September 29, 2017

Announcements

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend Get the Scoop night Tuesday! If you were unable to attend, your third grader should have brought home the information Wednesday afternoon. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to set up a time to meet.

Another thank you to everyone who signed up to help with the Comet Carnival and Fall Room Party! We have a few spots left for the Carnival, so click Here to sign up!

We also have a craft, game, and drinks for our Fall party, but I know the students would love snacks! If you would be willing to send or bring in a snack for the party on October 27, please sign up Here!

Monday is the last day to send in St. Louis Cardinals items for the Carnival auction basket.

We do still have an opening to go on our field trip to the Central Missouri Food Bank on November 2nd. You would need to meet us at the food bank by noon and we will be done by 2:00. Please let me know if you are interested so I can send home the volunteer paperwork.

SNACKS TO THE MAX!
We have been given a way to help supply snacks to our children, by partnering with our Partner in Education, Hy-Vee.   From September 24 to October 7, look for a Snacks to the Max post on the HyVee Facebook page.  For every comment on the post during this time, Hy-Vee will donate a pound of snacks (up to 1000 pounds) to our school.  

In the Classroom

Our big focus in math this week was on number story problems. We discussed how to first read the problem, re-read if necessary, form a plan, solve the problem, and check our answer for reasonableness. Students were able to use a variety of tools to solve these problems such as number grids, diagrams, and pictures.

In writing this week, we focused on shows and tells. Students learned how to add to their "tells" by "showing" the reader what they are talking about. Here are some pictures of our bulletin board activity that explains this writing strategy.

We focused on problem and solutions this week in reading. Students also continued practicing their independent reading responses. We will begin reading groups next week.

We finished our first social studies unit this week. Students assessed over the Community/Government unit on Friday. Those tests will be sent home next week. We used the student response system called Plickers to review for this test.

Upcoming Events

Comet Carnival-October 6

Early Dismissal-October 17 at 1:15

Fall Room Parties-October 27

No School, Teacher Work Day-October 30

Field trip to Central Missouri Food Bank-November 2

Parent Teacher Conferences-November 9-10

No School-November 10

September 22, 2017

Announcements

I hope to see everyone Tuesday night at Get the Scoop! We will start in the gym with a short PTA meeting at 6:30. Afterwards, you are invited to the classroom to learn about our new math program and ask any questions you may have.

We will not do word study next week, as it is a short week. We will use that time to focus on grammar skills with mentor sentences.


We are approaching our annual Comet Carnival! Use the link below to sign up for our class game.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e4faea82ba75-comet1

Thank you to everyone who has sent in St. Louis Cardinals items. Keep them coming!

We still have many openings for our room parties this year! We also have the position of Room Parent Coordinator available. Please use the links below to sign up.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-room​


http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-winter1


http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-february

In the Classroom

In math this week, we continued our study of mass. We also reviewed and took our first unit assessment. These assessments are broken up over 2 days, as they require students to apply what they learned and explain their thinking. I will be sharing these at our first conference.

Our focus in writing this week was to choose a small moment topic to write a personal narrative. Students practiced zooming in on that one special moment and then exploding the topic with strong details. We will work on how to come up with those strong details next week.

Our shared reading focus this week was on setting. We discussed why authors tell us or give us clues about the setting and how important it is. Students also practiced their reading responses during independent reading time. Here are pictures of them reading and completing a response with a partner.

Our character trait selfie wall is complete! Come to Get the Scoop to see the selfies up close.

In Social Studies this week, we learned about the three main types of communities; rural, suburban, and urban. We also focused on identifying the different communities we are part of, including Columbia, Missouri, and North America. We will assess over this unit next week. 

Upcoming Events

No School, Teacher Workday-September 25

Get the Scoop Night at 6:30-September 26

Comet Carnival-October 6

Early Dismissal-October 17 at 1:15

Fall Room Parties-October 27

No School, Teacher Work Day-October 30

September 15, 2017

Announcements

Thank you to everyone who donated for Hurricane Harvey! We collected over $350 in gift cards and many school supplies. 

Another thank you to those who have sent in St. Louis Cardinals items for our auction basket at the Comet Carnival. Please make sure to keep an eye out for anything to include in our basket!

We still have many openings for our room parties this year! We also have the position of Room Parent Coordinator available. Please use the links below to sign up.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-room​


http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-winter1


http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-february


We are also approaching our annual Comet Carnival! Use the link below to sign up for our class game.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e4faea82ba75-comet1

In the Classroom

We had a busy week in math! We started by learning about equal sharing and equal grouping problems. We also introduced the division symbol to help us write number models for these problems. Students practiced their multiplication and division facts by using fact triangle cards for 2, 5, and 10.










We studied elapsed time again by figuring out how long days were in September! We used sunrise and sunset data to calculate the amount of daylight we had.













Finally, we explored mass at the end of the week. Students were able to compare masses of different objects using the pan balance. We did this as part of our stations. The other stations included equal groups and equal sharing games.

This week in writing, we focused on generating topics for personal narratives through lists, webs, and maps. Students wrote about a special person and a special place. We also made our "I Can" chart for this unit.

We studied character traits in reading this week. We read some new books to explore traits and we also used some familiar characters. Your third grader also made a character trait selfie using PicCollage. Those will be coming home soon.

This week in social studies, we explored what it meant to be a citizen. We defined actions and characteristics of good citizens and discussed our rights and responsibilities. We also came up with rules for various places in our community. We compared them to the actual rules to see how close we were! Finally, we discussed leaders in our communities.

Also, our ABC of Columbia book is finished! Thank you to Mrs. Finke for helping us put it all together.

Upcoming Events

No School, Teacher Workday-September 25

Get the Scoop Night at 6:30-September 26

Comet Carnival-October 6

Early Dismissal-October 17 at 1:15

Fall Room Parties-October 27

No School, Teacher Work Day-October 30

September 8, 2017

Announcements

See below for a few notes from our PTA president, Kristin Eastman:

1. Fundraiser packets due on Sept. 12^th with MONEY! We had some issues last year of packets being turned in without money. Orders will not be processed unless money is turned in.
2. Sign up for the School Directory- as you know this is the only way to contact other families for play dates and birthday party invites.  We will have paper copies this year for each family. Our goal is to send to the print shop on Oct. 1^st. https://www.cpsk12.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=23&ModuleInstanceID=4007&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=45433&PageID=39
3. Sign up for Carnival-
   http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e4faea82ba75-comet1
4. Sign up for Fall Room Party-http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-room​
5. Follow PTA on Facebook and Twitter

In the Classroom

In math this week, students focused on data, graphing, and multiplication. We started the week by collecting data, creating tally charts, and forming bar graphs. We used these representations to make statements about our data.






On Thursday and Friday, we focused on using multiplication strategies to solve number stories. Here are three strategies to solve one of our number stories.

In writing this week, we made resources to help us become better writers. Students made a list of what writers write about, what to do and not do in a writer's notebook, and a list of 50 things they love. We will begin our Personal Narrative unit next week.

In reading this week, students learned about George Washington Carver. The skill we were practicing was activating background knowledge. We also started learning how to find text evidence to support our answers when comprehending a book.

We finished our ABC of Columbia book! Students were able to complete their drawings and record in iMovie. We will share the completed project next week after it has been edited.

Here is our updated class picture with all of our students. What a wonderful group!

Upcoming Events

Fall Fundraiser August 29-September 12

No School, Teacher Workday-September 25

Get the Scoop Night at 6:30-September 26

Comet Carnival-October 6

Early Dismissal-October 17 at 1:15

Fall Room Parties-October 27

No School, Teacher Work Day-October 30

September 1, 2017

Announcements

We still have many openings for our room parties this year! We also have the position of Room Parent Coordinator available. Please use the links below to sign up.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-room​


http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-winter1


http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-february


We are also approaching our annual Comet Carnival! Use the link below to sign up for our class game.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0e4faea82ba75-comet1



We had a wonderful kick-off assembly on Tuesday morning! We got to know some of the new faces of Paxton Keeley and learn about our fundraiser opportunity. Your third grader should have brought home the fundraising envelope on Tuesday. The fundraiser goes until September 12. 

In the Classroom

Our main focus in math this week was on time. We practiced telling time to the nearest minute and explored elapsed time. We used the question, "How long is our morning?" to practice strategies for elapsed time. On Friday, we completed our first round of math stations.

We completed our Classmate Interviews this week. Make sure to check out our class book the next time you are in our classroom. We also got our Writer's Notebook on Thursday! Students have been asked to spend the long weekend finding some time to decorate their notebook and make it their own. Notebooks are due back on Tuesday. 

This week, students took a reading assessment one-on-one with me. While I was administering this test to each student, we practiced building our stamina for independent reading. We also studied the concept of Theme. We read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Library Lion, and A Perfectly Messed Up Story to explore themes such as honesty, friendship, acceptance, and persistence.

In Social Studies this week, we explored different communities. We started the week by using iPads to study communities in different countries. Students learned about other cultures, and we were able to find similarities and differences. 

We also started creating our community ABC book. Be on the lookout for C is for Columbia!

Upcoming Events

Fall Fundraiser August 29-September 12

No School, Labor Day-September 4

Fall Picture Day-September 7

No School, Teacher Workday-September 25

Get the Scoop Night at 6:30-September 26