Live Healthy Iowa - The Interlude Dance!

As we participate in Live Healthy Iowa, we are trying to take more "brain

breaks" during which we physically move our bodies at school.  Today the

students were introduced to "The Interlude" - a dance created by some

students at UNI that has become very popular.  Below is a link to an article

about The Interlude, as well as a link to "how to do the interlude" taught

by the UNI students.  The kids had a GREAT time dancing today, and requested

that I send the links home.

http://www.uni.edu/this-is-uni/interlude-dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cuS_31zJ6U#

On Fridays we are going to dance the interlude as an entire school during

morning announcements.

In addition, the kids have done a GREAT job remembering to keep track of

their fruits and minutes of physical activity (even with a snow day)!  Some

are bringing their info on a note from home to help them remember.  If your

child would like to do this, that's fine (but don't feel you have to).

Live Healthy Iowa Challenge begins TODAY!

Today is the first day of the challenge -- for the next 6 weeks, we are asking students to track their minutes of physical activity per day.  In addition, for the first 2 weeks of the challenge students are to  track the number of fruits they eat each day.  

The challenge is described in this post, (please click the link to read it if you have not), but to clarify, please note that we (third grade teachers) have decided that rather than sending home the charts daily (and having half of them get lost or never return again) we will just keep all the charts here at school, and each morning the kids can come in and fill out what they did at home the previous day (and we will help them add school minutes/fruits to their home info). We are just going with the honor system, so if a child says they exercised for an hour, we are counting it.  

The BIG idea of this whole program is to raise the kids’ awareness of what they are eating, and how much/little they are physically active, and to encourage them to make healthier choices. If you would like to write things down at home too (just for you and your child to see/track), you are welcome to.  You might also chat with your child regarding his/her  minutes/number of fruits so that when he comes to school to record, he has an accurate idea of what his numbers are. With a few days practice, it will be something we will get used to and the kids will understand better.  

Science

Friday was our due date for our independent projects.  Ask them about a cool way to do a google search, without typing!  We will share them in class next week.  Our next unit is called Earth's Place in the Universe.  The kids have a homework assignment...for the next month they should check the moon every night before they go to bed.

Valentine's Day Party

It’s hard to believe that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!  We asked the third graders what they’d like to do for a party, and they (again!) voted to play board games together and bring snacks to share.  As we’ve previously done, students may bring games from home and a snack to share (does not have to feed everyone – we will set up a sort of snack “pot luck.”  Paper products will be provided, but please send serving utensils if needed.  Students can bring a drink from home, or can get milk here at school.  We’ll play games and enjoy snacks as an entire grade, but then will split into our homeroom sections to exchange valentines (so you will only need to prepare valentines for your child’s home room class).  We made our valentine “holders” here at school today, so don’t worry about decorating a special box or bag for your child.  A class list will be sent home for your reference as you prepare valentines.  We ask that each child give a valentine to every class member to avoid hurt feelings.  If you need assistance with valentines for your child, please contact your child’s classroom teacher.

Live Healthy Iowa Challenge

Students and staff at M-P are participating in this year’s Live Healthy Iowa program.  For 100 days, we will be keeping track of our minutes of physical activity, as well as one other aspect of our health (for the first two weeks, we will be tracking how many fruits we eat per day). 

We kicked off this program with an assembly at KE today, and Nurse Jenna explained the program to us.

For KE third graders, we have decided to keep students’ record sheets AT SCHOOL to fill out.  We will help students keep track of their minutes of physical activity at school, and students will be encouraged to keep track of their physical activity at home (just by remembering how many minutes they were active and telling us the following day – there will be no paperwork at home).  We will then total the minutes (home/school) to record on their sheets at school.  We will do this on the honor system, and each morning students can record their minutes of activity and (for the first 2 weeks) servings of fruit from the previous day. 

Keeping track of the EXACT number of minutes is not our primary focus – our big goal is to raise awareness and to increase students’ minutes of physical activity per day as well as to pay closer attention to what foods we are eating.  

Mrs. Hartsock's reading group

Our shared reading story this week was Seal Surfer.  Ask your child to summarize it for you (this was the strategy focus).  We also worked on the skill of comparing and contrasting story characters and events.

Language Skills

Spelling words for this week included -ed and -ing endings.  Some of the words are tricky because when the ending is added, a silent e is dropped or a y is changed to an i.

Our grammar focus has been verbs- this week we learned about helping verbs! We practiced identifying helping verbs and main verbs in sentences.

We continue to review and practice capital cursive letters too!

Social Studies

We continued our study of people in communities as we discussed immigration.  To help us better understand what it might have been like to be an immigrant in the early 1900's, we had an immigration simulation (3B did this on Friday, and 3H will do it on Monday).  Students were given an identity and we traveled to the United States and arrived at Ellis Island.  We found it challenging to fill out forms in an unknown language, and some of us were disappointed not to be allowed in to the US due to illness. 

Categorizing reasons why immigrants might have chosen to leave their home country, feelings they may have had, and countries from which they moved:

 Trying to fill out forms in an unfamiliar language (webdings) was a challenge:

Math

We wrapped up our Decimal chapter this week, the kids did amazingly on the Unit Test!  Next up... Geometry.  Keep practicing those multiplication facts for in Chapter 7 will be working on them again.

Reading with Mrs. Bender

Our story this week was called "Seal Surfer."  In the story a little boy named Ben watches a baby seal as it grows from a pup into adulthood.  The baby seal even saves his life.  Lots of adventure in this story.  Our skills this week focused on comparing and contrasting, summarizing, and vocabulary work.

This n That

• Report cards are in backpacks today.  Please take time to review the report card, and sign and return the envelope (all contents are yours to keep). There is information regarding your child's scores on the Iowa Assessment tests that he/she took this fall.  Please contact your child's home room teacher if you have questions.  Remember, this is the first year your child has taken the IA Assessment; next year the scores will be more meaningful as you will be able to look at your child's growth.

• We will again take the MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) tests for math and reading over the next 2 weeks.  We will send results when testing concludes.  Encourage your child to get a good night's rest and to eat a healthy breakfast. :)

• Mark your calendars!  Another special event for third grade is coming up - Donuts for Dads will be held on Friday, March 8 in the afternoon.  Watch for more info soon, and we'll also be asking for volunteers to provide donuts. Each child may bring one special guest (or 2 if he/she has 2 dads). If "dad" is not able to attend, please invite a grandpa, uncle, or other special adult male friend.



Have a great weekend! (Sorry, no pictures of stations today - my camera battery died). :(

Language Skills

Spelling words for the week included words with the -are, -air, and -ear endings.  Students also published their "I have a Dream" writing pieces, and were very excited to learn how to format text within the word processing program by changing the font, font style, and font size to emphasize certain words in their document.

Social Studies

We started our new unit, People in Communities, this week.  Our first lesson focused on why people sometimes move from one community to another (jobs, to be near family, weather preferences, better schools, etc.) and found that many of our own classmates have moved for some of those reasons.  The second lesson focused on moving from one country to another, or immigration.  We brainstormed what it might be like to move to another country by thinking of things that we might worry about and what kind of community they would find to move into.  Students agreed that they would worry about learning a new language, making new friends, and learning laws/customs in a new country.  They also thought they would like to like to move to a community where there were at least a few people who could speak English to help them in the new country. This led to a discussion of ethnic communities in the US.

Reading with Mrs. Hartsock

Our shared reading story this week was Nights of the Pufflings.  Ask your child to summarize this nonfiction story for you. This was the first story of our new theme, Amazing Animals.  Skills that we worked on included evaluating the text for meaning, syllabication, and identifying/classifying facts and opinions.  We also continue to read Little House on the Prairie.

Miss Pam visited this week

Pam Holtz from the Washington Conservation Office came and shared items pioneers used in and around the 1800's.  She also talked about the many rules kids had to follow...like not talking until spoken too.  Pam also shared some fun pioneer games with the kids like Blind's Man Bluff, Poor Doggie and the Chicken Bone game.

Reading with Mrs. Bender

Our new story was about Puffins who live in Iceland.  We watched a video about the Puffins, and how they are struggling to survive as their favorite fish is endangered.  We learned how the children of Iceland work to help the baby Puffins make their way to the ocean.  Skill work focused on summarizing steps to save the Puffins, syllables, and fact and opinion.