The end of the quarter is approaching in less than two weeks. I will be sending a note home with each student indicating if any homework is missing. Students are always welcome to turn in homework late for credit; however, no late work will be accepted for credit toward first quarter's report card grades after Oct. 27th, 2014. The incentives for turning homework in on time is 1) leadership points! and 2) you won't feel further and further behind. You will feel proactive for putting first things first :-) There are some students forgetting to read at home. Reading is probably the most important component of homework, so please read and make sure the reading log is filled out each week to earn your reading homework credit.
We have two celebrations coming up. One will be a homework party for students who turned in at least 90% of their homework this quarter. The party will be in early November, and I will send home a note as it gets closer. We will also have a Halloween Parade and party on Thursday, October 30th. That is a short day, and there is no school on Halloween, Oct. 31. Parents are welcome to attend the Halloween parade on the 30th at 9:30 AM in the gym. Any parents wishing to volunteer at our party please contact me and I will put you in touch with our room parent, Debbie M. We would love to have some extra hands to help with crafts. We need empty cardboard egg cartons and empty toilet paper rolls for part of our craft. Please send these items with your child if you have them before Oct. 30th.
I just received a grant for 5 additional iPads for the classroom. Between last year's grant and this year's grant, I have a set of 10 iPads for students to use in the classroom this year. We are going to start creating some fun presentations and learning games, in addition to the work we are already using them for. We will also practice typing some of our writing in iPads and emailing it home. Please write an email address in the front of your child's planner that they can email their writing home in the future. If you know of an awesome, free or inexpensive learning app, please let me know and we will look into downloading it to our iPads for students to use.
We had a fun time learning about and experimenting with the water cycle. Keep watching for examples of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, accumulation, water vapor, and runoff all year to solidify those concepts. Up next? Weather. We will do many fun mini experiments to learn about air, weather, clouds, and weather instruments. If students work hard at learning, our class will have Air Olympics! FUN! Does anyone have a barometer our class could borrow?
Third grade parents: We will focusing on multiplication and division over the next 2 or so months. This is a brand new concept to many of them, and there are some great ways to teach it. Please help by checking over their math homework each week to watch for patterns of mistakes they are making. The goal is to understand the concept of multiplication and division, and find strategies to arrive at the answer. By the end of the year, however, the goal will be that students are able to recall simple multiplication and division facts by memory, as they will need to know this for fourth grade when these concepts go much further into depth.
While we have learned each of the 7 habits, we have gone into depth with the first 4 habits so far: Be Proactive, Put First things First, Begin with the End in Mind, and Think Win Win. Students have also learned about what is in their circle of control, as well as their circle of no control. Discuss what is in your circle of control vs. circle of no control at home. It can be pretty powerful and helpful when a child focuses on the things they can control in his/her life and spends less time focusing on things out of their control. We have also been learning about the emotional bank account. When we do something positive in one of our relationships, we make a deposit. When we do something that may hurt another person's feelings, or choose not to listen to or ignore, we are making a withdrawal. Some students went home and discussed this with their families and brought back a summary of their discussion for some extra leadership points. WAY TO GO! We have so much leadership going on in our classroom!
We have two celebrations coming up. One will be a homework party for students who turned in at least 90% of their homework this quarter. The party will be in early November, and I will send home a note as it gets closer. We will also have a Halloween Parade and party on Thursday, October 30th. That is a short day, and there is no school on Halloween, Oct. 31. Parents are welcome to attend the Halloween parade on the 30th at 9:30 AM in the gym. Any parents wishing to volunteer at our party please contact me and I will put you in touch with our room parent, Debbie M. We would love to have some extra hands to help with crafts. We need empty cardboard egg cartons and empty toilet paper rolls for part of our craft. Please send these items with your child if you have them before Oct. 30th.
I just received a grant for 5 additional iPads for the classroom. Between last year's grant and this year's grant, I have a set of 10 iPads for students to use in the classroom this year. We are going to start creating some fun presentations and learning games, in addition to the work we are already using them for. We will also practice typing some of our writing in iPads and emailing it home. Please write an email address in the front of your child's planner that they can email their writing home in the future. If you know of an awesome, free or inexpensive learning app, please let me know and we will look into downloading it to our iPads for students to use.
We had a fun time learning about and experimenting with the water cycle. Keep watching for examples of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, accumulation, water vapor, and runoff all year to solidify those concepts. Up next? Weather. We will do many fun mini experiments to learn about air, weather, clouds, and weather instruments. If students work hard at learning, our class will have Air Olympics! FUN! Does anyone have a barometer our class could borrow?
Third grade parents: We will focusing on multiplication and division over the next 2 or so months. This is a brand new concept to many of them, and there are some great ways to teach it. Please help by checking over their math homework each week to watch for patterns of mistakes they are making. The goal is to understand the concept of multiplication and division, and find strategies to arrive at the answer. By the end of the year, however, the goal will be that students are able to recall simple multiplication and division facts by memory, as they will need to know this for fourth grade when these concepts go much further into depth.
While we have learned each of the 7 habits, we have gone into depth with the first 4 habits so far: Be Proactive, Put First things First, Begin with the End in Mind, and Think Win Win. Students have also learned about what is in their circle of control, as well as their circle of no control. Discuss what is in your circle of control vs. circle of no control at home. It can be pretty powerful and helpful when a child focuses on the things they can control in his/her life and spends less time focusing on things out of their control. We have also been learning about the emotional bank account. When we do something positive in one of our relationships, we make a deposit. When we do something that may hurt another person's feelings, or choose not to listen to or ignore, we are making a withdrawal. Some students went home and discussed this with their families and brought back a summary of their discussion for some extra leadership points. WAY TO GO! We have so much leadership going on in our classroom!