Popcorn & Sharing & Hike

This morning we had a successful popcorn sale!  One third grader happily commented, "It's flying off the shelf!"  We have a few more bags left, so we will sell the remaining bags tomorrow.  We will announce our total donation after tomorrow.

We would like to send out a huge thank you to Tracy Phillips for spending her Wednesday morning popping 230 bags of popcorn with the third graders.  She is a pro with the popcorn machine!  As we have mentioned before, we welcome and appreciate classroom volunteers.  

Looking ahead to our October Kindness Project, we will be organizing the distribution, collection, and donation of money for "Trick or Treat for Unicef".  Keep an eye out around the end of the month, as we will be looking for parent volunteers to help our class count the money EMES collects.

An October Sharing Calendar and attached Kindness Counts sheet is in your child's Friday Folder.  We highlighted each child's sharing days on their calendars to help them remember to come prepared.  You can also access the sharing calendar on the blog.  Our class discussed the month's assignments yesterday and again today.

Tomorrow is Hike Day!  Please help your child come prepared for the weather (layers if needed), appropriate footwear, plenty of snack and lunch, and a drink.  It is looking like a beautiful fall day!  We will not see your children tomorrow unless they are in our hike groups, so knowing afternoon plans is also really important.  Hike leaders will take attendance and dismiss students.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Stone Fox

Today, we finished reading the book Stone Fox.  It is a wonderful book, filled with emotion at the end.  As always, Mrs. Christy wasn't able to finish reading it without a few tears.  It's books like this that touch our lives and teach us life lessons.  It would be great if you could chat with your child about the book and his or her thoughts.  Our lesson today focused on recognizing qualities in characters and empathizing with them.  We also used a new tool for retelling brief summaries.  You can also ask your child about our Five Sentence Summary.

First,

Then,

Next,

After that,

Finally,

News for the Week!

We've completed another great week here in CC3!  It's truly astounding how quickly the weeks fly by!  Students are working hard and already making great progress on 3rd grade skills.  Here are some of the big ideas that we're working on in class.

Reading
This week in reading workshop we've been concentrating on important skills associated with reading narratives.  We've been reading Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner.  It's quickly become a class favorite!

One important skill we've been working on is envisioning/predicting.  For third graders, this means to make a "mental movie" as they read. This "movie" should include imagining the setting, the characters, the events, and characters' reactions to the events.  Predicting involves being able to imagine what the character will do, say and think based upon earlier parts of the text and most importantly explain reasons for predictions.

Another skill is inferring about characters.  For third graders, we're working on developing ideas or theories about the kind of person a character is.  This means being able to talk about a character's traits or personality without confusing the way a character feels for a trait.  For example, a character trait shows that a character may act or behave studious, talkative, trustworthy or friendly.  But a character may feel frustrated, annoyed or happy.

Stone Fox has many rich characters you can ask your child about.  Ask your student to tell you about Little Willy, Grandfather, Doc Smith, or Searchlight.

Writing
In writer's workshop we continue to work on narrative stories.  A main focus of this work is writing like a storyteller, rather than a reporter.  For example, a reporter just states the facts, whereas a storyteller includes the setting, the action, the dialogue that will bring a story to life.  Here's a quick example.
Reporter:
     Today we earned a PBIS celebration.  We voted on having extra read aloud.  Everyone enjoys drawing and coloring at read aloud.  We read Ramona, Quimby Age 8.

Storyteller:
     "Yeah, we've filled a bucket!" Mrs. Christiano announced to the eager, attentive third graders.  The classroom was filled with smiles and applause.  "What shall we do for a celebration?"
     "Hmmm, we have a lot of ideas on our list!" responded one lively third grader.
     "How about we take a vote?" suggested Mrs. Christiano.  The idea was well received and an exciting voting session broke out.  It was a close call...but in the end extra read aloud won out by three votes.  The class was excited and settled in for a great read aloud, everyone was so quiet you could hear a pin drop as Mrs. Christano opened up Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and began to read.

Math
     This week we have continued to work on geometry and two-dimensional shapes.  We have been concentrating on the vocabulary of geometry and it's exciting to see students notice shapes throughout the day.  Sample vocabulary includes:  polygon, quadrilateral, hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus, etc.  Ask your child to explain some of these math trms to you.  We're also working on prerequisite skills for multiplication.  This includes fluency with basic addition facts.

Reminders:

Homework:  Students are expected to be well prepared and practiced for their sharing days.  Students are currently sharing things they appreciate about AUTUMN.  Also, please make sure your child is reading for at least 30 minutes 4 times a week.

Popcorn Sale:  Next Wednesday during the day, 3rd graders will pop and bag popcorn to be sold for $1.00 a bag.  All our proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief efforts.  This is our first kindness project for the year.

Hike Day:  We hope this beautiful weather holds for hike day next Friday.  Student groups are still being solidified, your child will bring home a notice and permission slip soon.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts for EMES Hike Day, so stay tuned!

Book Orders:  Our first book order is due next Tuesday, September 26th.  You can also order on line at Book Clubs our classroom code is DXCXK.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hike Lunch Orders

IF your child will need a bag lunch from the cafeteria for September 29th, we need to let the kitchen know this week due to ordering special food supplies.  Please let us know by WEDNESDAY of this week.  Just sending an email will work, a sign-up will also be sent home with students tomorrow.  Thanks!

Hike Forms! Picture Day!

Today, students are bringing home our EMES all school hike forms.  Please look them over carefully with your child and make a choice that would be best for his/her hiking interest and capability.  All forms must be returned to school by FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th.  Also, please note the information about being a chaperone if you'd like to come along, you need to have the proper forms in by Thursday, the 14th.

Picture day is Friday!  We're not sure of the exact time yet, but we also have PE on Friday, so hopefully we'll still all look put together for pictures!  😁

September 8, 2017

Happy Friday!

It was great to have so many people join us on Wednesday, for Parent Information night.  If you were not able to make it, we included a booklet in your child's Friday Folder that includes all of the points we discussed.  If you have any questions about the booklet or anything this year, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

You will also find the school photo packet in this week's folder.  School picture day is Friday, September 15th.  If you would like to order photos please include all the information and payment in the envelope and return it to school.  You do not need to wait until the 15th to send it in, we can hold all order packets for you.

Classroom Curriculum Updates

Writing Conventions:  Each morning students complete short exercises that help build their accuracy with writing conventions. This work includes capitalization, punctuation, grammar, spelling, analogies, etc.  Examples of this work will begin coming home in Friday Folders next week.  When your son or daughter writes at home, please support them by holding them accountable for what they know in regard to skills that have been taught and reviewed in class. 

Math: Students have investigated 2-D shapes and their attributes. We've been focusing primarily on polygons such as: squares, rectangles, rhombus', triangles, trapezoids, hexagons, pentagons.  Today, students were introduced to new geometry vocabulary.  We will work on understanding these terms throughout the year as we revisit geometry concepts.  We also began reviewing the addition and subtraction relationship and facts.

Discovery: Over the course of the last two weeks, we have spent our Discovery time building our classroom community and settling in with routines.  Beginning next week, we will start our geography unit.  Stay tuned!

Reading & Writing Workshop:  We have been concentrating on establishing routines and practices for our workshop time.  Each workshop begins with a focused mini-lesson on a particular skill or strategy.  The bulk of our workshop block is then spent reading or writing.  During this independent work time, Mrs. Christy is conferring with students.  Workshop wraps up with a sharing time at the end of  each session.  

Our current reading unit is entitled, "Building a Reading Life".  We are focusing on practices of choosing just right books, sharing books with others, reading with fluency and accuracy. These are important transferable skills no matter what age a student is!  We have read many books together that are helping us build our community of readers, writers and thinkers.  Some of our recent shared books are:  The Invisible Boy, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, What if Everybody Did That, The Golden Rule, Wilma Unlimited, Each Kindness, Author, A True Story   

Our current writing unit, "Crafting True Stories" focuses on narrative writing.  We are concentrating on being "storytellers" rather than reporters, and writing with voice that encourages our readers to come along on a journey with us.  Students are also zooming in on "small moments" and telling those stories well, such as instead of writing about the whole day at the fair, zooming in on one particular ride that was extremely exciting.  A huge part about becoming a great storyteller in writing, is to practice telling stories orally.  We encourage you to tell stories to and with your children! 

Kindness Project:  We're getting organized to complete our first CC3-Kindness Project of the year.  We like to do something each month.  We're going to focus on doing something to support hurricane relief.  Stay tuned!


Late Arrivals and Early Dismissals: Each day in CC3 is pretty well planned and jam packed with classroom happenings.  Our active teaching day begins as soon as buses arrive at about 8:45 and we teach up to the last bell at 3:30.  If you can help us out by having students to school on time, and avoiding early dismissals that would be great.  We honor every minute we have with students, so if they are late or leave early it makes the beginning and end of our day more challenging.  Thanks so much!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Family Information Night is TONIGHT!

We hope everyone enjoyed the last long weekend of summer!  We have a busy week ahead in CC-3! We're so proud of how hard students are working as we continue to establish expectations and routines.  We're off to a great start!

Just a reminder, tonight we will welcome adult family members for Family Information Night.  This night is an opportunity for parents/guardians to visit our classroom, learn about our third grade program and get answers to any questions you might have regarding the 2017-18 school year. 

The schedule for the evening:

• 5:30-5:40 Welcome in the gym.
• 5:40-6:00  Session #1 in classrooms
• 6:00-6:30  Session #2 in classrooms
• 6:30-7:00 Families of 4-6 graders meet in the LIBRARY to discuss Digital Citizenship.

You only need to attend one session in our CC-3 classroom.  The other will be available for you to visit sibling classrooms or go home if you're ready!

Our evening for students to share our classroom with you will be on Thursday, October 19th beginning at 6:00 p.m.