Blue Ribbon School Ceremony: This will be on Tuesday at 12:15 in the Eckburg Center. A letter went home last Tuesday describing the event. Each student should wear his/her Blue Ribbon T-shirts with pants, jeans, or a shirt. You may check your child out right after the program if you wish. Please let me know if you will be doing this so that I can have your child packed up and ready to go for you.
Field Trip to the Marine Education Center and Aquarium: We will be taking our first field trip on Thursday to learn all about life in the sea. The teachers at MECA will focus on the creatures who live off our shore. They will discuss the special adaptations that various types of fish have that help them meet their needs. Students must wear their Blue Ribbon T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. They should pack a lunch from home with a drink and snack. We will be eating at the aquarium around 12:00 outside on the picnic tables. I already have a parent volunteer who is going to help watch the students. Any one who would like to join us for lunch is welcome to do so. Children may be signed out after lunch. If you wish to do so, please let me know the day before so that I can have your child packed up and ready to go for you.
Reading Challenge: This quarter, the challenge is to get to 150 points by December 16th. There are many students who are close! Yah for Frankie Brunson, William Oliver, Caylie Maye Cornwell, McCulloch Hoxie, Geshna Paravata, Kalina Rashkov, and Allison DeYoung who have already met the challenge. They should be very proud of themselves.
Book report: For the next book report, students have choosen a Zoobooks magazine from my classroom. Students should read the magazine. When they are finished, I will give them the directions on how to do the report. This report will receive a science grade and a reading grade since students are researching an animal as part of the book report. The report is due December 9th.
Reading: We are reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The Chapter 5-6 vocabulary test is Wednesday. The Chapter 7 vocabulary test will be Monday, December 5th.
Reading with Mrs. Chambers: If your child goes to Mrs. Chambers for reading, please go to her website at http://mrscchambers.weebly.com to find out what they are doing in reading each week.
Cursive Handwriting: All letters have been reviewed/taught. If your child continues to have trouble with a particular letter or letters, I will send home extra practice for him or her to do. On each spelling test students get a cursive handwriting grade. You will see this below the spelling test grade.
Language: We will review synonyms and antonyms. We will learn about homographs and homophones. Test 7 will be on Monday, December 5th.
Spelling: Students will learn words in Lesson 15 this week. Students who get 100% on the spelling pretest on Monday will receive an accelerated spelling list for that week. You can go to www.spellingcity.com for online practice of the grade level spelling words each week. Just go "Find a List" and then for the teacher type in "SCPS Third Grade." All the lists for the entire year will appear. Just choose the one for this week.
Writing: We will work on adding oodles of adjectives to our writing.
Timed Tests: Timed tests will be on Tuesdays this year. This month students will have a subtraction and a multiplication timed test each Tuesday. Students have 1 minute for 25 problems, 2 minutes for 50 problems, or 4 minutes for 100 problems. Below is the list of test dates for the multiplication timed tests. I sent home a packet last Monday that had the test dates listed, test parameters, and example tests that you may photocopy for practice at home.
X2 on November 29th
X5 on December 6th
X10 on December 13th
X9 on December 20th
X3 on January 10th
X4 on January 17th
X6 on January 24th
X7 on January 31st
X8 on February 7th
Math: We will begin Chapter 5 on multiplication. We will cover lessons 5-1 through 5-6 this week. Diagnostic Checkpoint 5A will be on Thursday. We will take it before we leave for the field trip.
Science: We will continue Unit A Chapter 2 called "Types of Animals." This week will learn about monotremes, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. All students have a study guide for the vocabulary quiz over the words in Lessons 1-3. This quiz will be on Friday, December 2nd.
Bible: Proverbs 3:7-8 "Don't be conceited, sure of your own wisdom. Instead trust and reverence the Lord, and turn you back on evil; when you do that, then you will be given renewed health and vitality."