled for Thursday, 5/22.  Thank you for all who have volunteered.  I will be sending home information with your students on Tuesday so you can be prepared for the fun!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you soooo much for the wonderful, kind, and generous outpouring of appreciation last week!  I loved it all- and yes they were definitely all my favorites! It was a week of  feeling pampered and loved!  Thank you to my wonderful room mom and all of her volunteers!  You are all amazing.  Thank you for taking time out of your crazy busy schedules to think of me!

Just a reminder…we will be having Sage testing beginning Monday, May 12 and Tuesday May 13. Students are doing great and working hard to show what they know!

Have a great week and  hope that you all have a wonderful Mother's Day :)

We Are Awesome!

Sage testing starts this Monday morning with a check on our writing skills.  We will continue this week Monday thru Wednesday.  Please help your student by encouraging them to get plenty of sleep, and come prepared having had a good breakfast.  Also please send a snack with your student for recess.  Pushing our brain cells to the max sure makes us hungry!

Homework this week consists of 1 math page and reading 20 minutes every night.  Because of testing this week our homework is minimized.  Don't forget to turn in missing homework by Wednesday this week.  Our homework party is scheduled for Friday, May 2.  Have a great week-  we will!

This Week At A Glance...

Welcome back from a wonderful spring break.  So many students described their activities and  adventures ranging from campouts, hot pots, mineral springs, spring cleaning, Disneyland, and Easter egg hunts.  How fun!  We are all glad to be back and are working hard to improve our fluency, writing, and math know-how!  We love learning!

This week in Reading Street our question of the week is:  "Why do we have symbols that represent freedom?"  Today we talked about what freedom means and we shared our background knowledge about the Flag, the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and the Alamo. Did you know  that it took 18 years to design and construct the Statue of Liberty. The statue then was disassembled and shipped to the United States. Here, an enormous base was built for the statue. The statue was reassembled, and Liberty has welcomed newcomers to the harbor ever since.
The students decided freedom means the right to choose.  Aren't we all lucky and blessed to have freedom in our lives!

We will be finishing up our area and perimeter unit in math this week and look forward to an assessment on Wednesday afternoon.  Come stop by our hallway to check out our problem solving wall.  How well do you know area and perimeter?

We are still pushing forward with multiplication and division timed tests for the next 3 weeks.  We won't be able to do pass-offs everyday but we will do checks twice a week.  There's still time to scoop up that ice cream with a little practice every night.  Our multiplication ice cream party is scheduled for May 21 at 2:00 p.m.  We will be needing a few moms or dads to help out with serving, so if you are interested in helping, please let me know.  Many hands make light work- and it's a lot of fun!  Thanks for all your support!

We are also continuing on with our animal research projects, and will be doing so for the next 4 weeks.  Due to Sage testing, computers aren't readily available, so we want to make sure we have plenty of time to research, prewrite, then complete amazing work.  Right now there won't be a need to do any  research or writing at home.

Sage testing will be starting next week beginning April 28-30 for writing, May 12-13 for Language Arts, and May 19-20 for Math.  I will be including some end of the year dates in our section "Dates to Remember".  Hope this helps while you are planning appointments and vacations.  Have a great week- thanks for all you do to support your student and me!

Click On The Link!

Book Reports Are Due Thursday, March 27

This week we will be learning about customary and metric units of measurement.  We are measuring our smiles to the nearest 1/2 inch just to see how happy we really are.  After that we'll combine our individual measurements and see how big our classroom smile is!

We are continuing to work in practice stations with a focus on fractions as well as passing off multiplication/division facts.  Yes!  We love math!
In Language this week we will be reading the story Jalapeño Bagels.  Our narrator is trying to decide what treat to take to his class at school. As he helps his parents make food items in the bakery shop, he goes over his choices. Able to draw from his mother’s Latin American heritage and his father’s Jewish heritage, he has an unusual array of choices.
Our comprehension strategy that we will focus on this week is Drawing Conclusions.  When we draw conclusion we take what we read, and add it to what we know and then the mixture becomes our conclusion.
We will also be learning about comparative and superlative adverbs.  Some adverbs compare action.  To compare two actions, add -er to many adverbs.  to compare three or more actions add -est to many adverbs.
Our book report trains are due this Thursday, March 27.  I look forward to seeing all our fabulous work!

TOp O' THe MOrNinG!

Happy St. Paddy's day to all of you!  We've sure got our green on today :)  Our watchdog dad came to class today ready for the celebration- he even had a neatly trimmed green mustache!  Thanks for your help!
Just a little reminder… our traditional literature book reports are due March 27.  Don't forget we are completing a train project that focuses on name, title and author, a picture of your favorite part, and a paragraph that describes the setting. Good luck with your reading and project!

Parent/ Teacher Conference Week

Our new unit in Reading Street asks the question:  What happens when two cultures come together?  We will be looking specifically this week at the influence culture has on our dress.  So far we've decided that customs, climate and tradition directly influences what we wear.  We will be learning about synonyms, adjectives, and articles as well as learning how to compare and contrast and visualize for our comprehension skills.
In our math groups this week we will be pushing forward with multiplication/division timed drills as well as introducing fractions as equal parts.
I look forward to seeing you for Parent/ Teacher conferences this week.  See you then!

A Week At A Glance

Welcome back from a nice long weekend!  We got right to work today and WOW! We are superstars!
This week we started our language by asking some questions, What behaviors are unique to different animals?  What  behavior is unique to your favorite animal? Why do you think the animal behaves that way? So if you haven't guessed we will be talking about animals and their unique adaptations.  This week we will be reading about magnificent birds in the selections, Fly Eagle, Fly; Eagle Watching; and  Birds of Prey.
We will also be learning about prepositions, cause and effect, and multisyllabic words- not to mention reviewing suffixes, generalizations, summarizing, and fact and opinion. Bet you wish you were in 3rd grade!
We are still moving on with our multiplication and division drills this week as well as introducing geometry in our whole group math.  Please encourage your student to continue to practice math facts every night.  So much to do and so little time! Remember we will be celebrating our great thinking with a multiplication party after spring break.  Good luck students- you can do it!
Parent conferences are just around the corner- please take a minute and sign up for a convenient time.

. Click the following icon:

2. Scroll down to "Altara Elementary" and click "go."

3. Type in the school password (altara) and click "login."

4. Type in your student's ID number.
(hint: The student ID is the username for Envision Math found on the sticker inside of your child's homework folder.)
5. Select an available time slot that works best for you.

If you have any problems or would like support setting up your schedule, feel free to visit the office or call Susan Taylor, our school secretary, for assistance. 

Hope to see you there!

Our question we will be discussing this week is, "What unique traits does it take to be the first to do something"?  Today we read a story about the first Female Hispanic- American astronaut.  Dr. Ellen Ochoa became an astronaut in 1991, but not before she earned 3 degrees in physics, science, and electrical engineering.  She became part of the Discovery crew and also helped develop the International Space Station. We decided it would take imagination, creativity, determination, intelligence, skills and bravery to do all that Dr. Ochoa did to be the first in her field.  We will be reading about other unique individuals this week who were the first in their own field.

We Are Awesome!

Great work for all those that have turned in book report projects last week.  Awesome job of not only caricatures, but also understanding the biography that was read. We are in the process of our oral reports and presentations to our class and will be finishing them up over the week.   I will post a picture of our fabulous  work in the next few days!
This month we will be presenting current events instead of book reports.  We will begin our presentations next Tuesday and will continue through the month.  A calendar will be coming home this week with your student.  Remember...current events mean that the news is current and recent.  Forms for current events are found inside your homework folder.  Good luck students!
This week in our literacy study we will be asking ourselves, "Why is it valuable to have unique interests?"  We will be reading about hobbies and interests and individuals who shine.  Today our journal prompt was, "What do you like to do most when you have free time?"  It was fun to see how we are alike and different with our thinking.
Our spelling pattern for the week is studying the meanings of the common prefixes, pre__, out__, mid__, over__, and de__.  We will be having a spelling test this week to check our understanding of meanings as well as how to spell the word.
We will reviewing cause and effect as well as fact and opinion this week. 
Because it is a short week, we will be turning in homework on Thursday.  Please remember to track your reading minutes and turn your while slips in on Thursday.  Keep up the great reading!
in math we are still passing off multiplication facts and focusing on division facts.  We will be using fact families to help us find missing quotients.  Multiplication progression reports are coming home today in your students's homework folder.

We will be having a Valentine's Day party on Friday, February 14 at 11:00.  This is a great time to feel someone's bucket!  Please make sure that if you are handing out cards or treats that day that you are including everyone in our class.  I will be sending home a note with student names included.  We will also be collecting our valentines in a container.  You can be as creative as you wish, but the container needs to fit on your student's desk.  Please bring containers on February 14 and not before- unfortunately we just don't have the space for storage.
Thanks for all you do for your student.  Have a great week!

Who's Who At Altara!

We are continuing to learn about people who have made a difference in the world through biography reading.  Last week we read about Snowflake Bentley, and Martin Luther King.  Snowflake Bentley had a passion for learning, and nature, and discovered that no two snowflakes are alike.  He spent his whole life preserving their beauty and uniqueness.  You can see all of his art in his book, Snow Crystals.  Martin Luther King believed in dreams.  He spent a good portion of his life trying to create equality for everyone.  We read the book, Martin's Big Words together and discovered that it is using peaceful words and not powerful demonstrations that can make important changes in our world.
There is so much for each of us to learn from history and the lives of people who have impacted our world.  We are all getting excited to share what we are learning from our own look at biographies.  Just a reminder that biography book report projects are due January 30.  Projects can be turned in for display anytime before 1/30.  Great Job, students!

We took a trip to the library and guess who just happened to be hanging out by the biographies!

This week in Reading Street we will be reading a story about James Naismith, The Man Who Invented Basketball.  Did you know basketball started by shooting balls into peach baskets? The question we will be answering this week is how do talents make someone unique?
Our spelling pattern this week is irregular plurals (ex: wolf-wolves).
We will be focusing on generalizing, and summarizing for our comprehension studies.  Using what I know, and what I am learning I can make statements using key words: most of the time, most, all, few, etc. to make a generalized statement.  When I summarize a text can I do that in 1-2 sentences?  Can I do it in 20 words? Summarizing is a brief statement focusing on the most important events or details.
We are beginning math this week with a look at division meanings and how  that connects to multiplication.  We are also working hard to pass off multiplication timed drills in anticipation of our Sundae party celebration after spring break.  Please keep practicing at least 5 minutes every day to work on fluency.  
We held our classroom spelling bee last Friday and everyone did a great job of participating!  Congratulations to Lauren Shirley, Brianna Rees, and Brooklyn Davis who will be moving on to the school spelling bee!  Good luck girls!

Review Week

We will be reviewing Unit Three this week as we prepare for  formative assessments this Friday.  The stories in Unit 3 are about nature and the skills that help living things thrive.  In Week 1 we read the story, How Do You Raise a Raisin?  This nonfiction story tells all kinds of facts about raisins—how they are grown, how they get to your table, and their importance to people throughout history.
During Week 2 we read the story, Pushing Up the Sky.  Myths help us use our imagination to create
stories that explain the natural world. This is a myth that explains how the sky moved to where it is today.  Week 3's selection was Seeing Stars.  Stars are always in the sky. Stars are spheres of fiery gas. In Week 4 we read the story,  A Symphony of Whales.  A young girl has a special gift that helps her
save the whales from certain death.  Week 5 we read Around One Cactus.  In the harsh climate of the Sonoran desert, the saguaro cactus is critical to the survival of other creatures, from tiny hummingbirds to desert foxes. These stories helped us think about how people and nature interact with each other.
Some of the  comprehension skills we learned about during Unit 3 were Cause and Effect and Drawing Conclusions.  A cause tells why something happened. An effect is what happened.  When you draw a conclusion, you  reach a decision after thinking about facts, details, and what you already know about something.
Some vocabulary skills learned this unit and will be reviewed this week are homophones, context clues, and dictionary skills.  Homophones are words that are pronounced the same way but have
different meanings and different spellings.  Context clues are words and sentences around an unknown word that help you figure out the meaning of the unfamiliar word.  A dictionary is a book that explains the meanings of words arranged in alphabetical order with guide words at the top of each page.

Smart Goals, Math Facts, Spelling Bees, Book Reports And More!

Welcome back!  It was great to see students walk through the doors today with a smile on their faces and a renewed energy to get back to work.  Along the lines of New Year's resolutions we talked about SMART goals today, and then picked 1-2 goals that we are excited to work towards over the next few months. Smart goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and  Timely.  We discussed how goals that don't address all aspects are really just nice wishes and dreams.  Some of our SMART goals consisted of improving reading fluency, multiplication fluency, artistic and musical talents, and sports achievements.  Ask your student about their goal.  We are all certainly reaching for the stars!

                                              
To prepare ourselves for our school wide Spelling Bee, we will be having a class Spelling Bee next week.  The list of grade level words can be found on the back of the informational sheet that came home today in homework folders.  All are encouraged to participate in the class Spelling Bee.  Good luck students!  More information will be coming :)

                          

We’re busy and working hard on one of the most important computation concepts for your third grader this year: multiplication!  Future math concepts will be taught with the assumption that the students have mastered these basic facts.  Below is the schedule for passing off facts.  Please post it so that you can help your child master them at home.

Procedure:

We will be studying and practicing multiplication/division fact families at school according to the schedule below. Math drills will be given daily with the opportunity to pass off fact families 1-2 times per week.  Students may work at their own pace, but should try to keep up with the class schedule as much as possible.  Automaticity is the goal!

Homework:

       For the next few months, math homework will center around practicing multiplication facts.  Students may use flashcards, websites, or other practice strategies that work well for them. There are many ways to memorize math facts.  Your child should also continue reviewing facts that he/she has already learned. Websites for games and worksheets can be found under “Multiplication” on the class blog, and flashcards are available upon request.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  We’ll be celebrating the children’s success with an Ice Cream Party after Spring Break. Good luck, students!

Date                                         Math Fact Families                              Ingredient Earned

Jan. 10                                                 x0-x1, x10                               bowl

Jan. 17                                                 x2                                            spoon

Jan. 24                                                 x5                                            1^st scoop of ice cream

Jan. 31                                                 x9                                            1^st topping

Feb. 6                                                   x3                                            napkin 

Feb. 14                                                 x4                                            banana 

Feb. 21                                                 x0-5 Review                             2^nd scoop of ice cream

Feb. 27                                                 x6                                            2^nd topping

Mar. 14                                                 x7                                            whipped cream

Mar. 21                                                 x0-7 Review                             sprinkles

Mar. 28                                                x8                                            oreos

Apr.  4                                                 x0-10                                       skittles/ gummy bears

                                               

This month our genre for book reports is Biography.  The next several weeks will be full of biographies as we study in class about many  people who made a difference for good in the world.  Today during our library rotation students chose biographies that interested them and are interesting to read.  The project that we are completing to go along with our reading is a caricature poster.   Below is a list of things that should be included on each child's poster.  Biography book reports are due Thursday, January 30th.  Happy Reading!

Requirements: 

• On a poster board, draw a large picture/caricature of the individual whose biography you read. 
• The illustrations must be done by hand, by the students, and neatly colored. 
• Outline everything with a darker color or a black fine tip marker.
• Along the sides of the character, write or type sentences and draw a line to each of the following body parts:

Forehead (Mind):    Write something the person thought.  
Eyes:                       Write something the person saw.  
Ears:                        Write something the person heard.  
Heart:                      Write something the person felt or believed.  
Hands and/or Feet:  Write something the person did.