Homecoming Week

We will be celebrating Mid-Prairie's Homecoming next week at the elementary with some special themed days:

Monday is Twin Day
Tuesday is Hat Day
Wednesday is P.J. Day
Thursday is Class Distinction Day (This means students in Mrs. Hartsock's class wear green, students in Mrs. Bender's class wear blue.  The colors can be of any shade.)
Friday is Black and Gold Day

Assembly {McGruff the Crime Dog}

On Thursday we had a special guest at KE! McGruff, the Crime Dog came to speak to students.  He reminded us to do our best, take responsibility for our actions, be a good friend, and to beware of strangers.

 Some kindergarten friends even got to help act out a skit about friendship!

Language Skills

This week in language skills students learned about base/entry words.  Miss Flynn taught a lesson in which students looked up base words (jump) in the dictionary, and found the meanings of each word, as well as other derivations of the word (jumping, jumper, jumped).  Spelling words this week all were words with a long vowel sound and a "silent e" at the end.  Our grammar skill was to review sentences and fragments.

Looking up base words in the dictionary

Writing complete sentences with our table groups

Social Studies

We're almost done with our review of map skills! We like to review these skills at the beginning of third grade in preparation for ITBS this fall.  This week we focused on the globe, locating continents and oceans, as well as identifying the hemispheres.  Students also reviewed the compass rose, and the cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) and learned the intermediate directions.

We are also fortunate to subscribe to Time for Kids this year!  We enjoy reading about current events in our country and world each week.

Math

We are close to finishing up our first chapter in math.  On Monday we will be taking our Chapter One test. This will review money, time, adding and subtracting 10 and 100 from a number along with math puzzle boxes.  On Friday we played a computer game that helped up practice the math puzzles.  Hopefully we will be ready for the test on Monday.

MAP scores were also sent home.  For math kids can practice their addition and subtraction facts, multiplication and division facts, practice using money and telling time, along with measuring and estimating weights of objects.  This should help us increase our MAP scores in January.

Science

As part of the University of Iowa Grant the kids are learning how to orally state their claims and evidence.  This week we practiced how to do this in front of the class.  We learned how important collecting data is when stating your evidence.  The kids did a great job asking the groups questions.

Another part of the grant is having kids "consult experts" in the science field.  For us this means looking up information in reference books and doing some searches on the internet.  For this assignment we looked up the tallest mountain, the smallest mountain, the largest bird, and the bird with the largest wing span.  As we found out, what data you use will determine your rankings.  Ask your kids what was the largest bird, tallest mountain and the shortest mountain?  (Answers: for Mrs. Bender's class our largest bird was the Giant Moa, which is extinct, that measured 13 feet.  For Mrs. Hartsock's class we used the bird with the largest wing span which is the Wandering Albatross with a wing span of 3.5 meters.  Both used the tallest mountain which is Mt. Everest at 8,850 meters.  (The biggest mountain, in diameter, is one in Hawaii.  The smallest mountain is only 47 meters.)

Go M-P!

As is our tradition on Fall Festival Friday, KE students and staff got to enjoy the M-P Middle School Marching Band play for us as they marched home from their Fall Festival performance.  It was fun to see former KE students and some friends and siblings playing in the band!

Friday! {Stations}

It's Friday, and in third grade, that means stations!  This week stations included learning about School Bus Safety, planting in the outdoor classroom (see previous post below), catching up on math and language assignments, and practicing spelling using spellingcity.com.

Learning about school bus safety with Mrs. Nisly

Finishing math and language assignments

Using spellingcity.com

KE Outdoor Classroom

We're very fortunate at KE to have a lovely outdoor classroom!  Several years ago former KE teacher Karen Fisher created this outdoor learning space.  While teaching at KE, Mrs. Fisher coordinated several projects for students in the garden, and maintained the plantings.  Though Mrs. Fisher has retired, she still helps keep our outdoor classroom looking good.  

Each fall, JW's donates any leftover plans from their greenhouse to our outdoor classroom.  Today the third graders helped Mrs. Fisher out by planting many of the donated plants.  Miss Wendy, KE associate, and an avid gardner, supervised the planting fun!

Social Studies

We're continuing our study of map skills; this week students learned to use the scale of a map to find actual distances.  We also reviewed the locations of the continents and oceans, and learned to identify locations on a globe.

Using a scale ruler to find the actual distances between US cities.

Chinese with Mr. O'Brien

 Mr. O'Brien has been teaching students Chinese words for animal names, as well as the sounds that animals make.  This has been a fun unit!  To wrap it up, students are working with a partner to create a zoo.  Students will be able to tell others about the animals in their zoos in Chinese!

Reading

Our shared reading story of the week , The Ballad of Mulan, is a folktale from China.  Ask your child what makes a story "folktale."  We focused on the reading skill of making inferences, which is using the information in the story to draw a logical conclusion.

Students completing an inference chart with partners

Miss Flynn works with a small group, making inferences

Language Skills

Miss Flynn teaches a Smartboard lesson on multiple meaning words

Spelling words this week include words with short o and short u sounds.  Students also learned to identify the four types of sentences (statement, command, exclamation and question) and to use the correct end mark with each type of sentence.  We also reviewed multiple meaning words (ex. sink can be a basin in which to wash, or the movement of going down).

Learning to play chess

With MAP testing this week, we haven't been having library class.  However, we put the time to good use!  We spent our mornings learning to play chess.  We have learned about the pawn, rook, bishop and Queen. By Friday we hope to have the knight and King learned.