This blog's purpose is to keep you informed on the day-to-day happenings of our classroom. It's also a place where you can communicate with me. So please leave a comment, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
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Tonight's homework is to practice this week's spelling words and, if you have time, to work on your "Boogo" game card. If your child needs our word list then click here. If he/she already has the words (25 of them) placed on the game board then all that's needed is a little decorating.
Also notice I added a new link to the left entitled "Schedule, Email, Phone" where you can click and see a typical daily schedule for our classroom plus my email address and phone number.
Here's this week's spelling list:
good
took
cookie
shook
foot
put
pull
study
summer
such
truck
uncle
Sunday
cousin
touch
Bonus Words:
dual
effective
election
Halloween
Big day tomorrow! Your child may wear his/her costume to school tomorrow as long as they can keep themselves under control through the morning. I'm planning to stick to the regular routine in the morning. Things will get a little crazier in the afternoon when the parade begins at 1:00 and our class party starts as soon as we return to the room. While we're on the parade route is a good time for parent helpers to ready our room for the party.
Have a quiet night.
We had an exciting day in room 3! Not only did we get to watch a classmate loose his lunch, but we also discovered that one of our female crayfish has eggs! We spent quite a bit of time reading about crayfish at encarta.com and the Foss web site (see the link to the left) so that we could write an article for our school newspaper. Mrs. Adamske asked each child to write a news story concerning our big news. Then Mrs. A and I will pick one to appear in the newsletter along with that child's name and picture. Tonight's homework then is to work a little more on that crayfish article. We started in class and the class begged me to let them do more work on their articles for homework rather than the usual spelling. As you can guess, I conceded. Do ask them if they have any spelling words they need to work on because we'll still be taking our test tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow looks to be an exciting day as well. Mrs. Koller and some other moms will be helping us to make haunted houses out of graham crackers and assorted candies around 8:30.
See you tomorrow.
Homework tonight is a little different. We started our social studies test in class this morning, and some students even finished it. But at the end of the day I added an essay question for the back of the last page. The essay question is "Tell at least two ways the weather in Chattaroy affects you." So, homework is to check over the test (or finish it) and then write the essay on the back (we practiced in class too).
We discovered a pattern for drawing rectangles to match a certain perimeter. For example, "What would the long side and short side of a rectangle be if the perimeter was 12?"
This afternoon we took a comprehension test on the carnivorous plants we read about yesterday and then practiced our essay for social studies.
Keep track of those Pizza Hut minutes and enjoy your evening. (Don't forget Cindi is sill looking for materials for our haunted houses.)
Homework tonight is a math page of perimeter measurements. Notice that there is a metric ruler at the bottom of the page that can be cut out and used for the homework.
We talked about Mexico City this morning in social studies and discussed whether they used their natural resources very well. We explored perimeter and area in math too.
This afternoon we read about carnivorous plants and then wrote about our favorite plant, fruit, or flower. We heard some very nice rough drafts...I think our writing is showing improvement.
Conference times will be going home next Monday for your approval or disapproval.
Have a good night. Go Tigers!
Homework tonight is the usual Monday spelling practice. This week's focus is compound words. Here's the list:
himself
afternoon
everything
grandmother
homework
outside
barefoot
bedroom
butterfly
grandfather
everybody
backyard
popcorn
everyone
anyone
Bonus Words:
deceive
delicate
disposal
We measured perimeters in math, visitied with our crayfish, learned about graphic organizers in reading, practiced subjects, and took the spelling pretest. We're ready for some football!
Your child's picture also went home today. Have you noticed what a good-looking class we are?
Whew! The book orders arrived and got passed out as students were heading to the bus (thanks, Mrs. Rausch!).
Leave me a comment if an evening conference will work better for your schedule than an afternoon. I'll be conferencing on Wednesday evening November 8. There's only a few spots so let me know soon.
Have a great weekend. The Seahawks host the Vikings this weekend...I'm predicting another Seahawk victory.
No homework tonight. We worked hard at the end of the day on a WASL-like writing test that I created. Click here to see the actual page your child did.
We learned to measure in the metric system today. We measure our desk height in cm and the width of the room in meters. Continue to encourge measuring at home.
We also practiced our lock-down procedure this morning and went to a "Character Counts" assembly about kindness this afternoon. Oh yeah, we also spent some time with our best friends - the crayfish. We started an experiment to discover if they're territorial or not. Ask your child how we're doing that.
Enjoy game 7 of the Mets and Cards tonight. Go Mets!
Yesterday I forgot to give props to Katie's mom for the fine art project we did in the morning. We made beautiful pieces out of leaves. Thanks, Katie's mom! Nik's mom is on deck for next week.
Homework tonight is a math page practicing measuring. Feel free to measure other things besides the ceiling and a table. Ask your child what we measured in class today. Tomorrow we'll practice measuring in the metric system.
In social studies we learned about three different types of resources: renewable, nonrenewable, and flow. See if your child can give you an example of each one.
This afternoon we read, took a grammar test, and played "Sparkle".
Go Mets!
Homework tonight is a little different. I've asked the students to take home their writing notebooks and read you what they've written concerning their favorite place. Please help them to make a couple revisions by adding more detail or more interesting subject words. It would also be great if sign their page as proof that you saw it. Remember they don't need to rewrite the whole thing...just make a couple of changes.
We learned to measure to the nearest quarter inch today in math. Letting your child practice with a tape measure would be helpful. Not many of the students are very proficient at measuring to the quarter inch yet, so the more practice the better.
We finished our reading unit test today and plan to do a grammar test of some kind tomorrow. We ended the day playing "Sparkle."
How's the Pizza Hut minutes coming along?
Homework tonight is a science page comparing and contrasting our crayfish friends with other animals.
In math we started a new chapter on measurement. Today we measured with a class shoe size. Ask your child why it's important to have a standard unit of measurement. We also studied the crayfish and looked particularly at their behaviors. Ask what behaviors your child observed.
This afternoon we started our unit test in reading and brainstormed about our favorite place. Tomorrow we'll write a paragraph about our favorite place. Ask your child about his/her favorite place.
No spelling this week due to the unit testing.
What did you think of yesterday's Seahawk win? Is there a reason Hasselback didn't just take a knee on 3rd down with a little over two minutes remaing to assure 26 yard game winning field goal? Why hand it off and risk the fumble? And why review the play and lose your last time out? That's it! I'm going to coach the Seahawks next week and Mr. Russell will take over in the classroom!
That's it for this week. Enjoy the day off tomorrow and I'll see you on Monday.
Don't forget to keep track of your reading minutes for Pizza Hut.
Did anyone follow the link yesterday?
Homework tonight is spelling practice. Don't forget there's no school Friday for the students (Teacher LID Day), so we'll take our final spelling test tomorrow morning.
We had a busy day today: we finished our math test, created a topographical map of the US, took a little science quiz on plants, took a comprehension test in reading, and revised a paragraph from last week. Whew!
Also let me test out something: Click here to see if you can read a little test note I posted at Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Let me know if you can get to it because this would be a nice way to post notes and things like that from the classroom.
Have a good night.
Homework tonight is a grammar page. We practiced making the subject of the sentence clear and interesting. Instead of writing "Mom helped with homework," we wrote "My beautiful mom helped with homework." Don't you think the latter one is much clearer?
We took our second math test this morning and will work on it some more tomorrow. We also enjoyed meeting the crayfish up close and personal this morning. Ask your child what he/she observed and how one tells the difference between a male and a female.
Besides writing better subjects, we also read a story this afternoon. Ask your child to tell you about Allie's dream.
There's a PTO meeting tomorrow afternoon (2:45) in the library. Fun, food, prizes, and news! (Childcare will be provided.)
Homework tonight is spelling practice. By request here's our spelling list this week:
bright
might
tight
sight
lights
my
why
fly
dry
sky
visit
picnic
winter
mint
interest
Bonus words:
competition
concerts
conclusion
We talked about the different regions and landforms across our country in social studies and added three or more addends in math. Ask your child what the easiest way to add three or more addends.
This afternoon we learned about characters in our reading, took our spelling pretest, and discussed some ways to improve our writing.
Have a good Monday night.
It wasn't easy, but we figured out that there's 11 hours and 23 minutes of daylight today. We also found there was a difference of 78 degrees between the national high and low last Wednesday.
We enjoyed Time For Kids magazine, took our spelling test, got FREE dictionaries from the Something Valley Grange, enjoyed Fun Friday, and met Nik's dog. We're ready for the weekend.
Homework tonight is a math page practicing the partial sums algorithm. The students had a difficult time with it this morning, so only do a couple if your child gets frustrated.
We reviewed landforms, discussed erosion, and read a climate map in social studies.
This afternoon we took a reading comprehension test and practiced writng commands (that was easy) and exclamations. We also celebrated Nik's birthday. Happy Birthday, Nick! (exclamation)
Homework tonight is a math page practicing comparison story problems. You'll get a first-hand look at what we did in class today.
We finished our soaking seeds experiment today. Ask your child how much water the beans soaked up and how we found out.
This afternoon we did a readers' theater with our reading books. We took turns reading the parts out loud and will continue tomorrow. We then wrote about a time we felt sick (the read aloud story had a girl in it with the chicken pox).
I forgot to mention yesterday that I sent home Pizza Hut reading calendars. Your child should have one in his/her notebook. You'll see our goal is to read for at least 300 minutes this month (that's less than 10 minutes a night). It also counts if you read to your child. I'll collect the calendars at the end of each month and pass out the Pizza Hut coupons. Feel free to substitute the calendar with a note if you'd like.
Have a good evening. Baseball playoffs start today!
Homework tonight is spelling practice. Our bonus words this week are good ones: canoe, charitable, and cologne. Here's a sample sentence: Dad was very charitable the other night when while wearing powerful cologne he took mom on a canoe ride.
In math today we did some more story problems. This time instead of parts and total we did start, change, and end problems involving money. For example: Dad had $25 in his checking account. He withdrew $5 to buy cologne. How much did he have left to take on the canoe ride?
We started a new experiment in science to discover if seeds really do soak up water. Ask your child what we did today and what we plan to do tomorrow.
Our reading skill this week is cause and effect. For example: Dad got thrown into the water by mom because she didn't care for his cologne.
We ended the day with our spelling pretest.
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