Friday! {Stations}

It's already Friday again!  A few reminders/announcements as we wrap up the week:

• Thanks to those who have already turned in the lime green conference form.  If you haven't turned yours in yet, please do asap so that we can schedule your exact conference time and date.  You will receive a note verifying your conference time soon.

• The KE Boosters are sponsoring a School Spirit and Pride clothing fundraiser.  An envelope with ordering information will be sent home today with each family's youngest and only child.  The apparel includes cool t-shirts and hoodies that would make great holiday gifts!  Be sure to take a look! (PSSST - If you'd like your order to be a surprise, send it in a plain envelope and include a note that your order is a surprise and should NOT be sent home with your child when it arrives). 

• ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills - actually now called the Iowa Assessment Test) time is coming up!  KE students will be testing the weeks of 10/31 - 11/11.  It will be especially important during this time for students to get a good night's rest and to eat breakfast every morning so that they are ready to do their best on the tests.  We're also asking that families help supply healthy snacks ("brain food") for each day of testing.  Look for a yellow note regarding this in your child's folder, and let us know if you're willing to provide snack for the class.  Thanks for your help!

Stations
Today's stations included creating an origami lantern, reading Time For Kids magazine and completing a graphic organizer with information about this week's cover story, catching up on math assignments, and working on science brochures.  Whew! It was a busy afternoon!

Typing brochures for science

Reading Time for Kids

 


Working on math assignments

 


Making lanterns

Reading with Miss Flynn/Mrs. Hartsock

Our shared reading story in the anthology this week was The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco. Ask your child why the quilt was so important to the author's family.

Remember to be reading at home and record minutes read.  October reading minutes will be due on Monday of next week.

Students completing a reading comprehension activity with partners

Language Skills

This week's spelling words all had long a and long e sounds, but included some tricky spelling patters (ex. ei as in neighbor).  Our grammar skill focus continues to be nouns; students are identifying and classifying nouns.  Students also are working on writing a compare and contrast paragraph on a topic of their choice.

Social Studies

Students learned about rural, suburban, and urban communities this week.  We divided into groups and read about one type of community and shared what we learned with the class.

Friday! {Stations}

Another week has flown by in third grade!  (It really is true that time flies when you are having fun!) :)

A few reminders/announcements:

• Mrs. Bailey requests that all students wear tennis shoes on PE days. Our PE days are days 1 and 3 (unfortunately the day of the week changes).  If your child is having difficulty remembering shoes, he/she is welcome to keep a pair in their locker.

• Wednesday, October 19 is a 2 hour early out day

• Miss Flynn will begin her full time teaching next week. She will head teach for 2 weeks.

• The weather is changing, and is beginning to feel like fall.  Please be sure your child has a jacket for recess.

This week's stations included creating owls for ceiling art, finishing typing poetry, researching planets for science online, and catching up on math assignments.

And a bonus pic - Senora Lundberg taught students the days of the week in Spanish today.

Reading with Miss Flynn/Mrs. Hartsock

This week we read poetry for our genre study.  Students learned poetry vocabulary such as stanza, line, and rhythm.  It was fun to read all kinds of poems, and to discover that not all poems rhyme!  

Students choosing their favorite poems that rhyme, include repeating words, and create a picture in our minds

Language Skills

Students wrote fall poems this week to correlate with our study of poetry in reading.  They were excited to use the laptops to publish, and were very excited to have the opportunity to change the font of the poem and to learn to center text on our word processing program.

Our grammar skill this week was to identify and write complete sentences, and the spelling list included words with short and long vowel sounds.

Publishing poetry

Social Studies

We're now studying communities in Social Studies.  This week students read about a boy named Carlos who lives in El Paso, TX.  We learned about the community of El Paso, including its geography, and compared El Paso to Kalona.  Students also learned about 3other communities in the US:  Denver, CO, Wilmington, NC, and Astoria, OR.  Students worked with a partner to read about one of the communities, then shared what they learned with the class.

Reading about communities

Science

This week we had some picture cards which we needed to put in order from smallest to largest.  Mostly were pictures of planets, but we also included stars, Nebula, The Solar System, and Black Holes.  The kids decided they needed more data.  So, using web sites we are learning about objects in our Solar System.  The main web site we use is posted on our blog under web sites.  If the kids want to do more exploring at home, they may!

Reading with Mrs. Bender

Just a reminder, please return the reading homework folder at least once a week!  Looks like the kids are reading a good variety of books!