Last Post

This is the last post of the year. Thanks for following. I have been asked to close this website so it doesn't stay up forever. I will leave it up for a month or so longer though. So, if there are any games or videos you'd like to watch do it soon!

Have a great summer!

The Hobby Fair

Odds and Ends

- Today is our hobby fair at 2:30. Students will be bringing their things from the hobby fair home tonight.

- Students will also bring home their states pillows tonights.

- We'll be cleaning out desks tonight so they will also be bringing home their extra desk supplies, notebooks, and folders.

- Remember, tomorrow we will not have a picnic, but there will be several fun activities still planned for the half day.

Folklore Village

I had hoped to take more pictures during the activities, but the adults were doing the activities too so I didn't get as many as I had hoped. It was a beautiful day for our field trip and it was lots of fun too.

Below is a slide show of the day. There is music if you'd like to play it. In the top left hand corner is a speaker button and if you click on it will play the music.

May Reading Calendars

Don't forget that the May reading calendars are due on Tuesday, June 1st. You need to have the calendar turned in on Tuesday, but the extra reading recess will be on Wednesday, June 2nd due to the field trip.

Have a great break and enjoy the beautiful weather!

June 3 Calendar Items

On June 3rd we will have a couple of activities that have been added to the calendar.

- First, is the elementary awards ceremony, which is from 1:00-1:45 p.m. Awards will be given to third graders for their attendance, at home reading, and a citizenship award.

- The other activity is the third grade hobby fair. The Van Clan will present their hobbies starting at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. We will have the hobby fair in the room and students will be able to present their hobbies to other third graders. It is a rather informal event, but parents are welcome to come if they can.

No End of the Year Picnic

A letter was sent home on Friday that Iowa-Grant will not be having a picnic this year at the end of the year. There will be an activity day and buses will leave at 12:20.

Also in the note home was to remind everyone that back to school night will be on Thursday, August 26 and pictures will be taken at that time. Picture envelopes will be sent home in the mail.

State Pillows

This is the same letter that is being sent home tonight:

As a culmination to our study of the states of our country, each student will be researching one assigned state and creating a pillow with key information on it. The pillows will be displayed for a few days and then sent home the end of the year.

All of the work will be done at school unless a child wants to bring his/her pillow top home to work on it. The research and sewing will take place here.

Your child needs to bring in (1) piece of white fabric and (1) piece for the back both measuring 12X12 inches. The back can be any color, print, etc. For the white piece, an old pillowcase or piece of sheet will work fine if you don’t care to purchase material.

Please cut or help your child cut the material at home. Doing two pieces individually is quicker than us doing 30 at school. These pieces need to be brought to school by Monday, May 24.

I will provide the thread and stuffing for the inside of the pillows. The children will be doing their own sewing with an adult right beside them.

Thank you for your assistance. This is a fun and learning experience to end our study.

State Game

In social studies we are studying the 50 states. Here is a game where you can practice. We are starting in the in the West and moving east. So far we've got the first 20 or so states covered.

State Game

Field Trip Chaperone

Thanks to all the parents who volunteered to be a chaperone for our field trip on June 1st. Unfortunately, we can only invite one parent, and we drew from the list this morning. Brylie's mom was the winner!

Also, thanks to the students and parents for turning in their permission slips quickly. We have them all turned in and ready to go.

Flower Claymations

Check out our flower claymations below. To finish our unit about flowers we had groups make claymations on the blooming of a flower. We talked about it a little as a whole group, but each group had to create their own claymation. They did a GREAT job of working together to finish their project. Each child also made their own version in PowerPoint, but these are the group versions with everyones photo. Enjoy!

Updates

It's been a while since I've updated what we are doing in the classroom. Below gives a brief synopsis of each subject.

Math: We just started Unit 10 this week. This unit has to do with weight and measurement. The only other unit we have left after that is Unit 11 and that is a very short unit. We should be able to finish all the math lessons this year.

Language Arts: We went away from our reading series for a couple weeks to read the story Family Pictures and make a book of our own. Next week we will start the last unit. We probably won't get to all the stories, but will have time to read four more. The next story is I'm in Charge of Celebration.

Social Studies: Next week we will begin studing the 50 states. We'll make a state pillow at the end of this unit (which I will definitely ask for help with. I am not a sewer).

Science: We are finishing our plant unit this week by making a claymation of the growth of a flower. This is a fun project and I'll try to post each group's claymation on the web (I've never done that before, but I should be able to get it to work).

Reading Counts: The class continues to excel at our Reading Counts program even as the year comes closer to an end. We have one student over a million, one over 400,000, four over 250,000, six more over 100,000, and two over 60,000 words! It's great to see the kids sneaking an extra minute here and there to finish their reading books.

Softball

I recieved a note today about softball practice so I'm leaving it on the blog as a reminder.

What: Softball practice
When: 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 8
Where: Livingston Old School Baseball Diamond - CHANGED TO COBB

Folklore Village

Our field trip this year is to Folklore Village and is on Tuesday, June 1. Folklore Village is located in rural Dodgeville. A sack lunch will be provided for that day and their lunch account will be charged.

On Friday, May 7 I will be sending home permission slips. Student need to return the permission slip as well as $3.00 by May 14. The $3 is to help defray a portion of the trip. On the sign-up sheet there is also a check box if you are able to chaperone. One adult per class will be drawn at random on May 14 to chaperone on the trip.

There are a few other notes on the permission slip and if you have any questions please e-mail or call me. If you'd like to know a little more about the location you can go to this website: Folklore Village

Pocahontas

Martin Luther King Jr.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Chief Joseph

Alexander Graham Bell

Daniel Boone

Bill Gates

Amelia Earhart

Wild Bill Hickock

Hellen Keller

Eleanor Roosevelt

Annie Oakley

Albert Einstein

Family Reading Fest Tonight!

The Family Reading Fest is tonight (April 27) from 7-8 p.m. Every child who comes gets a free book!

Also, along the lines of reading, congratulations to Nathan for surpassing a million words for Reading Counts. Awesome job!

Harry Houdini

We started our biographies today, so each day I'll post of picture of each student and the name of the character they portrayed in their presentation.

CNN Story and Video

Here is one more video and story about the meteorite and presentation at Iowa-Grant. There is a story and video included in the video and actually shows a first grader finding his meteorite.

CNN

Weekend Game

Word Search II

Meteorite Stories

I'll try to keep up with some of the stories running from the presentation at Iowa-Grant today.

This article is from Wisconsin State Journal. It has several pictures too (one with Mrs. Moen and some of her students).
Wisconsin State Journal


Video from Channel 15:

Meteor Presentation

Here are some pictures of the meteor presentation given by the Chicago Field Museum. It was a big event with lots of journalists and camera crews so watch the news tonight to see if you are on TV.

Also, we looked on the surveillance cameras and school to and found the playground light up in the night sky. Go to about 20 seconds into the video to see the light. The scientests said today that there was more than one flash of light, which means more than one piece of meteorite fell through the sky. You can see that in the video too.

Biography Schedule

Below is the biography schedule. You can click on it to see it more clearly. I'll send the schedule home with the kids tonight too.

Students: Make sure that you practice and are ready to go next week!

Children's Choir and Field Museum

Tomorrow the Platteville Children's Choir will be presenting in the cafeteria for the elementary. Each year the choir comes and performs at the school, and there are several students who are from Iowa-Grant. Unfortunately, the third graders who are in the choir won't perform until fourth grade.

Also, after the choir there will be a presentation about the meteorites by two experts from the National Field Museum in Chicago. This presentation will go from about 10:15 until 11:00. This is a unique time in our school district and a unique opportunity to have experts in the field discuss the meteorites. If you think you have found any meteorite samples the experts said they would be glad to analyze them.

Meteor Follow-Up

I found a cool article that says people will be looking for fragments of the meteor right around Livingston, WI!

Above is the doppler image where they think the meteorite landed.


Meteorite Hunters

Calendar Updates

The calendar has been updated. There are a few new events that we have.
- April 19 - Cyber-Bullying Presentation - 6:30-8:00 - Room 100 - This is a presentation for parents about cyber-bullying. I know many third graders are already using the Internet, facebook, and other social networking sites. This helps inform parents about how to prevent some of the negative aspects of the Internet.
- April 19-23 - DIBELS Testing - The students will take their last set of DIBELS testing during the week. This is the test that measures their oral reading.
- April 21 - Platteville Children's Choir - 9:45-10:15 - The choir comes to perform for Iowa-Grant. Every year there are several students from the school district who are part of the show.
- April 27 - Family Reading Fest - "It's Raining Cats and Books!" - 7:00-8:00 - Our annual Reading Fest will be on Tuesday. Please bring your child if you are able.
- April 27 and April 30 - MAPS Testing - We'll take our second set of MAPS testing on the last week of April. These are the tests taken on the computer that test math and language arts.
- June 4 - The Last Day of School - The last day has been set for Friday, June 4th even though we had 3 snow days. June 4 will also be a half day for the students. We will not have to come back on a Monday!

Midwest Meteor

There was quite a buzz this morning about the meteor that was seen last night at around 10:00 p.m. It's pretty big news, so I included a link about the video of the meteor.

If I Had a Million Dollars

This week we are reading If You Made a Million in language arts. To go along with that we also have Royal Bank coming in to speak to us today (Monday). We will also be listening to the song If I Had a Million Dollars, which is below. The kids will write their own verse about what they would do if they had a million dollars this week.

	If-I-Had-A-Million-Dollars .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Weekend Question

There isn't a game for the weekend, but a challenging question.

In the picture above there are only three colors (NOT four). What three colors do you see in the picture?

Evergreen Cones

We need cones from evergreen trees for an experiment next week. Please bring in one (or a couple more if you can) evergreen cone for the experiment on Thursday, April 15.

Biographies

The kids brought home a book and handout about the biography that they will be doing. They need to read their story and then take notes about their person. They will then dress up and present their biography to the class.

There is a sign-up sheet on the back of the page. We'll present the biographies between April 26-30. There are three time slots each day that we can do biographies. The time slots are 9:00-9:15, 12:40-1:00, and 2:20-3:00 each day. If you are going to come please turn in the sign-up sheet or e-mail me when you can come by April 19 so I can send home a schedule.

Flower, Flower, Flower

Don't forget to bring a flower to school tomorrow (Friday, March 9) so we can dissect it in science class. Remember to just cut the flower like you would to put one in a vase with the stem included.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

- Above is an updated a list of the spring conference schedule. Conferences are tonight and they should run around 10-15 minutes per student.

- Report cards will be sent home tonight (April 6) so you can see them before conferences.

- We also go to the book fair today to buy books. If your child did not bring money for the book fair today you cans still buy them during parent/teacher club.

Reading Calendars

The kids did a great job of remembering their reading calendars after spring break! We will continue to do reading calendars throughout the rest of the year, but March was the last month for the Book It Certificates. They will still get their extra reading recess, but there will be no more personal pan pizzas.

Congratulations to the following students for turning in their calendars!
Elizabeth
Hannah
Haylee
Peyton
Allyson
Nathan
Keaton
Carter
Brandon
Hunter
Charity
Brylie

Sunrise/Sunset

This is for when we return to school.
Sunrise: 6:45 a.m.
Sunset: 7:26 p.m.

Don't Forget Reading Calendars!

I won't be posting over break (I'm sure you are all disappointed). I wanted to leave a reminder for the students to return their March reading calendars at the top of the blog. The calendars will be due on Monday, April 5th.

I did not send home the April reading calendar today; therefore, the kids will have a break at the beginning of April. I'll send out the new calendar on April 5th too.

Finally, for students who always want to comment on the blog. When you finish a book over Spring Break, you can post the name of the book in the comment. To comment, click on the Comment link at the bottom of this post. Type in our message and at the bottom put in your name under Name/URL. Just put in your first name and skip the URL part.

Spring Conference Schedule

Below is the schedule for Parent/Teacher Conferences after we get back from break. I was able to give almost their first option for the time they can come in. If the time on the schedule doesn't work just drop me an e-mail (avanovermeer@igs.k12.wi.us) and I can change it. The kids are also welcome to come to conferences. As I've told them, they should already know what I'm going to say, but I think it's good for them to know how they are being evaluated too.

Weekend Games and a Few Notes

There are a couple notes that are being sent home tonight that I wanted to make you aware of.
1. Penny Wars is next week. The student council runs it and the money goes to Relay for Life for cancer research. Students can bring in any coins and if we have the most money in the elementary we win a prize.
2. There is also a sign up for summer baseball and softball. The meeting is on Tuesday, March 23rd at 7:00 p.m. in the IGEMS cafeteria.

Finally, the weekend game. We began learning how to write a research paper this week as a class. The group decided to research St. Patrick's Day and we found lots of information about the holiday. You can ask the kids for some facts they learned about the holiday. Since we studied St. Patrick's Day, I put a game about it up.

Several Updates

1. The third graders need small boxes for an art project they are doing. Cereal boxes or tissue boxes will work great.

2. A reminder that Family Fun Night will be on Thursday, March 25. It's from 6-8 p.m. next week.

3. The Book Fair will begin next week too. We have two visits. The first will be on Thursday, March 25 to look around. They will create a wishlist on the first visit. The second visit will be after Spring Break on Tuesday, April 6 to buy books. If you would like, you can also go with your child to buy books during parent/teacher conferences.

4. Finally, a quick note about parent/teacher conferences. I will set up times on the half hour for you to come visit and send them home. Conferences are on April 6 and 8 from 4:30-8:00. I will send home a sign-up sheet for parents to choose their preferred time, but if you'd like to e-mail me I can sign you up that way too (avanovermeer@igs.k12.wi.us). If you e-mail me, just tell me the date and a time you'd like to come. The students are more than welcome to come in and listen too.

Spring Party

Get a Voki now!


Our last party of the year will be on Friday, March 26th from 10:30-11:30. Dezmon, Charity, Trysten, and Brylie will be in charge of the treats and activities.

Verbs!!!

Here's the School House Rock video for verbs. We begin studying them them this week for grammar.

Family Fun Night

Today I am sending home an invitation to the Family Fun Night Sock Hop.

Here are the basics:
- Thursday, March 25th
- 6-8 p.m.
- IGEMS Cafeteria
- Costume Contest: Dress in 50s attire for prizes!
- Free Admission
- Concessions will also be sold

Star of the Week

Last, but not least! Our last Star of the Week of the year.
March 15-19

Reading Counts Goals

We continue to do reading counts and several students have met new benchmarks this week.

We currently have one student over 500,000 words read!
Three students are over 200,000 words!
Three more students are over 100,000 words!
Seven students (and everyone in the Van Clan) are over 50,000 words!

Keep up the great work!

Weekend Game

Turtle Dash

Harriet Tubman Video

Updates

Hopefully I don't jinx it, but I took down the link to channel 3000s delays. Along the same line, students don't need to bring snow pants to go on the playground or grass anymore. They do still need to wear boots though. Our playground usually is pretty wet and messy for a while after the snow melts.

On April 12th the Royal Bank comes in to talk to the third grade about saving money. They do a presentation each year.

Also, the third grade field trip will be on Tuesday, June 1st. We go to Folklore Village and as we get closer I'll send out more information and permission slips. If you want to see a little more about Folklore Village you can visit their website: Folklore Village

Finally, remember that next week on Wednesday, March 17 we have an early release.

Star of the Week

for March 8-12

Underground Railroad

Today we are going to take a trip on the Underground Railroad. The link below gives you options that Harriet had while traveling the trail. Be careful, if you make the wrong choice you may get caught!

The Underground Railroad

First Birthday!

This weekend was Alstan's first birthday. There's some music to go with if you click the speaker in the top left corner. Enjoy!

Weekend Game

Here's a game where you need to multiply to help win in tractor tug-a-war.

Tug Team

The Crowded House

Here are a few pictures of our dress rehearsal of our play The Crowded House.