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!