Friday, December 2, 2016

Weekly Update-December 2

Announcements

Our Winter Room Party is coming up quickly! We still have 3 spots available if you are willing to help. Please use the link below to sign up. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-winter

The Holiday Open House is next week. I sent an email Friday about this annual Paxton Keeley event. Please let me know if you have any questions about it. Here is the schedule again. 
Grade Level
Perform in Gym
Open House in Classroom
5th Grade
11:15 am

Choir
11:35 am
11:55-12:15
3rd Grade
11:55 am
12:15-12:35
4th Grade
12:15 pm
12:35-12:55
2nd Grade
1:05 pm
1:25-1:45
Kindergarten
1:25 pm
1:45-2:05
1st Grade
1:45 pm
2:05-2:25


We will be having a special guest from Mizzou teach us about health in December. Here are some pictures of Mrs. Zapata telling us about the important nutrients we need and students demonstrating how much physical activity you must do to stay healthy. 





In the Classroom

We have started Multiplication! This week, we made lists of things that come in groups in the real world. For example, there are 7 days in a week. We then used these lists to make multiplication problems, such as how many days would there be in 3 weeks? Each student made their own problem for our class book. We also made skip counting books. These resources will be helpful to us as we get deeper into the concepts of multiplication.

In writing this week, students have been working on their famous inventor research paper. Students completed first drafts of their 5-paragraph papers. We also started typing the reports. We are excited to share the finished pieces with you at the Open House.

In reading this week, we studied vocabulary. We used a graphic organizer to choose various vocabulary words from our Shared Reading book, Fossil Seekers. Each student was also part of a guided reading group that focused on vocabulary in a non-fiction book. Ask your third grader what non-fiction topic they studied this week in reading!

We had a special guest teacher for Science this week. Mrs. Finke, our media specialist, came up every day to help us with a science unit on Force. Students were put into groups, given an iPad with plans, and a Vex Kit. They were then asked to use the kit and the plans to make an inclined plane, a lever, and a pulley. We had so much fun creating our simple machines!












At the end of the week, they were given another task. They had to imagine they were at a tiger exhibit, and a tiger fell into a moat. With their group, they had to make a blueprint for a complex machine that would lift the tiger out of the moat and back onto safe ground (the top of the text books.)  They then got to actually make the complex machine!



Upcoming Events

December 9-Winter Open House (see schedule above)
December 20-Winter Room Party 2:15-3:00
December 21-January 3-Winter Break
January 4-School Resumes
January 16-No School, MLK Jr. Day

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