Georgia Habitats Project...& an ART Reminder

Hello! Here's the project!  I will email this and send it home with your child!

                      

 Project Due Date: MARCH 14th!

          Students will create a report on their habitat of choice: *Georgia’s Atlantic Ocean Habitat

                        *Georgia’s Coastal Plain Habitat

        *Georgia’s Piedmont Habitat

*Georgia’s Mountain Habitat

        *Georgia’s Swamp & Wetland Habitat

Guidelines:   Students will create a 3-D diorama, a news report, an information booklet or any other type of presentation that includes the elements on their checklist.

       

Name: _____________________________           Date:_______________

STUDENT CHECKLIST

_____    Show the location of your habitat in Georgia (You can use a map or a description. For example: The mountain region is  located in  northern Georgia. The Blue Ridge  are part of the Appalachian Mountain Range.)

_____ Include a description of your habitat’s unique features. (For example: rolling hills, many rivers, diverse ecosystem.)

_____  Include 3 or more animals that live in your habitat and the features of the habitat that allow them to live there.

___   Include special plants that live in your habitat and the features of the habitat that allow the plants to live there.

_____  Include an explanation of what will or could happen if the habitat is changed.  (For example: If we continue to chop down trees… we continue to pollute the water….)

Also here's a reminder from Ms. Gill!

Hello, 3rd grade families!

In the next few weeks, we will be starting an exciting new project inspired by the photographs of Cuban American artist Abelardo Morell. In preparation for this project, I am requesting that your students do the following:

1) With a digital camera or phone, take a picture of a place that they see every day (this can be their bedroom, a neighborhood park, a classroom at GLOBE, etc.)

2) Print out this picture on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of copy paper (the picture should take up the whole page)

3) Bring the picture to next week's class.

Weekly art schedule:

Monday – Shunnarah

Wednesday – Soons

Thursday – Morgan

Friday - Price

*If you do not have access to a printer, please email me the jpeg file at least 24 hours before your child's class, and I will be happy to print it out at school. Please include the following as the subject line of the email: 3rd Grade Project – Student Name – Teacher Name

*If you do not have access to a digital camera or smart phone that can take pictures, please send me an email, and I will have a photograph ready for your student.

Thank you in advance for your help, and please check out my blog this weekend for more information on this project!

Best,

Stephanie Gill

Art Specialist

sgill@theglobeacademy.net

Msgillsartclass.blogspot.com

THANKS SO MUCH!!! 

Goodbye February....I hardly knew you!

Hello Friends! It has been awhile since I last posted...sorry about that! I feel like the time is flying by so fast.
  Unfortunately, I will be out tomorrow because the little dude came down with a nasty stomach bug. My husband stayed at home today so tomorrow is my turn. I'll be working on our Habitats Unit and taking care of Cole. NEVER FEAR, I left very detailed assignments for Ms. Bell and of course Wu Laoshi knows what to do with the kids. They may even work harder tomorrow w/o me there since they have learned how to easy it is to side track me. They are masters of it.

                                                                      Curriculum

Here is the plan for the next 4-5 weeks. I am going to teach SS & Science for an extended block in the mornings, continue our RLA review using WONDER and teach an extended Math block in the afternoon from now until we take the CRCT.

 Writing: We will be finishing up our persuasive speeches and I will videotape them to send to each of you. I hope to get them done by the end of next week. The kids have worked hard to write them and edit them in alignment with the rubric. This concludes the writing portion of our standards at this time. We have written friendly letters, narratives, information booklets, speeches, and reading responses. After the testing window, we will re-visit each genre and work to improve our current works or generate new pieces. This is my favorite part! The kids will really see how far they have come in a year!

Reading & LA: We have just completed our review of all of the LA skills and standards with regards to grammar and conventions of writing. We are going to continue to read WONDER by RJ Palacio. Your child will have a WONDER assignment as a RRJ assignment each week until we complete the book. If your child 'loses, forgets, shrugs' or otherwise when asked about his/her WONDER assignment he/she can always write about the book in the RRJ until I am able to replace their assignment pages.
For example: Make a connection to a character or part of the story.
*side note...It is an amazing story if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it! *

MATH:  We are finishing up our Geometry Unit and moving on to Data & Measurement next week. The kids did great with Geometry. Ask them questions like:

What is a polygon? A quadrilateral? What is the difference b/t a square and a rhombus? A rectangle and a parallelogram?   What shape has only one set of parallel lines? Tell me what you know about angles?

Social Studies:  We will begin exploring Georgia Habitats. I will be assigning a project around this unit and I will send an email about it tomorrow. This will include Georgia's Piedmont region, mountains, swamps and wetlands as well as the Atlantic Ocean.

Science: Magnets! Really this time we are going to get magnets done! We missed that week due to snow so I am going to fit in over the next month. If you have any magnets, (particularly bar magnets but any will do) please send them in for use in the classroom. I am also going to try and order a magnet kit this weekend! Thanks to Mrs. Wilkes for bringing in classroom materials on magnets, I am SOO using them!

Other News

*The field trip was a success! The kids enjoyed it and so did I! 

* MAP testing results are in my hands! I am going to try and figure how to print out your child's individual report and send home on Friday with the Progress Reports! I should have time to do this tomorrow.
   -Overall, we are a super smart group! I am quite pleased and you will be too!
Until tomorrow.......

SNOW WATCH PART 2!

Well I can honestly say that I am OVER this weather! I really cannot tell you how badly I want this 'storm' blow over us so we can get back to business as usual. We still have a bit more to cover this month before test prep can begin in full swing. So here goes with all the updates and info you need to know.
Here is my flashback from the last snowpocalypse (aka SMOWLD):

Spoon Boarding on the Driveway

Cole babysitting little 

           

Ice Science Project

                  

Word Monster!

Snow Day HW: 
  I sent home 3 pieces of work. 1 geometry pre-test, 1 social studies CRCT review packet, and 1 recipe booklet.

Directions:
  Math Pre-Test: Just let your child do this independently and then send it back to me. You are welcome to check it and go over it with them afterwards if you like. THIS IS MATERIAL WE HAVE NOT LEARNED YET. So, most of your children will bomb the test....and they know it. We like to look at our growth! :)
SS Packet:   Allow your child to work on ONE section at a time. Ask them to read the information (which is an extension of our historical figures from Aug-Sept) and answer the questions that go with that section. If you'd like to, you can review their answers. You can also encourage them to underline the information from the reading that answers the question(s).

Recipe Booklet:  This will require your help since we have not learned how to add fractions.  The students have brought home a booklet with a recipe glued inside. They have to double and quadruple the recipe. For an extra challenge you can have them triple it or 1/2 it as well. You can use actual measuring cups to illustrate how to double, quadruple, or half a recipe. You can also choose a different recipe if you like.
                                         We Will Go Over All of It At School On Wednesday (?) 

THIS IS MY WORK FOR TOMORROW....

Now for other news and info.....

Chinese New Year Celebration
  We will be performing for Chinese New Year on Friday at 1pm in the Village Plaza! Come by and listen to us sing in Mandarin! PLEASE DRESS YOUR CHILD IN RED  for the celebration.

 Valentine's Day
    I am planning on doing a "What is Love" activity with the kids on Friday morning and they can hand out Valentines Cards if they want to. I don't think we will have much time for anything else that day. I will bring in a special snack for them that day. I have included the class list in the email I last sent to you.

CRCT COACH BOOKS
   We would like to order a consumable set of books for each child. This would include 1 math, 1 ELA/Reading, 1 Social Studies, 1 Science. I will be sending you a letter from Ms. Wilson with an order form attached if you are interested. Look for it coming soon!

Multiplication:
    We are slowly plugging away at our X facts. 2 students have mastered all of their facts to 12 so far!!! KEEP PRACTICING! We are going to be making a X lap book shown HERE. Hopefully this will help some of our strugglers!

FRACTIONS:
  We are finishing up with fractions. We started out with a class average of 40% on our pretest and ended with a 91% class average!! I'm super proud! I'll share your child's specifics with you at conferences.
     Here are some photos of the kids working with magnetic fraction bars and pies. Special THANKS to Mrs. Gerber for buying these for the class!

WONDER:

  Here are the vocabulary words we will be exploring while reading WONDER......It is such a great book.

Have a nice day off.....:) 

We're Back...Finally!

Hello Friends,
  It was a great feeling to walk into such a clean building yesterday! It is spic and span, no kidding. The air feels and smells cleaner and the walls look whiter! We lost our rug to the trash since they found mold (the regular kind, not black) located on the backing where it was drenched from the AC leak back in August. So, if the kids want to bring in a towel to sit on they are welcome to do so. One of our wonderful parents already donated another rug so we will have a place to sit again very soon!
  ALSO...I had loads of time over our extended SNOWLD break, so I completed another Donor's Choose project. Thanks to some gift certificates that carried over from Project Projector and some friends donating a few more bucks....we are now looking for a new chart stand to be delivered in the next 2 weeks!
   I also taught Mr. Cole how to read!! I cannot even begin to express how proud I felt when he read the sentences I wrote for him. Being a parent is really such a gift!
                               
 

 4th Grade Updates:
        I know many of you are very worried about the status of 4th grade.When I attended the Board Meeting on Saturday, I asked about the status of planning for 4th grade and suggested that we publish some sort of communication to parents of 3rd graders in order to help alleviate some of the worry. The Board was in agreement.
       ******Here's what I  know so far,  a site survey has been completed and Tim Alborg has developed a plan for securing funds for trailers as well a pricing plan that covers the logistics and rental fees for the next 4-5 years. Mrs. Wilson passed out teacher intent forms for next year and they are due 2/6. This will help her to determine how many teachers need to be hired for next year. I have recommended a few very good peers who are looking to change jobs and join the GLOBE team. The hiring process is at the forefront of her mind and the ball is rolling for securing quality teachers for next year. The hope is that it can be done before teachers in the area are required to sign their contracts.
  SOOO...just breathe....it is going to be ok! Grade Chairs are meeting with Mrs. Wilson on Thursday to further discuss plans for next year.

TESTING:

  MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Testing will take place in the next few weeks. Our class is taking a practice test tomorrow and the real tests will be administered on 2/12 and 2/17, Reading & Math respectively. It will be administered online and your child may take anywhere from 35-55 minutes to complete each section. The test is designed to measure where your child is exactly as it relates to grade level material. With each correct answer, the testing program ramps up the question to increase the difficulty level or with an incorrect answer it will decrease. We will take the test at the end of May as well.

ITBS & COGAT:

    I am hoping to get our class scores for both tests so that I can begin looking at Gifted Eligibility and schedule testing. If you are unsure about your child's scores you can visit THIS LINK for a slideshow that explains each section of scores quite well.

Board Meeting:

   As you may know, there is a called Board Meeting Wednesday at 7pm. We should get some information regarding leadership and planning for next year.

  I will post photos and curriculum plan updates later this week.....

Goodnight All! Thanks for being AWESOME! :)