Yea! It’s a Three-Day-Weekend!

The school day ended with the Spirit Day Assembly. It was hot outside. The students took many Friday tests this afternoon. The class earned a class reward. Ask your child what he/she received. Parents… If you’ve read my blog, send me an email message and let me know what you think about it.

Multiple Intelligences

The REACH teacher, Mrs. Ellsworth, did a lesson in our class today on multiple intelligences. I am the gifted cluster teacher, with all of the 3rd graders receiving REACH services in my classroom. Normally, the students will meet with her during math or reading class, but today she worked with our whole class.

Your child should be sharing a two-sided paper about multiple intelligences with you. Each box is about a different intelligence. Ask your child to show you the motion the classmates and teacher came up with to represent each intelligence. Also, ask your child which intelligences he/she marked as their top three strengths.

I will be posting the charts that Mrs. Ellsworth left, and the students will each be receiving a song about multiple intelligences (sung like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”). The students behaved well during the lesson. I am proud of them!

Just another day…

The mornings are a blur. Get unpacked, announcements, special class (today it was art), reading class, math class, Rocket Math (we’re getting set up for multiplication), and lunch.

During social studies, the students worked on compass roses and directions. During writing, the students worked on using colorful words and phrases in their writing so that their writing would have an element of voice. During spelling, the students found spelling words in a word search.

I enjoyed meeting with 14 families last night. If you were unable to attend, please consider contacting me regarding a day after school when your child could show you around the classroom.

Open House Tuesday

I hope to see many of you tonight at Open House. It’s always fun to watch the students give their families a tour of the classroom and hear what they have to say.

I am about to place new name tags on the students’ desks. Up until now, they have just had the one they created on the first day of school. The new one has their name written by me and has two sides of useful 3rd grade information. They stick to the desk in a cool way too.

Less students are getting counted this week. I am glad that as a whole class, the students are internalizing the rules and wanting to do their best and do what is expected (like we say each morning during the recitation of Rowe’s Class Motto).

I am also going to be posting grades for the first time this afternoon. There will not be much to see since today is only the 14th day of school.

“Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down”

Okay. I was thinking about a title for today’s post and thinking about the school day gone past, and that Carpenter’s song popped into my head. It’s funny at school when it rains. It rains so infrequently in the desert that when it does, the kids (all grades) act like it’s the first time they’ve seen rain. It was supposed to be rainy day schedule for lunch recess, but at the last minute, the students were let outside (“Yea!” from everyone).

Most of the students have completed their first paragraph (a descriptive one about visiting a place for the first time). Ask your child where he/she wrote about. All of the students did quite well on last week’s spelling test. Hopefully, they will find this week’s words (short i, short o, and short u) easy as well.

The students are working well together as a class. I like being their teacher! We have nine Lunch Bucks; ask your child about them. I hope to see many families Tuesday night at Open House.

T.G.I.F.

It’s Friday! I had the best grandmother helper today. Ask your child about the many tests they took today (I helped them through them). Behavior Reports were given out for the first time. Ask your child for his/hers if he/she doesn’t volunteer to give it. I’m tired and headed home. I’ll be back in the classroom on Saturday and Sunday and Monday and …

Just another day…

All went well today. Like usual, the morning went quickly. I cannot tell you what your child did during reading or math class since the students go to many different teachers’ classrooms. In my reading class, the students finished reading Officer Buckle and Gloria. There was much conversation and a vocabulary paper to complete. In my math class, the objective taught was comparing numbers using place value.

This afternoon the students began prewriting their descriptive paragraph about visiting a place for the first time. The social studies lesson (first one) got off to a late start because of a fire drill. This quarter, the focus in social studies will be geography. The students had time to explore a map of the world, a map of the country, and two maps of Washington, D.C.

Tuesdays go quickly…

If your child is tired on Tuesdays, here’s why: art class (week 1), reading class, math class, spelling and writing lessons, lunch and recess, read aloud, a bit more work, and time to go home (with really no time in between any two things). 3rd grade is indeed different from 2nd grade.

During the spelling lesson, the students did a word sort (short a and short e words). During the writing lesson, the students came up with words that painted a better picture/that were more colorful/that used sensory details. When they write, the students want to write with voice (one of the 6 Traits of Writing). After I finished another chapter of The Trumpet of the Swan, the students wrote a response to literature; they could write about what has been happening in the story, about how they feel, about how events and/or characters in the story are like events and/or people in their own lives, or about how this book reminds them of another book.

Tomorrow will be the first social studies lesson, and Thursday will be the first science lesson.

Busy Monday

Mondays are always hectic. I have courtyard duty on Monday mornings so I have to be ready to go by about 7:25 a.m. I enjoy greeting many students from kindergarten through fifth grade. It’s nice to have been at Coronado for so many years as I know many families.

New today: word problem in the morning, spelling lesson and grammar lesson in the afternoon, a paragraph to edit in the afternoon, word of the day (for vocabulary-building), teamwork booklet. Your child should sleep well tonight! There is very little down time during the day.

Did you read (or at least see) the weekly newsletter? It’s pink and was placed on the right side of your child’s Take Home Folder. Look for it each week.

Friday’s Blog, a bit late

Well, I knew this would happen sooner or later (it was sooner). There just wasn’t enough time at the end of the day (Friday) so I didn’t write a message. It’s Sunday now, and I’m preparing for the upcoming week so I thought I’d post a message, two days late.

The students are nicely getting into the routine of our somewhat hectic morning (from class to class to class). It makes for a quick morning. Ask your child about Lunch Bucks. They have earned five of them already. Reno was chosen as the first winner of a Paw Pride Prize. Ask your child how many Paw Pride Papers he/she has received and placed in the container.

In the afternoon the students began interviewing a buddy (classmate). Each student will write a paragraph about their buddy and share it with the class. Again, the students had a long time for silent reading. Ask your child about the special place many students can sit. During our Friday class meeting, some students chose to talk about what good things had happened to them during the day and what they hoped to do better during the upcoming week.

I will begin counting (“That’s 1,” “That’s 2,” That’s 3. Take 5″) this week for rule breaking. Can your child tell you what our five rules are? I look forward to a regular full week. We’ll be starting morning work (word problem and editing paragraph), spelling words, a grammar lesson, and social studies and science lessons.