Here's What We've Been Doing! :)

Just a few photos of last week's work! NF Text Features Posters and Fraction Name Art!

Important Updates and INFO!! :)

Hello Friends!
     It was a great week! We accomplished ALOT this week and I am proud of the kids. They worked hard and they are SMART!

Classroom Needs: Clorox wipes (or some sort of non-toxic cleaning spray), paper towel, GLUE STICKS, milk crates (4) if you have any lying around.

1. We will be doing a book study starting next week on the story WONDER by R.J. Palacio. You are certainly welcome to purchase the book ($8.50 at Target) so that your child can read along with me, however, it is not required.

2. The Greece Travel Brochures are due January 31st...feel free to email me with any questions you may have.

3. The students will be taking a field trip to Synchronicity Theatre February 25 or 26th (I'm not sure about exact date for 3rd grade yet) to see a play based on Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.  More details to come once I have them

4. Geology 'Field Trip' coming in the next few weeks. (Again, details coming soon)

5. SIX FLAGS Reading Logs: You will receive a reading log this Friday that you can complete with your child for a free ticket to Six Flags! It would be super fun if we could all go together. Can you believe I have never been there?!

6. ITBS Scores are in the building! I am meeting with Ms. Wilson at 9 am tomorrow to go over them.
* ****I am also going to ask LOTS of questions about 4th grade plans as well as get the questions answered that were collected before the holidays. FYI..I am hoping to move up to 4th grade next year.

7. MOLD: You all read the official word from the Board about the mold, its location and type. I am keeping the windows cracked and the heat off as much as possible. Honestly, the kids never feel cold! The bids are in and there is talk of closing school for one day in order to get everything deep cleaned. You will be receiving more official correspondence on this most likely tomorrow.

8. LICE: There have been some lice sightings in the 2nd grade...just an FYI.


 I know I am forgetting something but I left my list at school today...so I will add the rest tomorrow...:)
                           
                                                         THIS WEEK
SCIENCE FUN: We learned about HEAT this week and we conducted several experiments.
1. How the body warms up from movement, specifically heat created by friction (rubbing our hands together) 2. How food coloring moves in HOT and COLD water. We recorded our hypotheses and tested our theory. Ms. Morgan's class came in to join us and help out!

MATH: FRACTIONS
     We have learned the vocabulary associated with fractions: part, whole, numerator, denominator, equal groups, unequal groups. We have made fraction bars and compared fractions, created name art and wrote sentences about the fractional parts of our work, and we looked at fractions on a number line.

We are going to work on comparing and ordering fractions next week as well as determine how to create fractional sets. If you are baking this weekend, it may be a good idea to ask your child to help and take a look at the measuring cups and compare the sizes of each.

MULTIPLICATION: We are still working on X Fluency...so please keep practicing at home. If you'd like to print out the fluency practice tests you can visit THIS LINK>>>> and click to download the number/facts you need.
 

NON-FICTION TEXT FEATURES

     We made feature flip books this week and we are in the process of crafting a text features diagram poster...I'll post them when they are finished!

                                                        NEXT WEEK
ELA: WONDER, contractions, forms of BE
Writing: Persuasive Speeches
Math: Fractions on number line, comparing fractions, LCD
Science: Heat (finish)
SS: MLK Jr.


Have a great weekend!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 Hello Friends! I hope that everyone had a lovely winter break, my husband and I enjoyed our trip to Spain and I am still a bit jet lagged! I fall asleep every night at 8pm with Cole and then I am up 3 a.m. every morning. The good thing about that is that the house is quiet and I have watched the entire 1st season of Scandal. (It's very good btw...)


MANY THANKS!
  I wanted to send a great, big, heartfelt THANK YOU for all of the gifts and goodies I received for Christmas. I am amazed and grateful for your thoughtful and kind gifts! I have worn my scarves ( a girl can't have too many scarves...in my opinion) and earrings, sipped on delicious coffee in my new mug, and travelled in style with my new make-up bag and new music courtesy of the itunes card! I have gift cards galore  and cash to use for a little shopping trip I am planning with my girlfriends in a few weeks. I thank you so much for generosity. I am a very lucky lady.  (I also need to lose about 5 pounds from all the goodies....I ate the seasoned pretzels on the plane to Spain and we had the Alon's cake for dessert with friends on Saturday before Christmas)

I'd also like to thank you for coming to our party and basically planning it! :) It was a huge help to have you all there helping with the games that Mrs. Hudson planned. I think the kids had a great time!

Here are few iphone photos of Spain...Ken (aka Ansel Adams) takes tons of photo with his fancy camera and I'll post some of those later....

DELICIOUS SPANISH FOOD!

Cordoba and Granada: Mezquita, Alhambra, & Ruins

Granada Old Town & Ruins

NOW...BACK TO REALITY!

We are finishing up our informational writing unit and the students have worked very hard on their booklets. If your child has not finished, he or she will be bringing it home over the weekend to complete it. Here are a few finished projects:

L: Cover Photos and Content  R: Draft to Published Page

AT HOME PROJECT:

  We finished our unit on Greece before break but I'd like the students to expand their knowledge by creating a brochure on Greece. This will add to our informational and persuasive writing units as well as provide a challenge for the students to read about a topic and analyze and synthesize the information. They will need your help with using the web or checking out books at your local library. I will send a rubric and checklist home as well as the brochure template. The template is 4 pages long, however, if your child only needs 3 pages to meet the requirement that is fine too. This will be due at the end of the month. I am thinking JANUARY 31st. Of course I would encourage the kids to complete it before then but I want them to have enough time to enjoy the next few weekends. 

That is all for now....

Next Week We begin:

Persuasive Writing: Speeches, Petitions, Editorials
Adverbs, Words with Multiple Meaning, Possessives
Fractions
Heat

HAPPY VACATION!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! SPAIN HERE I COME!

This Week....
   We've been very busy and a little wild since it was a full moon and the excitement of vacation is on the brain!  We have been working really hard on our information booklets. Thank you Mrs. Gerber for coming to help us! :)  Most kids are finishing their rough draft and/or publishing their work.
  I had really ambitious dreams of having ALL of the projects completed and TYPED but we didn't quite get there. The good news is that we will finally have access to the new computers in the lab/library! Moving forward, your child will be learning some word processing skills (if they don't have them already).
      * NOTE *    If you are looking for a stocking stuffer, you may want to add a jump drive to your list as each child will need one after the break! I'll send out a reminder after we return.

    That said, most kids have handwritten their work this time. IF they choose to, they can always type their work and print it out at home over the break. I am not making this a requirement but some kids have said they want to do it.

      SO: HW for writing is basically to print out any photos your child may want or need for his/her booklet. (TYPING OPTIONAL)


  Here are some works in progress:

Publishing

Research: Looking for Shark Photos

Drafted page

Designing A Layout

Creating a Booklet Cover

Conferencing With Wu Laoshi

HAGAR'S HOUSE

     We decided to talk about the gift of giving this past week and the kids did a service project to collect goods and stock the Hagar's House pantry. They made posters and little skits or service announcements to perform in each classroom. It was really sweet and super cute to watch them wok together on this. We will collect all of the boxes around the school and sort the items today. I am so proud of them for the work they did. Your kids are so kind and special. I have sent some of the videos directly to you via email so look for those! 

    

STAFF PARTY

   We had our staff party on Wednesday! It was really nice to be together outside of the GLOBE'S four walls. We danced with the belly dancer and did some SALSA with our Latina ladies! I know we all left with that warm, fuzzy feeling we had at the retreat. 

Here's a photo of the 3rd grade team. We are excited to add Ms. Shunnarah after the break. Ms. Estrada will be teaching all of the Spanish for grades 2 & 3! 

     

FAMILY 

Finally, I would like to wish you all a wonderful winter break. I hope that you are able to relax, enjoy and celebrate the holidays and New Year. I am so grateful and honored to teach your children each day. I LOVE coming to work because they are all amazing and brilliant little people. Each child in our classroom is special and unique. I appreciate them for EXACTLY who they are and I love them all like family members.

 My family:

  

My awesome Sister in Law

MY Wonderful 2nd Parents (in laws)

I will always believe! 

Cole believes! (picture by Elena)

LOVE

 My Vacation

 My husband and I started a tradition 13 years ago...

     We travel at Christmas. This year we are going to SPAIN!! We will be in Madrid, Cordoba, and Granada. Cole will stay at home with his grandparents but next year ......he's coming to PARIS with us! So...start saving friends and we can all meet at the Eiffel Tower in 2014! 

xxooo

Fun Stuff!

First I'd like to say thank you for the books, flowers, and kind emails! Y'all are so good to me!

P.S. This is Mr. Cole writing apology letters to his after-care teachers for not making good choices.......Shaking my head! 

Science Experiments:

   I took a detour on the Ancient Greece topic to finish up the last of the science unit on Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils. We popped our homemade rocks out of the molds we made in October and made some scientific hypotheses. We also made fossils and are currently completing the last part of an experiment on Fossil Fuels!  More to come in SS starting Wednesday. 

Chinese Culture:

   Wu Laoshi taught the students about the geography of China today. They put together puzzle maps!

Just a little peek into our day....

Recent Developments...

Friends,
  In light of recent events, I would like to take this time to assure you that the leadership changes and shifts that are taking place do not and will not effect my love and dedication for GLOBE, your children, or my ability to be an effective educator. This is a new school with lots of growing pains. In my experience I have learned that maintaining focus on the job at hand, the curriculum standards and the children is the best way to insure that the job is done with fidelity and rigor. I hope that your confidence in my teaching abilities remains unwavering and that you understand that your children are getting a wonderful and rich education here at GLOBE. I ask that you try to remove yourselves from any of the other non-curriculum related discussions that are buzzing around. It will not serve you or your child. In situations like this, there are many sides to every story and it is best to allow those directly involved to deal with it. At  the end of each day, we are all human beings with thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and humility. At GLOBE, we are striving to teach our children to have empathy and respect. This is a time for us to model these virtues. I love GLOBE. I love teaching and I love your kids. Moving forward, I will work even harder to improve myself as an educator and your child's academic abilities.

With Love,

We're Back At It!

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! I had the flu for the first weekend of break but I was able to shake it off and head to New Orleans with my boys! We had a lovely and DELICIOUS time. We took Cole on a swamp tour, climbed the live oaks, went 'antique' shopping, and ate wonderful meals all over the city!  (We stayed with friends who had a great babysitter!)

Check out Cole's 'really old fashioned phone'

Assessments:

   I am working on getting these little children to become better spellers! The next few months will be intensely focussed on spelling patterns, word work and word sorts! So I will be collecting more specific data on the areas we need to practice more frequently.
   The students have started grammar morning work each day with a quick mini review before morning meeting. The morning work is a quick 10 sentence activity that focusses on all the 3rd grade grammar standards.
  We also made a chart to track our progress with math fact fluency! I'm devising a plan to celebrate each child as he/she learns all the facts with fluency! Each child is tested with one minute fluency tests at his/he own pace. So don't worry if you see that your child's chart isn't as full as the others.....

last but not least .....UPDATES AND INFO:

1. We have a projector! YAAAY! Thanks so very much for helping! We have watched videos on Greece, fossil formation, and Madamoiselle has shown some French videos as well!

2. The book fair is almost over.
Family Night from 4-7 on Thursday Dec.  5th and it will be open on Friday from 7:30 am-10:30 am. The kids have really enjoyed shopping there this week.

3. Wishes/Needs:
     * I am looking for 3-4 milk crates to use for each table's materials. If you have one sitting in your garage or basement that you don't need or want, send it in! I'll take it!
    * Card Stock ....we need some for our info booklets. If you've got some to share, we could use it!

Thanks so much......Y'all are the best!