Classroom Issue 18

Odds and Ends

* Spelling Bee: Congratulations to Brianna and Paige for advancing to the 3rd grade spelling bee which will be held on Friday, February 1st!! I was proud of all of the student's hard work...Way to go! You all worked hard and did a wonderful job.

* Culture Day: Presentations will be on Monday, January 28th. I explained to the students today that if you are sharing any food, you can bring in a portion for each child or just a bite. It's up to you! Please remind your child of any allergies that they may have and write down the ingredients of the dish so I can share them with the children before we eat. Thank you for your help! Also, I spoke with the class about length of presentation. To ensure that all students can present on Monday, please limit your time to no longer than 5 minutes. 1-3 minutes would be perfect. Please practice at home so you know how long or short your presentation is. Thanks!

Upcoming Events:

*Mon. 1/28: Social Studies: Culture Day Presentations

*Wed. 1/30: English: Unit 3 Verbs Test

*Fri. 2/1: Social Studies: Chapter 3 Test

Spelling: Review List 17 Test

3rd Grade Spelling Bee

SPIRIT FRIDAY: Wear your favorite pro football team (in honor of the Super Bowl) -- even Bear's shirts =)

A LOOK AT OUR WEEK:

*Math: We are working on metric measurement this week. We will learn metric length, weight, capacity, and temperature. We will be reviewing the material each day in class. Also, we are working on 7's multiplication. There will be a timed test on Friday. Keep up the great work practicing! The student's hard work is showing!

*Science: We started our new unit on animals this week. We will focus on classifying animals into different categories. We will learn about mammals and their characteristics next week.

*Social Studies: We are almost done with Chapter 3. Your child received a study guide today. I encouraged the students to spend 5-10 minutes a night per lesson starting on Monday, so by Thursday they have reviewed all 4 lessons. Please refer to any notes in their social studies binder, textbook, and workbook as study aides. Culture Day is Monday and the test will be on Friday, 2/1.

*Reading: We are reading a variety of interesting stories as we practice and apply our understanding about main characters, setting, problems, solutions, and MAIN events. The students are writing super summaries. This is a skill that can be applied to the books read at home. The students loved reading about real animal rescues. Our next book will be Stone Fox.

*English: We are almost done with Unit 3 on Verbs. We will have our test on Wed. 1/30. We are also working on friendly letters. Please help your child get the address of the person they have chosen to write. By the end of the next week your child will also need 2 stamps. Thank you for your help!

*Spelling: We are in a review week for list 17. There will be no pretest on Monday. We will spend the week working on reviewing the spelling rules for the past 6 weeks. The test on Friday will be similar to a test done earlier this year, in which your child will have to find the misspelled word in a group of words. No list will be sent home to study. Your child should be taking their spelling workbook home all week to use to study.

Thanks for checking in this week! Stay warm and have a wonderful weekend!

~Miss Carlstrom

Classroom Issue 17

Odds and Ends

*Classroom Spelling Bee: We will be holding our classroom spelling bee on Friday, January 25th. The top two spellers in our classroom will advance to the 3rd grade spelling bee that will be on Friday, February 1st. We will have a practice bee on Tuesday in the classroom and the "real" spelling bee will be on Friday. This will replace the spelling list for the week. Good luck and keep practicing over the weekend!

Upcoming Events:

*Mon. 1/21: No School: Today we honor the great work of Martin Luther King, Jr.

*Tues. 1/22: Spelling Bee Practice

*Wed. 1/23: IMC today (Monday schedule)

Reading: Lost and Found comprehension and vocabulary graded review

*Thurs. 1/24: Math: Customary Measurement Quiz

*Fri. 1/25: Classroom Spelling Bee

SPIRIT DAY: Wear a shirt of your favorite vacation spot!

A LOOK AT NEXT WEEK:

*Math: We will finish up customary measurement early next week. We have covered measuring in inches/feet/yards/miles, measuring capacity using cups/pints/quarts/gallons, weighing objects using ounces/pounds, and will use thermometers to measure temperature. There will be a graded quiz covering this information on Thurs. 1/24. We will also work on our 6 multiplication tables. We will start metric measurement at the end of this week.

*Reading: We are working on sequencing events and writing excellent summaries using sequenced events and "leap frogs" (transition words). We will continue to read a variety of short stories, both fiction and non-fiction, as we practice these skills. Please continue to review the vocab flashcards from the story Lost and Found. We will have a graded comprehension and vocabulary review on Wed. 1/23.

*English: We are BUSY working on verbs. The students are learning about helping verbs, the special verb "be", and irregular verbs. This can be tricky, so please review with your child. We will also start friendly letter writing next week. We will be working on both verbs and letter writing.

*Science: We will begin our next unit on animals this week. We begin by looking at the needs of all animals and classify them into vertebrates and invertebrates.

*Social Studies: The students are very interested in learning about immigration and different cultures. As an extension of chapter 3, the students will participate in "Culture Day". A note was sent home with your child today explaining what culture day is and what they have to do to participate. This is an assignment that will be taken for a grade. Your child will need to prepare a presentation about some aspect of their culture and ethnicity. This can be with a poster, sharing food with the class, listening to cultural music, dancing, etc. The note goes into more details about this assignment. All presentations will take place on Monday, Jan. 28th. Please email if you have any questions. Thank you for your help! This is a great opportunity to get out old photos, call grandparents, and talk to your child about their ancestors and "roots"!

*Spelling: As previously mentioned, there will be no spelling list this week. Instead we will be practicing the spelling bee in class on Tuesday and having the "real" classroom spelling bee on Friday. The top two spellers in the classroom will advance to the next round, the 3rd grade spelling bee. Please review the list sent home last week with your child. Thanks!

Thank you for reading this weeks newsletter. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

STAY WARM!!

Wishful Thinking! =) Miss Carlstrom

Classroom Issue 16

Odds and Ends

Welcome back to a new year and a fresh start! It was so great to see the students again and get back into the swing of things. I hope your break was as restful and relaxing as mine was!

Thank you to the families who provided healthy snacks for this weeks marble party. We really enjoyed our "slumber" party!

Upcoming Events:

*Tues. 1/15: Science: Matter Quiz

*Fri. 1/18: Spelling: List 16 Test

Spirit Day: Show your school spirit: Prairieview Day!

Upcoming Spirit Days:

Here is a schedule of the upcoming spirit days. I will provide this list each week.

1/18 = PV School Spirit wear
1/25 = Shirt from favorite vacation spot or State
2/1 = Favorite pro football team (in honor of the Super Bowl)
2/8 = PV School Spirit Wear
2/15 = Red Day (in honor of Valentine's Day )
2/22 = Clash Day
2/29 = Backwards Shirt Day

A LOOK AT OUR WEEK:

Math: We finished up our logical reasoning problem solving unit. We will being the second half of Chapter 4 on Monday. We will start with customary units of measurement and then move onto the metric system. We will look at units of measuring length, volume, capacity, mass, and temperature. In multiplication, we are moving on to 4's. The students are doing a great job on these weekly reviews. Keep up the good work!

Reading: We are continuing to work on reviewing concepts in our IL workbook. We will complete lesson 4 early this week and the students will take a graded review in class. The packet is stored in their reading folders if they would like to review the information. We will work on summarizing and sequencing next.

English: We have finished up our narrative writing unit and the students wrote a story about something that happened over winter break. I am looking forward to reading about their adventures =) We started verbs this week and will continue this unit next week.

Science: We are finishing up our States of Matter unit. The study guide was sent home this week. We will review in class on Monday and the quiz will be on Tuesday, 1/15. Did your child tell you about our chemical changes experiment? We made homemade ice cream as we learned about physical and chemical changes. Many of the students wanted the recipe to try it at home. The quantities listed below are enough for one serving.

Homemade Ice Cream

1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon sugar

4 cups crushed ice

4 tablespoons salt

2 quart sized ziploc bags

1 gallon sized ziploc freezer bag

Mix the milk, vanilla, and sugar in one small bag. Seal the bag and place in other small bag (to prevent leaking and salt getting into the mixture). Place small bags into large bag. Add ice and salt to large bag. Wearing gloves (your hands get cold!) shake and massage bag, making sure milk mixture is always touching the ice. After several minutes, voila...homemade ice cream!

See if your child remembers WHY this works. Do they remember why we need to use salt?

Social Studies: We started our next unit, Ch. 3, about moving to new communities, cultures, and immigration. This unit provides a chance to learn more about each other and our cultures and heritages. The students will have an opportunity to share a little about their culture in class. Look for a sheet coming home explaining this project next week.

Spelling: We will work on list 16, 1+1+1 words ending with ed and ing. These are words that have one ending consonant, one vowel, and one syllable. For example, wag or stop. There will be a pretest on Monday and a final test on Friday.

Thank you for reading our blog. Happy New Year!

~Miss Carlstrom