Halloween Week :)

We have been working hard this week to polish up our math and language skills and we are all pushing ourselves to become better writers.  We have been writing opinion pieces, as well as finishing up personal narratives, and creating fairy tales. This week we will be learning about the important parts of a friendly letter and then writing some of our very own.  You will be getting a little surprise from your student during parent/teacher conferences!

Speaking of parent/teacher conferences, there still is time to sign up for a convenient time to meet.  I have appointments available on both Wednesday, Nov. 6 and Thursday, Nov. 7.  You can either go to Altara's home page or you can scroll down below to our last post to click on the scheduler.  If you have problems, you can contact Susan Taylor in our main office for help.

This week in Reading Street we will be reading the selection, Tops and Bottoms.  Our story addresses our question for the week- How can we make sure our solutions are fair? Bear is an animal with a lot of land, a lot of money, and absolutely no get-up-and-go. Hare is a clever rabbit who didn’t always make the best decisions in the past. He now has a big family, no land, and no food. Bear and Hare enter into a “business deal,” and both learn that good things come through hard work.

This week we will be reviewing Author's Purpose.  The author’s purpose is the reason an author writes something. Reasons include to persuade, to inform, to entertain, or to express ideas and feelings (opinion).

Another important convention we will be learning this week is all about singular possessive nouns.  These words show that one person owns something. We add an apostrophe and the letter s (’s) to a singular noun to make it a singular possessive noun. For example: baby's bottle, nurse's bag.

We will be reviewing subtraction with regrouping this week while we get ready for testing on Wednesday, 10/30.

And of course last but not least we will be celebrating Halloween this Thursday, Oct. 31 with a parade, beginning at 9:00 and a party to follow.  Come join us for some Spooktacular fun!  Just a reminder there will be early dismissal that day at 1:15 p.m. and no school on 11/1.

Have a GREAT week!

A Much Needed Fall Break!

Whew!  That was a much needed fall break!  I hope that you all had either a restful, or an adventurous weekend with beautiful colors and incredible weather.  Now it's back to work for all of us =)

This week in school we are continuing on with subtraction models, algorithms, and problem solving.  We are practicing our subtraction math facts fluency and getting quicker and more efficient every day.  We LOVE MATH!

Students will be learning about American patriotic symbols and completing projects that describe each symbol in social studies.

In Language Arts this week we will be reading the selection, "Prudy's Problems."  Prudy has a collection. Her problem is that it is a collection of everything anyone could possibly collect. It
is taking over her house. It is taking over her life. Prudy is forced to come up with a solution. She decides to build an enormous museum for all her collections. The project is wildly successful, and she happily continues to collect and display her treasures.  If we look closely at our own situations we too can find great solutions to our problems.  What a wonderful lesson to learn even in the third grade!  This week we will be focusing on drawing conclusions as a comprehension strategy.  A conclusion is a decision or opinion that makes sense based on facts and details.  When you use information you read or already know to make decisions about a text,  you are drawing conclusions.  Not the easiest thing to do but we are learning "how to" strategies and getting smarter! We are also learning about irregular plural nouns.  An irregular plural noun is not spelled by adding -s or -es to the singular. For example, the plural of man is not mans but men. Irregular plural nouns must be learned because they do not follow the regular rules. Some examples are: mouse, geese, and children.
We are spending our time writing fairy tales this week- so exciting!  We get to use our wild imaginations to create, create, create!  So yes, we are busy and amazing all rolled into one!

High fives to all who have been prepared and ready to present Current Events to our class.  Students are well informed and do a wonderful job of presenting the news! We have learned about the government shut down, active volcanoes and even lost hunters.  Keep up the good work all you budding news girls and boys!

It's that time again that we are looking forward to Parent Teacher Conferences. 

Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up on Nov. 6-7. The Online Scheduler is available on Altara's home page or sign up below.

1. 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!

As promised I'll end this post with pics from our fieldtrip.  It was a beautiful day and we loved the Wetlands.  Thanks to our wonderful and amazing volunteers who came along to join in the fun Have a great week!

                                                                Aren't we AWESOME!

 

 

Third Graders Love The Wetlands!

This week in Reading Street we will be reading the humorous selection, I Wanna Iguanna.  When Alex’s neighbor Mikey moves away, he offers to give Alex his baby iguana. Alex wants the new pet badly. His mother isn’t as enthusiastic.  In a series of letters, Alex works to convince his  mother to let him have the new pet. But Mom has an answer for every good reason he gives and every letter he writes. Finally Mom suggests that Alex take the iguana on a “trial basis.” If Alex takes good care of the pet for a week or two, he will be allowed to keep it. When Alex agrees to Mom’s proposition, Mom sends him to his room. There Alex finds the iguana waiting for him. Could it be that this is what Mom had in mind all along?  This will be our first look at a persuasive argument.

Our comprehension focus will be comparing and contrasting different items starting with the similarities between a dog and a cat. Ask your student to draw a Venn diagram or discuss other similarities and differences between other subjects.  You will love hearing their thoughts and arguments!

We are also learning about plural and singular nouns.  Words that name one person, place, or thing are called singular nouns. Words that name more than one are called plural nouns. Many plural
nouns end in -s. Add -es to singular nouns that end in ch, sh, x, s, or ss to make them plural. Some singular nouns end in y. To form the plural of these nouns, change the y to i and add -es.

Our spelling pattern this week is words ending in _le.  Our words are:  handle, trouble, simple, people, middle, table, little, gentle, poodle, pickle, noodle, saddle, juggle, uncle, and riddle.

3rd Graders Love The Wetlands

What:  3^rd Graders at Altara will be taking a walking fieldtrip to our neighborhood Wetlands.

We will be walking to the Wetlands, discovering habitats, and then stopping at Storm Mountain Park for lunch on our walk back to Altara.  We welcome volunteers! Please plan on other arrangements for your toddlers.  Don’t forget to dress appropriately, bring a water bottle, good walking shoes, and wear sunscreen.

When:  Friday, October 11, 2013         9:00 a.m.- 1:00 p.m.

We will be walking to the Wetlands, discovering habitats, and then stopping at Storm Mountain Park for lunch on our walk back to Altara.  We welcome volunteers! Please plan on other arrangements for your toddlers.  Don’t forget to dress appropriately, bring a water bottle, good walking shoes, and wear sunscreen.

We are planning on the Wetlands this Friday for our fall fieldtrip.  Let's hope that it's not too wet at the Wetlands. Please return all permission slips by 10/9/13 to me.  Sorry, but students without a permission slip will not be allowed to go on our trip.  Thanks to all who have volunteered to attend!  We will be leaving at 9:00 a.m.  Please be at the school by 8:50 to meet your group and receive instructions.  Thanks again for your help!

A Close Look At Current Events

October is a current events month! We will be practicing together how to find articles from the links on the class blog and how to write good questions for current event sheets.  Current Events calendar will be coming home in homework folders Tuesday October 8. Students have been assigned dates to bring in and present their current events.   During their own presentation, students should be prepared with the following information:

• Tell the current event in your own words.
• Complete a current event sheet according to the instructions in your homework folder.
• Attach the article you chose.

Please carefully read the instructions and the grading rubric found in your homework folder in order to receive full credit. Look under our Current Event tab on our home page for links to find news that is interesting, exciting, and informative in a kid friendly way.  Just a reminder...If your students is using another source besides the sites on our blog (ex: DOGO, TFK, or Scholastic News) please check to make sure that articles are appropriate for young students.  Please no violent or graphic crimes and news. :) We still have many little tender hearts inside our classroom.

High fives to all our budding new reporters!

example current event sheet

T- Shirts For Everyone!

Thanks for all your support for our Jog-a-Thon fundraiser!  Because of our great success, all students earned an Altara t-shirt. You can see from the photo above we're all smiles and wearing our new shirts with pride!  Thanks for all your help!
This week we are beginning new units in Language Arts, Math and Social Studies. 
In math we will be moving on to subtraction and subtraction meanings, along with rounding and estimating.  We will be working on fast facts and increasing our math fluency.  In fact this week our online homework is a math facts practice game that can be found in your successnet account under your "To Do" tab.  Students can choose from addition, subtraction and even multiplication and divisions facts to test for fluency. Have fun with the games =)
After working hard on our last two math topics we celebrated today with popsicles!  Cool! Cool! We were serious test takers and tried our best to be successful and improve our learning- and we did just that!  Not only were the popsicles cool, but we were too!
In Social Studies we are wrapping up our Change over Time, and Native American studies and will be rotating into Mrs. Hadeans class for a Citizenship and American Symbols class.
In Reading Street this week we will be talking about Smart Solutions.  Our question for the week is, "How do plants and animals use their structures to solve problems?  Can you believe not only do animals have to adapt to their environment to survive, but plants do too!  Our story for the week is an expository text titled, Penguin Chicks.  Today we predicted where the story would take place or in other words- the setting. It was fun to gather background knowledge about habitats and penguins and have the opportunity to learn from each other.  This discussion will help build our thinking while we look for the main idea and details inside the story as our comprehension focus this week. Some of our amazing words this week are flourish, absorb,  and inhospitable.  It will be interesting to see which amazing word becomes our favorite in writing and conversation this week.
Well we're off and running and jumping in with both feet, we're having fun and learning a lot along the way.  Have a great week!

Yearn To Learn

This week we are reviewing in Reading Street.  The stories in Unit 1 were about skills that help us make our way in the world.  Students were asked what kinds of questions might be useful to ask to help us make our way in the world?  We talked about trying new things, trading ideas and information, the importance of saving and spending, and the difference between needs and wants. I know it sounds like a lot for a third grader but all students had amazing background knowledge and contributed to all whole group, small group, and partner talks.

Some of the comprehension skills we are reviewing this week are: character, setting and theme, sequencing, summarizing, main idea and author's purpose.  Besides learning amazing words and increasing our vocabulary we have been learning about prefixes, suffixes, and compound words.  Your students are brilliant we are getting smarter every minute of the day and we are working on getting one step closer to mastery!

We have been writing Sound Poems for our study of two cultures coming together, producing All About Me graphics, and are currently working on 4 square personal narratives that tell about a time that we tried something new.  We are working on stretching our writing and using details that appeal to our senses.  Wow! Are we stars or what!?

Our focus in math this week is on rounding, estimation and up to 3 digit addition problems.  Today we worked on taking our understanding of rounding up one notch to estimation. We solved problems thinking about how much some of our make-believe purchases would cost us while on a shopping spree.  Some of those items had to be taken out of our imaginary baskets because we didn't quite have enough money.  Amazing how that whole needs vs. wants thing came up while doing a little math today!

We are finishing up our social studies unit this week with Native American symbol story writing and a closer look at a few tribes with a focus on geography, culture, and beliefs. It has been fun to find a few of us who have some ancestors that came from Comanche tribes.

Just a quick reminder...PAPER BAG BOOK REPORTS ARE DUE THIS THURSDAY, SEPT. 26.  ALL INFORMATION IS INCLUDED IN YOUR HOMEWORK FOLDER.  YOU CAN CHECK A  PREVIOUS BLOG POST DATED SEPTEMBER 9 FOR PICTURES AND A DESCRIPTION.

Have You Filled A Bucket Today?

On the first day of school, we read the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today?  The short book explains to students that we all carry an invisible bucket in which we keep our feelings about ourselves. When our buckets are full, we are happy; when they are empty, we are sad. It is important that students learn that when they fill a friend's bucket, they also fill their own bucket because it feels good to make others happy. At this time, we also introduced the concept of being a bucket dipper. A bucket dipper is a person who hurts other people's feelings, essentially dipping into their invisible bucket.

 

And of course when given the chance to be silly, we always comply!

So...every day since that first day of school, we have been filling buckets and looking for ways to make someone else smile. Yesterday, our class bucket was filled to the brim. Believe it or not there wasn't any room left for even one more single kind action. So we dumped our bucket (so that we could start over of course) and  celebrated today by visiting Ms. Young's 1st grade class room. We spent a little time listening to some wonderful 1st graders read, as well as reading to them. 

We decided the best way to celebrate our overflowing bucket of good deeds was by going out and finding another way to fill a bucket- and we did just that! There were smiles all around and lots of high fives were shared!  So be ready to ask your third grader, How did you fill a bucket today?