The Snow is Coming

Hi Parents,

So it looks like the weather forecaster predictions are correct. The snow looks like it's really coming!

I just wanted to remind you that students still will be going outside during recess time even if there's snow on the ground. (The only time that we stay indoors is if the windchill falls below 0 degrees.).

Please remind your student to bring their boots, snow pants, warm coats, gloves, hats, etc. to school when there's snow on the ground. Please also make sure that they label every snow gear piece with their name. I also encourage the students to keep their snow gear in a separate bag from their backpack. (The recyclable grocery cloth bags are perfect for snow gear!)

Students that are wearing boots, snow pants, gloves, hat, and a coat will be allowed to play in the field in the snow during recess time. Any student that forgot to bring the above mentioned items, will have to remain on the blacktop during recess. The office will not allow students to stay inside during recess if they forgot their snow gear that day.

Thanks for reminding your student of these rules and helping me in your efforts. Have a safe drive home today and enjoy our first major snowfall!

Classroom Snapshot for December

Happy New Year and welcome back! I hope that you had wonderful, safe, and restful break with your family. I cannot wait to hear all about everyone's celebrations, vacations, and fun events.

Here's what was been happening in our classroom throughout the month of December:

Reading:

Throughout the conclusion of Unit 2 of Treasures, the students have been working on determining the author's purpose of writing a story. We have learned that generally an author writes a book to either inform, entertain, or to persuade their reader. Before break, we were able to begin Unit 3 of Treasures. Together, the students have been working with the guided reading strategy of inferencing. Thus, the students have been learning how to derive logical conclusions about what they have read based off of the clues that are given to them. Throughout vocabulary time, the students have been working with finding context clues and working with synonyms.

Your child can click on the following links for additional activities with some of the stories we read together in December:

• Author: A True Story
• Stone Soup

Students will continue to bring home their weekly reading book bags. As a reminder, their homework assignment is to reread the story at home and afterwards have an adult ask them comprehension questions about what they have read. An adult is encouraged to utilize the comprehension questions that are listed in the back of the book or they can use the "Bloom's Taxonomy" questions that are inside of their child's bag. Please remind your student that a part of their homework assignment is to remember to return their book bag to school by Friday. If they finish reading their selection early, they are welcome to turn in their bag before the end of the week. Students are aware that points will be deducted from their weekly homework reading grade if their book bag is turned in late.

Grammar:

Over the past month the students have been working with learning how to combine two sentences together that utilize the same common noun. In addition, students are currently reviewing how to properly utilize action, present-tense, past-tense, and future tense verbs.

During Daily 5 time, the students had fun practicing these skills with the following web pages. Click on these links to view and play the web site games at home:

• Noun Dunk
• Balloon Verbs

Writing:

Students just completed Unit 1 of WEX right before Winter Break. Each student selected a second personal narrative piece from their WEX binder that they wanted to revise and enhance. Throughout the writing process, tips were shown how to make their revisions better. The students continued to make sure that their piece focused on one main event, had the proper sentence mechanics, and utilized showing details, strong verbs, and sensory details. Be sure to read their final revision piece that was sent home before break.

Math:

The students just completed Unit 4 that focused on the introduction of multiplication and division facts. Throughout the unit ,the students learned about multiples of equal groups, multiplication arrays, division ties to multiplication, and multiplication and division fact families.

Throughout the week leading up to break, the students also had a fun time becoming architects. Each student was asked to design several rooms or areas that they would want to have in a home. Through their designs, the students learned how to calculate how much the area and perimeter of their designed rooms would cost to build. Monetary values were assigned for the square footage and length of the areas and perimeters. In addition, they also had to figure in the cost of adding doors, windows, fences, etc. Through the process, we certainly realized how much money, time, and effort goes into building homes and room additions. We certainly have quite a talented bunch of architects in our room!

Social Studies:

We're so glad that many of you were able to come to our Midwest UbD Curriculum Snapshot. In case you were not able to make it or would like to see your child's movie again, please click here to view our newscasts.

Science:

After our Midwest Unit concluded, the students further explored about the prairie in Science. Throughout the unit, the students were introduced to the plants and animals that live in the prairie. We also tested and compared different types of soil that are suitable for plants growing in the prairie. The students further explored how seeds get dispersed and the basic concept of photosynthesis. Moreover, the students discussed the various types of adaptations animals have to have in order to survive in the prairie environment. Additionally, the students learned how life in the prairie continued because of the food chain. At the end of the unit, the students learned that not much of prairie land exists today because of environmental factors as well as humans destroying the land.

The class had a great time creating and sharing their animal adaptation projects. I truly enjoyed their creativity! I was so impressed! All of these projects will be hanging in the hallway for you to enjoy viewing.

A BIG THANK YOU goes to all of our parent classroom volunteers!

All of the Intermediate Teachers and I would like to personally thank Mrs. Filippelli for taking the time out of her busy schedule for us. She took on a huge job of organizing all of the volunteers in our school and physically moving our novel room book closet from downstairs to an upstairs closet. The job was a huge undertaking and we cannot thank her enough for her time and dedication to this task!

Our class had such a blast visiting the Museum of Science and Industry! A BIG THANKS goes to Mrs. Doty, Mrs. Silvestri, Mrs. Lennon, Mrs. Bolithon, and Mrs. Skuldt for chaperoning all of our groups. What a fun day we had and it couldn't have been done without all of their help!

We would like to thank Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Silvestri, Mrs. Orlyk, Mrs. Skuldt, Mrs. Collins, and Mrs. Doty for coming in to assist with our Reader's Theater groups in December!

I certainly appreciate Mrs. Bolithon, Mrs. Barretto, Mrs. Filippelli, and Mrs. Silvestri for coming in to make copies for our class too. We greatly appreciate your time!

Thank You Mrs. Doctor!

We would like to thank Mrs. Doctor (Sadie's Grandma) for volunteering her time to come to our classroom to discuss Hanukkah traditions with the class. The students had fun learning about eight days of Hanukkah, discussing customs, and learning how to play the dreidel game. Please enjoy the pictures from the event.

Classroom Snapshot for the Month of November

Wow! What a pack-full month of learning we've had in third grade! Our first trimester has quickly come to an end. Hopefully your child brought home their report card to you on Friday.

I look forward to seeing all of you at conferences next week. Please be sure to write down and bring any questions or concerns that you have regarding your child's progress with you at conference time. Be sure to click on this link to view our conference schedule.

I would like to wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving! How thankful I am to be able to spend your child's third grade experience with them. It has been such a blessing being able to watch them grow and mature. It certainly has been a fun year together! Please enjoy the time together over the next week and have a safe and fantastic break with your family!

Here's what has been happening in our classroom:

Reading:

Throughout Unit 2 of Treasures, the students have been working on the comprehension strategies of summarizing and utilizing our context clues to determine the meaning of a word or paragraph. Additionally, we have been reading stories that distinguish between fantasy and reality events and fact and opinion persuasive articles. Throughout vocabulary time, the students have been working with antonyms, multiple-meaning words, and words with plural endings.

Your child can click on the following links for additional activities with some of the stories we read together:

• The Strongest One
• Wolf
• What's in Store for the Future?
• The Planets in Our Solar System

The students have been doing a great job during guided reading time too. In our novel groups, we have been working on using the comprehension strategies that we have learned to answer questions in our novel group packets. We've also had some great literature circle discussions too. All of the novel groups have read one chapter book together and now we are now onto reading our second book for the year.

Last week students brought home for you their first book bag reading of the year. This is a book that corresponds with the comprehension strategies that go along with our Treasures series and serves as a reinforcement. All of the students have read the book with a partner during our Daily 5 "Read to Someone" time. Their homework assignment is to reread the story at home and afterwards have an adult ask them comprehension questions about what they have read. The adult is encouraged to utilize the comprehension questions that are listed in the back of the book or they can use the "Bloom's Taxonomy" questions that are inside of their child's bag.

As a reminder, it is important for your child to still continue to read at least 20 minutes a night independently or with an adult at home.

Grammar:

Over the past month the students have been working with distinguishing between common and proper nouns, the rules of making a noun plural, and the rules of making a noun possessive.

During Daily 5 time, the students had fun practicing these skills with the following web pages. Click on these links to view and play the web site games at home:

• Rats! (Common Nouns)
• Plural Girls
• Irregular Plurals
• Exploring for Possessives

Writing:

During Writer's Express (WEX) time, our class continues to work hard learning about the important elements to include in a personal narrative. Together, our mini-lessons have been focusing on writing our paragraphs in a more logical and organized manner. In addition, we are continuing to make sure that our work focuses on a single moment in time. Our lessons have also been stressing the importance of utilizing strong verbs, good sensory detail, and proper sentence mechanics in our writing.

During conference time, parents will be able to view all of our stories in our WEX binder. Parents will also get to read our first published personal narrative.

Math:

The students just completed Unit 3 dealing with Units of Measurements. Together, the students reviewed how to measure to the nearest inch, 1/2 inch, centimeter, and 1/2 centimeter using a ruler and tape measure with various objects. We also worked with all of the other basic standards of measurement involving yards, meters, miles, and kilometers. The students had fun learning how to determine both the area and perimeter of objects and spaces. Our unit concluded with learning how to find the diameter and circumference of circular objects.

Social Studies:

The students have been very busy working on their first UbD Project of the year. UbD stands for "Understanding by Design". In September, the third grade teachers spent a few days designing a UbD Project that focuses on studying about our Midwest Unit. Within the unit, each student was put into a group of 5-6 students and randomly assigned a Midwest state to research together.

Through their research, students must answer the essential question of "Why would people choose to live in your Midwest state?". Their research started off with students learning how to research information about their state in books and selected online websites. The students then learned how to record the physical features, major economic activities, natural resources, and historical and contemporary attractions about their state in an online program called Googledocs. (This is a web-based office suite that allows the students to create and edit their notes onlines while collaborating in real-time with their group members.) From their research, each group designed and wrote a newscast to state their findings about their state. Each newscast was video recorded and will be downloaded into an iMovie. Currently, each group is learning how to edit and add special features to their newscasts.

Our entire Midwest Project will be displayed to the parents during our Third Grade Curriculum Snapshot on Dec. 9th. We hope you received an invitation to this event the other day via backpack mail. If not, please refer to this link for more information. We can't wait to show off our hard work to you!

A BIG THANK YOU goes to all of our parent classroom volunteers

We would like to thank Mrs. Filippelli, Mrs. Silvestri, Mrs. Orlyk, Mrs. Gainulin, Mrs. Moran, Mr. Kakavetsis, Mrs. Bolithon, Mrs. Grant O'Hara, and Mrs. Jones for coming in to assist with our Reader's Theater groups for the months of October and November!

I also greatly appreciate Mrs. Doctor, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Collins, and Mrs. Bolithon for coming in to do all of our copying. We greatly appreciate your time!

We would also like to thank Mrs. Bolithon and Mrs. Moran for coming in on Friday for a spectacular Art Appreciation lesson about mosaics. The students had a blast making their own mosaics that will be displayed after Thanksgiving break.

Come to our Curriculum Snapshot!

Hi Parents,

We cordially invite you to our first Curriculum Snapshot of the year on Friday, December 9th from 2:30-3:30 p.m. Please meet us in our individual classrooms. The students will be showing you all of the hard work they did with our Midwest UbD Project. We hope to see you there!

Electronics Party on Thursday!

Don't forget to bring in your permission forms by Wednesday for our Class Electronics Party!

Our Halloween Party Was a Success!

Wow! What a great time we had at our Halloween Party and Parade in Room 116 on Monday!

Our party certainly could not have been a success without all of our background planning and help from our parent volunteers! We would like to thank Mrs. Jones for all of her hard work in helping to plan, organize, assemble, and execute all of the Halloween activities and stations at our party. We also appreciate Mrs. Bolithon, Mrs. Moran, Mr. Nesbitt, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Sluga, Mrs. Barretto, Mrs. Kakavetsis, Mrs. Lawlor, and Mrs. Silvestri for helping us out with running the games and activities. We truly appreciate Mrs. Kakavetsis making special fruit skewers for the kids to eat. A big thanks also goes out to Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Sobkowicz, and Mrs. Lennon for supplying the food, drinks, plates, and napkins. This event could not have gone on without all of your help and support!