I have a lot to say, so brace yourself:)
First of all, I would like to thank you all for spoiling me rotten before the holiday break. You sure know how to make a girl feel loved!
I need to apologize for being so out of touch since we've been back. We are fighting the flu at my house and I have not been here at school since last Wednesday. So far we have two victims. It started with Ava and while the rest of us (not counting my husband because he thought he was immune) took our own preventative doses of Tamiflu, now my husband has come down with it. I'm hoping and praying that the remaining 3 stand strong. However, I came back to about 4 out with the flu in one room and 5 out with the flu in the other! I am pulling out the sanitizer, we'll be wiping down desks every morning, and I encourage you to talk with your kids about the importance of washing their hands before eating, after sneezing, coughing into a sleeve. My fingers are crossed it doesn't touch everybody by the time it's all over. We had 23 kids out in 3rd grade today and I think we sent home 2-4 more during the day.
Also, I discovered over the break that I was missing a few emails from my distribution list. So if you've haven't been receiving my updates in the past, you should be now!
Right before the holidays I sent out an email to each individual student in my HR and in Ms. Hoyle's HR with your child's mid year MAP scores. I hope that you all received those. If you didn't, please let me know and I can resend. Overall, they did a fabulous job and showed lots of growth. We're very proud of them!
Just a reminder that the end of the quarter is quickly approaching. We are wrapping up some missing assignments and the gradebook should be current by Friday. The last day to fix/add grades is the 21st.
So let's get into what is going on in Math and Science and Social Studies:
Math:
We are continuing to work on Math Facts. Remember that students may continue to retake quizzes at any time for a higher grade! I just checked the quizzes from Friday and sent them home today. There will be a retake opportunity tomorrow and again during the week. They were a little disappointing since that was their only homework last week for math.
We began learning about Area yesterday. We are using the formula length x width = area. I stressed with them the importance of labeling their answer with square units. We will broaden this to include real world scenarios for area and perimeter. For example: Seth wants to build a fence for his yard. If the yard is shaped like a square and one side is 7 ft long, how many feet of fence should he buy? OR Seth wants to buy carpet for his bedroom. If the dimensions of the room are 8ft by 10ft, how many square feet of carpet should he buy?
Science/Social Studies - Geography, Landforms, Bodies of Water
We have a unit here that combines science and social studies objectives. We will learn about bodies of water and salt vs fresh water reservoirs and how to find relative and absolute locations, continents, cultures, and the physical environment. We will be observing the cultural differences of different countries and how they compare to the United States. Mrs. Maas is helping us by working with the Google Earth program in the computer lab during Technology Classes.
The final project for this unit will not be a test, but a project - DUE ON MONDAY FEB 2nd!! On Friday of this week, the students will be assigned a country that is a member of the United Nations. They will list their top 3 choices and I will assign them as fairly as possibly. No two students in the same HR will have the same country. Please talk with them about what countries they may want to find out more about. It may be a country from your family history. It may be a country you've visited and would like to find more about. It may be a country that one of their parents is from originally. They will be given their research paper on Friday so they know what information to look for and you can begin at home. They will have the opportunity to do research next week in class as well as work on their presentations the week of January 26-30th. Use those new library cards and find some books to bring to class. The final product will be a PowerPoint type presentation. We want learning how to use this program to be part of the process here and realize that there will need to be some parent and teacher support in how to import pictures or a hyperlink and navigate the program. The writing of facts and information should be in their words. I will show the students several examples of what my students have done the past two years. I will try and get these uploaded to my weebly website by this Friday so that it will help give you a vision as well.
Students may bring in devices and zip drives to work on these at school. We will have some access to iPads and I MAY be able to get a few Chromebooks from the library. But they can also go into the library and use some of the computers in the Media Center as well. If you have devices and can look for a presentation type app like that they can use in class, we'll have time to work on them at school too.
iPad - Keynote, Prezi, Google Slides, Haiku Deck
Kindle/Android - Deck Slideshow, PowerPoint
So they will have two full weeks and three weekends to work on this project. Next week will be a great time to get a lot of this work done as they will only need to practice math facts and work on their projects for HW. Ms. Hoyle has said that research reading can be counted toward the reading HW requirement, just note that in their logs.
For now our due date is Monday, February 2nd (We may adjust if MOST need more time, but we hope not to as we won't get to all our needed units). In the past we have been able to get in about 4-5 presentations a day and have them wrapped up by Friday. We will display the presentations on the SMART board and they will teach their classmates about their country. Some students in the past have dressed up and others have brought in foods that native to their country for us to taste test (we had canoli's from Italy, various cheeses or jellies - of course everything has to be store bought, and we'll have to keep an eye out for nut products). This is by no means mandatory, just a fun piece. The students will complete a simple rubric for their peers telling them something they learned from the presentation and something they liked.
I am attaching one example of a PowerPoint done by Jack Carriker when he was in my third grade class.
Ok, now that you've read this novel, I'll let you go! Thanks for bearing with me. I wanted you to have as much preknowledge as possible. Also, if you see any concerns or issues heading in, please shoot me an email so we can iron those out ahead of time.
Thank you for your continued support!