Just Plain Thankful...

Hello Friends,

 I cannot begin to express my thanks to you for such lovely and thoughtful gifts. I am one very fortunate teacher. I sincerely appreciate your gifts and your support. I love your children and our little family in room 212. I wish you all a happy and safe holiday filled with snuggles and laughter. Y'all make me smile.

Beth :)

Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.

Zig Ziglar

The Countdown to Vacation Has Begun!

It's been a crazy busy week...as usual! MAP testing is over and now the excitement for holiday gifts, activities, and family visits is setting in. I hope we can get some work done next week!

Updates:
1. No RRJ due on Monday! (The children know this...but I wanted to keep y'all in the loop)
2. Math HW was due tomorrow but I told the children that they can bring it in and we will finish it in class tomorrow!
3. I apologize if  I put the wrong date on the Government test. We took it yesterday. I think everyone did quite well. It's really more of a measure for me to see where/what I need to re-teach. Government is a tough and complicated concept for 8 year olds. (and 40 year olds!)
4. There is no community circle tomorrow but we will have it next week.
5. Our Winter Brrr....eakfast is next Friday immediately following Community Circle. I will ask Ms. Lofstrand for a procedure so that y'all aren't standing around waiting to sign-in. I'll get back to you on that.

Even though we had testing..we still managed to learn about Non-fiction text features, we began looking at text structures, we dug for minerals in our cookie rocks, and discussed area and perimeter. The students also managed to learn about Pompeii...which was not part of my plans, but they were super interested in it after reading a text about volcanoes!


We have also started reading The Mighty Miss Malone  by Christopher Paul Curtis.  If you want to know more about the book click HERE for a review and synopsis.

AND....Here they are!

Check Out the ROCK WALL..............................

We wrote what we knew already.......

We did some reading and added to our knowledge...

In case you are wondering about DIVISION....we are not learning to use long division yet. (That's 4th grade) This is how we solve division problem. If the dividend is not evenly divide then we have a remainder. 

Cookie Rocks and Minerals!

Mr. Soons and I at a MADMEN Party last weekend

The Plan for the next 11 Days!

First, I'd like to say THANKS SO MUCH for the book. I literally balled my eyes out as I read it! What an amazing gift! I am so happy and lucky to get to teach your children and hang out with them each day.

  We did some furniture moving and altering this week. I think it's working well. The children never liked sitting at their tables and spent most of their time sitting or laying on the floor so we "chopped" off some of the table legs and WE LOVE IT! (There is still regular seating available just in case!)

 I also decided to let the kids use the tables as a writing surface for a spelling rules lesson...they LOVED that too. I heard things like,"This feels so wrong, but it's so cool!" and "Is she serious?" LOL!

UPDATES AND INFO:

Math: We added another row to the math homework sheet...but don't worry if it seems difficult. Your child should be able to use a strategy to divide but may not yet know how to actually divide using the OLD SCHOOL way...I prefer if they use repeated subtraction, pictures or opposite operations/fact families to solve. Also, it's not a big deal if they don't get it yet. We are still in thick of learning our Multiplication facts! Please continue to work on the facts at home each night. We've tested on 2's, 3's, 5's, and 10's. Tomorrow we will do 11's and 4's for those students who are ready. We keep track using our class chart. 

  We are also making our own X and / board games this week and next week! We will be playing the games next week with Mrs. Yoo's class.

Social Studies: We are currently combining our Non-fiction reading and writing unit with learning about 9 historical figures. They are all important to our history because they exhibited similar key traits. These traits are part of the 3rd grade standard. Your child needs to able to identify and discuss the meaning of the traits as well as discuss how the figures exhibited some or all of the traits. We will be working hard on this throughout January. 

  FIGURES

Paul Revere

Frederick Douglass

Susan B. Anthony

Thurgood Marshall

Mary Mcleod Bethune

FDR

Eleanor Roosevelt

Cesar Chavez

Lyndon B. Johnson

TRAITS

Liberty

Justice

Tolerance

Cooperation

Diligence

Courage

Leadership

Freedom of Conscience of Expression

Respect and Accept Authority

*****We will also be taking our GOVERNMENT TEST on December 10th. Please encourage your child to study, practice the sort activity, and watch some of the videos listed on the study guide that was sent home on Monday.*****

Science: We will be working on Rocks and Minerals and doing experiments and activities all next week. Mrs. Yoo and I are planning some fun things to provide a break from all of the MAP testing we will be doing next week.

Reading & Writing:  Non-fiction! We are reading and writing NF texts. If you have any old National Geographic magazines or Time etc...please send them to school. We will be looking for NF text features and making a book from the clippings. (For example: graphs, charts, time lines, captions, etc)


ELA:  We are working on plural spelling rules, using commas, and we will start root words, prefixes and suffixes soon.

I am surely forgetting to tell y'all something........I'll post again if need be. Please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions.