Spring Music Concert

KE students put on a great show at the Spring Music Concert on Thursday evening!

The children also did a GREAT job practicing on Thursday afternoon - in fact, this year may have been the best practice yet!  Students followed directions well, sang out, and listened patiently while other classes sang their songs.  Way to go!

Pictures from Donuts for Dads

We had a great afternoon with third grade Dads and Grandpas!  Activities included making God's Eyes, playing math games, sharing science projects and playing games in the computer lab, reading stories and working on Native American packets, and (of course!) eating yummy donuts!

Thank you to everyone who brought donuts!  It was a fun afternoon!

Baby Chicks Visit

Our friends from Hills Bank brought newly hatched baby chicks to visit our classes this week!  We have been studying life cycles, and students compared the life cycle of the chicks to that of the eagles.  

Supplies!

We must really be working our third graders this year!  We are running low on pencils and glue sticks!  We need enough to last us the final nine weeks!
Thanks!

Social Studies

We read about and discussed how the early American settlers fought the Revolutionary War and became a country, developed a government, and chose a president and a capital.  Our unit wrapped up with a look at how the United States expanded westward, and how changes in transportation and communication have helped our country to grow.

Language Skills

Students learned about similes this week, then wrote and illustrated similes - some were very creative!
• As exciting as a sumo wrestler
• As quiet as a monk meditating
• Terrifying like a bull charging at you

We also reviewed complete sentences, and how to change sentence fragments and run on sentences into a complete sentence.  Students continue to work on uppercase cursive letters too!

Science

Today the dads and grandpas got a sneak peek at our planet brochures we have been work on in class.  Hopefully next week we will get them shared and sent home.

Talking about planets leads us to craters.  We have used the web site www.meteorcrater.com to look at how the crater in Arizona was formed along with other web sites to see where other craters are located around the world.  We also began work on an experiment on craters, which the kids can do at home.  They will need to borrow some flour and a tub to explore!

Math

Continue working on those multiplication facts!  The dads (and grandpas) played some of the multiplication games we play here at school.  Most just take a deck of cards and some scratch paper.  Play them at home to practice!

We are continue to work on fractions.  The kids are doing a good job at identifying fractions and how to write them.  Next week we will begin mixed fractions.

Cards for Mighty Max

Students at KE made cards for  "Mighty Max," a fourth grader from Neola, IA who is fighting Leukemia.  Max has set a goal to receive one million cards. To read more about Max (and to get the address to send him a card yourself), click here.

Social Studies

We continue to work our way through our current unit, Learning About the Past.  We read about Native Americans and the first explorers to arrive in the Americas this week.  We took a sneak peek at the Plains Indian tribes, which we will study in greater depth in a few weeks.

Language Skills

We've been working hard this week (and last) to publish our lucky clover stories.  Students followed the steps in the writing process (prewriting, drafting, editing, rewriting/publishing).  We finished our books just in time to read them to each other on St. Patrick's Day! You'll get to read them at your parent/teacher conference. 

Editing - using stickers to plan "page breaks" on their printed draft

Publishing - Illustrating the final printed pages

Sharing the completed books with classmates