Happy Halloween!!!!

Thanks to our fabulous parents for a wonderful party!! Be safe trick-or-treating!!!

Haunted Houses For Sale

Students shared their descriptive 

haunted house papers by flashlight 

in their best scary voices! Spooky! 

Sink your teeth into a great book!!!

We had a spook-facular time sharing our books with each other!

        

         

Week of 10/29-11/2

Odds and Ends

* Fall Conferences: Fall conferences with homeroom teachers will take place next week. My conferences are Mon. 10/29 and Tues. 10/30. If you need a reminder of your date and time, please email me and I can send the information.

*Field Trip: We will be taking a Downers Grove field trip on Thurs. 11/15. A permission slip will be sent home on Monday and due back by Fri. 11/9. The permission slip will include all of the information and details about this educational and fun filled day! 

* Halloween Party: We are all looking forward to our classroom party on Wed. 10/31. Our parent parents have planned a great party! If your child wants to dress up for the party, please send them with his/her costume. Please make sure your child can change into their costume on their own. We will change that afternoon before the parade at 1:00. The party will begin at 1:30 pm. 

*Do you have an old iphone or ipod that you don't use anymore? I would love to put it to good use! I am looking for working old iphones or ipods to use as a listening center in my classroom. They only need to play an audiobook that I would upload to the devices (so no service or apps are necessary). Having a charger with it would be great as well! Thank you!

UPCOMING EVENTS: 

*Mon. 10/29: Conferences after school

*Tues. 10/30: Conferences after school
Reading: Cliffhanger Vocab Quiz

*Wed. 10/31: Halloween Parade at 1:00, Party at 1:30

*Fri. 11/2: Spelling: Halloween words test

A LOOK AT NEXT WEEK: 

*Reading: We will continue to work on making inferences, making good predictions, and cause and effect. Please review the vocab from Cliffhanger. The quiz will be on Tues.10/30. Also, October reading calendars are due 11/1. 

*English: We will continue to work on our haunted house paper as we work on our descriptive writing skills. Nouns are coming up next!

*Spelling: This week we will work on Halloween words. There will be no pretest. The word list and homework will be sent home on Thursday and due Friday (instead of Thursday due to Halloween). The test will be on Friday. 

*Science: Our next unit will be ecosystems. 

*Social Studies: We began our Downers Grove unit. We are focusing on the history and early days of this community. 

*Math: We will begin our  subtraction facts timed tests this week. We will work on our facts in class and take a practice test each day. We will also focus on problem solving this week and working on word problems. We will begin ch. 5 on money later in the week. 

 Happy Halloween! 

Mrs. Olsen 

Week in Pictures

Here are some pictures from this week during book club meetings.Enjoy!

Hey, New Kid book club having fun discussing their book.

Joey Pigza Swallowed The Key book club discussing the book.

How to be Cool in Third Grade book club meeting about their book.

Math Wiz book club hard at work!

No Talking book club definitely talked about their book!

The Big Mario Kart Winners! 

Week of 10/22-10/25

Odds and Ends: 

*Magazine Drive: We were the top selling class at PV! Way to go! We competed in the Mario Cart assembly. Nicholas Motuelle was my student racer.  What fun! We won first place and the honor of receiving a trophy to display in the classroom.  We also will enjoy a pizza party on Mon. 10/22 for being the one of the top 2 classrooms in magazine drive participation. Thank you all for you participation and hard work!

*Scholastic Order: October orders were due 10/19. Please add any last minute orders online! I will be sending home a Nov. order soon!

*Water.org: Thank you so much to the generous donations so far! We have raised over $60 to go towards water.org to help provide clean water options to people in need. Just $25 can give a person clean water access for LIFE! We will be collecting until Jan, when I will make the donation, along with money raised from my family and friends, in honor of my son Liam's 2nd birthday. Thank you for helping us support this worthy cause!

*Donations needed: We will be in need of the following items for our guided reading groups:
     -Post it notes: Page markers (little rectangular size) ultra colors: I know they are available at Office Max, as well as other stores.  (see picture)



Thank you to the Motuelle and Leatherwood family for snack and drink donations. I will take those at any time...we use them for our prizes and for students who forget snack. Any healthy, individually wrapped snacks and 100% juice boxes are accepted. THANK YOU!!

                 UPCOMING EVENTS: 

* Mon. 10/22: English: DOL #3 quiz (book titles and introductory words)

* Thurs. 10/25: Early Dismissal at 11:00

*Fri. 10/26: End of 1st Quarter
Spelling: List 9 Test
Math: Ch. 4 Test

A LOOK AT NEXT WEEK: 

*Reading: We will work on cause and effect and  making predictions. Our model text will be Cliffhanger. We will learn new vocabulary for the story this week and a quiz will be announced soon-it will be written in your child's assignment notebook next week.

*English: We will put together all of the things good writers do when writing descriptive paragraphs as we write our haunted house paragraphs. Ask your child about the things writers use when "painting" with words.

*Spelling: We are on list 9. The pretest will be Monday. Homework is due Thurs. The test will be on Friday.

*Science: We are finished with ch. 9. We will take a short break from science as we focus on social studies next week.

*Social Studies: We will begin our unit on Downers Grove. We will begin with the history of Downers Grove. We will be gaining schema (background knowledge) about Downers Grove to prepare us for an upcoming field trip. More information coming soon!

*Math: We will focus on ch. 4: subtracting greater numbers as we work on borrowing number and subtracting across zeros. Ask your child about the Triple B Ranch: Bottom Bigger? Borrow!! We have been having a grand ol' time in math lately! The test is schedule for Fri. 10/26. A study guide will be sent home early next week. 

 Please continue to study your addition math facts. We will practice each day this week. Beginning on Fri. 10/26, the tests will count as a grade. If your child passes any day before Friday next week, that will count as their final grade and they won't have to take any more addition fact fasts. We are taking 25 problem tests. I have been giving them about 2 minutes to complete.

Thank you for checking out our blog!
Mrs. Olsen

Week of 10/15-10/19

Odds and Ends: 

*Scholastic Book Order: October book orders were sent home last week. The order will be due on 10/19. Earn free books for you AND the classroom by ordering safely on line.

* Conferences: Fall Conferences with your homeroom teacher are just around the corner (Mon. 10/29 and Tues. 10/30). If you have not signed up yet, please email or call me and I can find a conference time for you. I am looking forward to meeting with each of you as we discuss your child's progress thus far in 3rd grade.

*Magazine Drive: WOW! We were the top selling classroom at Prairieview School! Way to go! To celebrate our achievement, we will be awarded with a class pizza party (date to be announced) and a  lucky student (to be chosen randomly by the PTO) and I will be competing against the other top 3 classrooms playing Mario Cart on the Wii during an all school assembly on Fri. 10/19.

UPCOMING EVENTS: 

*Mon. 10/15: Spelling: List 8 pretest

*Wed. 10/17: Social Studies: Hemispheres Quiz

*Thurs. 10/18: Science: Ch. 9 Water Cycle and Weather Test

*Fri. 10/19: Spelling: List 8 test
Mario Kart assembly at 1:30

We made inferences about what is in Mrs.Olsen's Bag! 

A LOOK AT NEXT WEEK: 

*Reading: We will continue to use our text clues and schema (what we already know: background knowledge) as we make inferences while we read. We are working in book clubs as we read our good fit novels.

*English: We are working on descriptive writing. We are also working on DOL #3: Book titles and introductory words. A quiz will be announced soon!

Working hard on inferring about Mrs. Olsen. 

*Spelling: We will work on list 8. Pretest on Monday, homework due Thurs (all 3 assignments), and final test on Friday. Keep up the good work!

*Social Studies: We will be wrapping up our map unit. We will take the hemispheres quiz on Wed. We will begin our next unit: History of Downers Grove very soon!

*Science: We will be finishing up our study of ch. 9. The test will be on Thurs. 10/18. A study guide was sent home this week. Remember you can access the textbook online at www.thinkcentral.com. Please contact me if you need the directions on how to access the textbook sent to you again.

*Math: We will begin ch. 4: subtraction next week. We will continue to problem solving using PAL (problem-answer-label). We will also begin our addition math facts. A note was sent home this week explaining our math facts. Please sign and return on Monday.

Have a beautiful fall weekend!
Mrs. Olsen

Week of 10/8-10/12

Odds and Ends: 

*No School: There will be no school on Monday, 10/8 in honor of Columbus Day.  Enjoy your weekend!

*Scholastic Book Order: An October order was sent home this week. Your order is due online or in the classroom by Fri. 10/19.

*Global Reach Out: In science, we have been studying water. We have been looking at the BIG picture and have had many discussions about the world's water and how many people in the world do not have clean water. We visited water.org and watched a short video about their mission.  I am starting a collection in the classroom for loose change that will be donated to water.org.  My family and I have decided to choose an organization to donate to each year in honor of my son Liam's birthday (January). Due to his love of bath time, swimming, and anything water related, we chose water.org as this year's charity. If your child would like to donate, I will set up a collection jar in the room until January. $25 can supply one person with clean water for life!

*Donations Needed: We are in need of the following items in the classroom:

• individually packaged, healthy snacks for our prize box
• 100% juice boxes 

You can send them in with your child at any time. Thank you!

UPCOMING EVENTS: 

*Mon. 10/8: No School

*Tues. 10/9: Spelling: List 7 Pretest

*Fri. 10/12: Spelling: List 7 Test
Math: Chapter 3 Test

A LOOK AT NEXT WEEK: 

*Reading: We will focus on making inferences as we read Mulan and our book club books. Please remind your child not to read ahead in their book club books so they are able to join in our book club discussions without telling the rest of their group what happens before they read it.  We will be working on writing in our reading response journals as we write meaningful and helpful responses to our independent reading books.

*English: We are working on our raindrop story as we connect writing and science. We will begin looking at features of descriptive writing this week.

*Spelling: We are on list 7. We will have a pretest on Tues. Due to the shortened week, there will be only two homework assignments for the week. The final test will be on Friday.

*Science: We are working on chapter 9 lesson 3: clouds and weather.  This is the last lesson in the chapter. Look for information about the final chapter test coming home soon!

*Social Studies: We are working on hemispheres.  The next unit will be the history of Downers Grove.

*Math: We are going to spend next week finishing up chapter 3. The final test will be Fri. 10/12. Be on the look out for a study guide and practice test.

Have a beautiful, long, relaxing weekend together!
Mrs. Olsen

Working on making cumulus clouds with puffy paint! 

Making wispy curl cirrus clouds with cotton balls. 

Painting sheets of gray stratus clouds. 

Hard at work on making clouds.