Little Grunt and Notes

Little Grunt Play  -  The students did a great job on the play today.  They were very well prepared and read their lines loudly and clearly.  Great job third graders!  I am proud of your work!

Christmas Store  -  Just a reminder that we will be going to the Christmas Store on Tuesday, December 4th.  Students need to bring in $0.25 or $0.50 before then to buy a gift for a parent/guardian.

November Reading Calendars  -  The November reading calendars are due on Monday, December 3rd. Don't forget to bring them in completed and signed.  The December calendars will go home tonight so the students can work on them starting Saturday.

Weekend Game  -  This is a good one, and kind of a classic look that goes back to my childhood.  It's meteor multiplication, and it fits our class for two reasons.  First we having been talking a bit about meteoroids and meteorites in our science unit, and we are still working on multiplication in math.  We have about two more weeks of multiplication before going on to our next unit, which is measurement.

Meteor Multiplication

Monday, December 3rd is a Full Day

Apparently there has been some confusion with the upcoming schedule so I wanted to send a quick note to so everyone knew.  Monday, December 3rd is a full day of school.

Play Tomorrow

Don't forget that the play is tomorrow at 9:30 in Room 100.  We will not be in the classroom tomorrow as we will be watching the other classes present Little Grunt and the Big Egg as well.  Please head straight to Room 100 which is near the cafeteria.

Also, if you haven't been here during the school day very often, the only doors open are the front door with the Iowa-Grant sign above it.  Once you enter the first doors you will need to go through the office doors and sign in at the office.

The students have been practicing hard and I think we are ready to go!

Christmas Store

I made a mistake on the Christmas Store prices.  Students should bring in $0.25 for each parent and not $0.50.  So if your child would like to buy two gifts they will need $0.50 total and not a dollar.  Those of you who already sent in money I will be sending the rest of the money back tonight.  Sorry for the confusion.

Christmas Store

How Much:  $0.25 for 1 or $0.50 for 2
When:  Tuesday, December 4
What:  Students are able to buy up to two gifts for parents/guardians.  Gifts are wrapped by volunteers.

Earth, Moon, and Sun

We have switched from the Pilgrims and Mayflower to the Earth, Moon, and Sun.  We will study this in science through December.  We do several cool experiments including how far away the sun would be from the Earth as a globe.  We'll do another experiment to see how the moon got its large craters too.

Welcome Back

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving break!  I have a few notes to start the new week.

• The first day off from school really caught me off guard this year.  I added a link to the blog if you want to check for delays quickly.  It is on the top right hand corner and it links to Channel 3000s website.  You can also sign up for either e-mail or text message alerts by going to the link Channel 3000 School Closing Alerts.
• The Little Grunt play is this week.  Our class will be presenting in Room 100 on Friday, November 30 at 9:30.  The play should last around 20 minutes.  Please come if you are able.
• Since we didn't have school on Wednesday we are moving the fan spirit day to this Friday.  Students can wear their favorite NFL apparel.
• The sparkling cornucopias are coming home today.  They have become a such a third grade tradition.
• We have a date for the Christmas Store as well.  We will be shopping at 9:00 a.m. on December 4th.

Christmas Notes

It always seems so early to send out the holiday letter, but I like to get it out before Black Friday (or is it Black Thursday now).  I am sending the same information below home tonight too.  

Christmas Store

When:  December 3-7 (Date to be Determined)

How Much:  $0.50 or $1.00

What:  Students are able to buy up to two gifts at the store for $0.50 each.  It gives students the opportunity to buy gifts for their parents or guardians on their own.  Volunteers wrap the gifts and prepare them to take home.

Gift Exchange

When:  December 20^th

How Much:  $5

What:  Each child will bring a gift for another student.  If your child is a girl they should bring a gift for a girl and if they are a boy they should buy a gift for a boy.  We will draw numbers randomly to decide who gets each gift.

Holiday Supper

When:  We’ll go food shopping on December 19^th or 20^th (depending on weather)

How Much:  Your Choice

What:  I know students look forward to giving gifts to teachers, but please donate money to this cause instead of giving me a Christmas gift.  Our class will donate a holiday supper to a family who otherwise may not have one.  As a class, the students will plan the menu and prepare a shopping list.  One or two days before our Christmas break, four students (with parental permission) will go with me to a local grocery store to purchase the groceries with our class donations.  The family will be someone who lives in the Iowa-Grant school district, however, neither the students nor I will know who the family is.  Mrs. Belken will deliver the food to the family without us knowing who the family is.

Party Committee

When:  December 20^th 

Who:  Abby, Montanna, Nicole, Jackie, and Alyson

What:  These committee members will bring drinks and treats or plan games and activities for our Christmas party.  We won't start planning until December though.

News and Notes

IGEMS Food Drive - The annual food drive begins today, Nov. 19, and goes until December 7.  Please bring in any nonperishable food items.  The sixth grade collects the food and all food is distributed within the Iowa-Grant District.

RIF - We will have a RIF (Reading is Fun) day on Tuesday, Nov. 20.  Mrs. Buss is the person who runs the activity.  Each child is able to take home a free book to read!  Many local businesses and groups donate each year to allow this exciting project to continue.

NFL Clothing - On Wednesday, November 21 IGEMS is doing a little spirit day.  Students are invited to wear the clothing of their favorite NFL team.  If they don't have NFL clothing they can also wear their favorite team's colors as well.

Half Day - Finally, don't forget that Wednesday, November 21 is a half day for students!

Weekend Activities

I'm not sure how much time we'll have to explore this website in class, but it is really cool.  It gives lots of information about the first Thanksgiving and the Mayflower, which we are reading right now.  We will definitely finish the book, If You Sailed On the Mayflower in 1620 next week.  If we get time we'll check out the website below.

Thanksgiving and the Mayflower


Also, here are Mrs. Hoppenjan's newsletter for November:
 November Art News

News and Notes

 - Today is Principals Read Your Heart Out Day.  As a class we are going to go down to the library and silent read with Mr. Whitford.  It should be a fun time.

 - A reminder that we will have our play on Friday, November 30 at 9:30 a.m.

 - The last day to order yearbooks is coming up soon.  Orders are due by Wednesday, November 21.  If you would still like to order but lost the order form let me know and I'll get another form for you.

 - This one doesn't give you much time, but if you would like to make an ornament for the State Capital Christmas tree there is more details at the link.  They need to be sent by this Friday though.  State Capital Ornament

 - Finally, as a class we have read over

Awesome!

Military Dogs

Last week we read about Rosie, a Visiting Dog.  Rosie helped others by visiting and we spent some time discussing other dogs who are trained to help humans in different ways.  Today in our RTI group we are going to look at and discuss dogs who have served in the military.  I thought it would fit in very well with the story and Veteran's Day.

Language Arts Schedule

Our schedule gets a little crazy the next few weeks as we have WKCEs, a short week for Thanksgiving and a play.  In math we basically just keep plugging along and try to get as far as we can each day; however, language arts takes a little more planning.

Here is the schedule for the next three weeks of language arts:

November 12-16 - WKCEs and Read Little Grunt and the Big Egg
  - No spelling this week because of testing
  - WKCEs for language arts on Monday-Wednesday
  - We'll read the story the rest of the week
  - The students will also write the paper for their Star of the Week sheet.  It lists lots of their favorites and what they want to do when they grow up

November 19-21 - Unit 2 Test
  - Short week for Thanksgiving
  - No spelling again because of the short week and unit test
  - We'll break the Unit 2 test up into all three days  -  a little each day
  - We will continue with Little Grunt and begin picking out the characters for the play
  - We will also read about Sue, the T-Rex

November 26-30 - Little Grunt Play
  - Spelling pretest and post-test will be this week with the play
  - We'll work on the play for most of the week
  - The students will present the play on Friday, November 30 at 9:30 in Room 100
  - Parents and family members are invited to come and watch.  We will be done by 10:00

Little Grunt and the Big Egg Play

November 30, 2012

9:30 a.m.

Room 100

The Family is Invited!

Article and Game

Article
Our new principal, Tom Whitford, posted this article on his Twitter feed and I found it quite interesting.  It discusses memorization and/or practice of things like cursive and multiplication facts.  As you know, our new math series spends a lot of time working with the students on memorizing their math facts.  We also do cursive when we can squeeze it and do read aloud every day during our milk and snack break.

Here is the article:  Time - Why Kids Should Learn Cursive
Also, you can follow Mr. Whitford on twitter if you happen to tweet:  @twhitford 

Games
The game this week is a style of game they have played in the room before.  It's a comprehension practice for the story we read this week, Rosie, A Visiting Dog's Story.  There is also a link to a National Geographic page that shows some other jobs that dogs have.


Rosie - Rags to Riches
National Graphic - Dogs at Work


Have a great weekend!  Go Panthers!

WKCE Testing

We started our first practice test for the WKCEs today.  The kids did the math section today and will take a practice test for language arts tomorrow.  We look over them together and then send them home.  The math section will be in their folders tonight.

Next week we will start the real tests!  We will do the language arts portion in the morning and math in the afternoon, both of which are our normal times.  Wednesday will be the only day which they take two WKCE tests, otherwise they will just do one section a day.  In third grade they only test on language arts and math.  Because of the testing we will have a limited amount of homework next week.  Also, there will be no spelling words next week.

WKCE Schedule
Monday, November 12 - Language Arts Section 1
Tuesday, November 13 - Language Arts Section 2
Wednesday, November 14 - Language Arts Section 3 and Math Section 1
Thursday, November 15 - Math Section 2
Friday, November 16 - Math Section 3

Voting and the Mayflower

We have begun studying the Pilgrims in Social Studies.  Since we also have the voting for the President today, we are going to combine the two a little bit today.  We'll discuss how the members of Plymouth signed the Mayflower Compact while on the Mayflower.  We will also discuss how the majority ruled in their community and how those rules have lasted the last 400 years!

Cursive and Spelling

We will be finishing up our work on lowercase letters today (Monday).  We'll start working on uppercase next, but we can start writing our spelling words in cursive.  Our spelling words are usually all lowercase so we'll get a little extra practice in.

Reading Calendars & Notes

Reading Calendars
Congratulations to the students below for turning in their October Reading Calendars!  Their Pizza Hut coupon will be coming home tonight.

Here are the students:  Mariah, Emma, Colton, Brynn, Abby, Montanna, Nicole, Jackie, Alyson, Hailey, Skyler, James, Hailee, Zachary, and Savannah.


Weekend Games
This week we were working on singular and plural nouns.  Here are a couple of a games where students can practice that.  The second one is much tougher and more difficult than anything we have practice so far.

• Plural Girls - Normal Level
• Plural Girls - Tougher Level

Class Schedule
The class schedule at the right has been updated to go through the end of the year (also posted below).  It seems crazy to already be into November!  I think the report cards are sent home on Wednesday, November 7.

Nov. 2 - End First Quarter - Half Day

Nov. 5 - Girl Scouts

Nov. 6 - Flu Shots

Nov. 12 - Vet's Day Program

Nov. 12-16 - WKCE Testing

Nov. 19 - Girl Scouts

Nov. 21 - Yearbook Deadline ($15)

Nov. 21 - Early Release

Nov. 22-25 - Thanksgiving Break

Dec. 3 - Girl Scouts

Dec. 13 - Christmas Concert

Dec. 17 - Girl Scouts

Dec. 18 - Christmas Concert Make-Up

Dec. 21 - Early Release

Dec. 22-Jan. 1 - Break!

Jan. 2 - Return to School

Have a great weekend!

The Galapagos Islands

We read about the Galapagos Islands this week in language arts.  Below is a cool interactive website where the kids can explore some of the different animals and features of the island.


Explore the Galapagos