Weekly Wrap Up

Whew! What a busy four day week!

We started reading groups this week. I've met with all the groups except one. We are all reading nonfiction books about animals and their habitats to complement our science unit on Ecosystems! We created an ecosystem that we will be observing over the next few weeks. Our ecosystem is the home of a fish, a snail, a water plant, some worms, and grass. We will be observing relationships between these organisms and talking about other ecosystems and habitats over the next few weeks. We started talking about producers and consumers already!

In writing, we started cursive with lowercase l, h, k, and t. Many of the kids are super excited to start cursive! We have written a few quick writes to gear up for personal narratives. We have started talking about ways authors show instead of tell in their writing. We will be practicing more with this next week!

We have continued with the conceptual understanding behind multiplication this week and will be starting with facts next week... we simply ran out of time this week! Be proud of your mathematicians though... I think they're ready for multiplication facts!

On Thursday, Mr. Villasana and Ms. Stemmons came in. They helped us set up our google drive accounts. This will be a great tool to complete assignments on the iPad and turn them in through a system called Schoology using an app called Notability. We spent some time talking about how to be responsible digital citizens as well. We will continue to reinforce these concepts all year!

And of course, we prepared for Grandparents and Special Friends Day! We are certainly excited to share our day with these special people this afternoon!

We did not do our family communication journals this week due to Grandparents and Special Friends Day. We will be writing back next week! Don't forget Scholastic orders are due on Monday! I will submit the order Monday after school. If you'd like to order online, go to www.scholastic.com and use our class code of L922Y to place your order. If your order is a surprise or a gift, send me a note or email and I will arrange a way to discretely get your order to you. I believe the cookie dough orders are due on Tuesday, so please send back those packets with payments collected. And one last note, after initialing your child's work habits and behavior checklists, please leave them in Friday Folders so we can reflect on our week each week!

Thank you!

First Day Excitement

I hope everybody is coming home with fun things to share about our day! Probably one of the most exciting things your kiddo will share with you is that they each get their own iPad… yes, their own iPad! We are very lucky to be the only third grade class at Mill Creek that has a class set of iPads. We will use the iPads to create presentations, publish writings, participate in class discussions and book clubs, keep digital journals, and sometimes even play games to help us practice and review information (as well as other things I’ve probably not even thought of yet!).

Our iPads will stay at school and will be used as tools to aide our learning. They are not taking the place of any curriculum nor will we use them all the time. I am hopeful they will make this year fun and will be a powerful resource and tool that allows us to maximize our learning and gives us creative outlets to showcase our work!

Today, we did a scavenger hunt of things on the iPad to get to know how they work a little better. It won’t be long before we are jumping in and creating new things! 

Weekly Wrap Up

Big thank you to all of you for your support! We have lots of volunteers for Bethel... now we just have to hope for no rain on Friday! In the event that our trip does get rained out, there will NOT be a rain date. It's just not possible with all the volunteer scheduling, reserving the park, etc. Instead, we will have a fun-filled day right here at Mill Creek in our classrooms, doing as many of the activities as possible and creating memories in other ways. But join me in an anti-rain dance in the meantime...

Friday folders were mostly positive, but as a class, we have had a hard time with being impulsive and not having self-control. We've been extra chatty and silly lately. As much as I am trying to keep us in our regular routine, the sweet allure of spring weather and summer break being around the corner is starting to take it's toll on our kids. Please have a chat with your child about coming to school to learn, not just to socialize. We are not done learning yet!

I've been asked to include this note in our newsletter this week: "A note about Camp Invention from Megan Kinkade: Camp Invention is where BIG ideas become the next BIG thing! Join us July 6-10 at Mill Creek, as we celebrate our 25th year of reinventing summer fun! Local educators lead a week of hands-on activities created especially for elementary school children. Boys and girls spend time disassembling electronics to create something new and taking part in high-energy games! Lessons explore connections between science, technology and innovation. Discounts are available, so register today!  Visit www.campinvention.org or call 800.968.4332 for information."

I can personally attest the amount of fun Camp Invention is! I've worked it the past two summers and the kids always enjoy taking things apart, inventing, and creating. The first year I did it, kids created catapults and other devices to launch rubber ducks at a wading pool target. Last year, they created pin ball machines and motorized cars. It is definitely a wonderful hands-on learning experience!

Field day is May 20th. The third grade time is 11:10 - 12:25. I already have one volunteer, but we'd love to have more. The station we need volunteers for is..... refreshments! No game skills necessary :) Let me know if you can help us out.

That same day will be our Farmer's Market. Students should be ready to set up their businesses and sell their goods or services that morning. I am sure your child has told you about it, and I've gotten most investor pages returned. Remember, this shouldn't be causing (a lot of) out of pocket expenses for you! Encourage your child to use things they already have!

We are gearing up for the first ever Mill Creek Elementary Color Run! If you register before May 7th, it is $5 a person or $15 for a family of three or more! If you wait until the day of (May 8th) it is $10 a person or $30 for a family of three or more. I will not be running, but I will be manning a color station! It will be a ton of fun! You can find more information at The Mill Creek Homepage where you can click on and download the registration form.

We will have Music on Monday, Art on Tuesday, Library Check Out and Media on Wednesday, PE on Thursday, and Music on Friday next week. The last day to check out library books is May 15th.

Keep reading to hear about what we've done in class this week!

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Dear families,

     In P.E., the class ran the Mile Run. We ran six laps on the soccer field. Also we started the soccer unit in gym with Coach Allen.

On Tuesday and Friday, we did a timed test. There are one-hundred problems in all. We also did XtraMath on the laptops. We got partners and played either Roll, Say, Play, or Burst the Balloon.

     In writing, we wrote Cat Tales stories. Our last Pen Pal letter was yesterday. Some sent pictures!

We talked about the Farmers’ Market businesses and services. We each have a job and earn money for the job. We save as much money as we can, so we can have money to buy, and make some.

     In Read Aloud, Miss Baxter is reading The Sisters Grimm to us. It’s about sisters, Daphne and Sabrina. Their parents (Daphne and Sabrina think) disappeared! The people at the Foster Home keep sending them to crazy people claiming to be their relatives.

     Miss Gaebler’s last day was Wednesday and we wrote letters to her. We all got pencils with an acrostic name poem with our name.

     We went to the Fifth Grade Spring Concert on Wednesday also.

We moved our desks and we get to sit next to different people.

And that was our week!

     Sincerely,

     Michaela

Weekly Wrap Up

Good afternoon!

I told the kids, but wanted to let you know that I will not be at school tomorrow. Mrs. McClelland who subbed for us in October will be with us again tomorrow! Our kids are in great hands. :)

Friday folders will still come home tomorrow and reading logs, too!

Thank you all for returning your Bethel forms! We are lucky to have so many volunteers to help make May 8^th a great and memorable day for the kids :) If you are unable to attend, but want to help out in some other way, we will need some people to fill water balloons the evening before the big event! We will provide the balloon, you provide the time and the water. We will also need a parent to help prepare our craft bracelets that students will make that day. We will prove the craft string, you will need to measure, cut, and tie. This can be done anytime beforehand once we purchase our craft string. Let me know if you can help out in either of these areas.

May 8^th  will be a very busy day indeed! After school, is the first Mill Creek Color Run! I am so excited about this PTA/Student Council sponsored event! There will be a final registration note in Friday Folders this week with more information.

We will have field day on the 20^th. I will be asking for volunteers for THAT later :) Also on the 20^th, will be our Third Grade Farmer’s Market. Your child, in a group with classmates, will develop, design, and create a small business that will sell goods or provide a service during our Farmer’s Market to wrap up the end of our economics unit! More information will be coming next week.

I think that about covers it for now. As always, feel free to contact me with questions and comments! 

Weekly Wrap Up

What a week! We started with a successful field trip to The Candy Factory! The kids loved it... especially the chocolate covered oreos we were given!

In my current Master's class, I was talking with another third grade teacher from another district and she was telling me about Xtramath.org. It is similar to FASTT math, but it is a free program and something the kids can do at home. We played with it a little bit today. There is a letter in Friday Folders so the kids can log in at home and play, too. It mentions an iPad app, but when I checked out the app, it wasn't free, so I don't know that I recommend that when they can do it on a computer with internet access. I have set my class to last until August 15th so they will be able to access it and continue practicing over the summer! (I am probably more excited about that than most of them were...)

Speaking of math facts, because we can now practice addition through Xtra Math (and then subtraction when they've mastered addition), I've set all of us to move to multiplication in FASTT Math. We can still only do it at school, but it will be good practice. We have taken X0 and X1 facts off the test this week, so if you noticed a drop in your child's score, that probably has something to do with it.

Thank you for getting those Bethel park field trip notes returned! We can't do it without a lot of parent volunteers and students will not be allowed to walk to the park with us without a signed note. If you forgot, or your student forgot, I am sending home copies with students I am still missing it from. Please get it filled out and sent back in ASAP!

Specials next week will be media, PE, music, art, and media in that order.

Read below for Braden's summary of our week!

Have a wonderful weekend!


Dear families

This week we lrned about economics and some words like bank, goods, money, basic needs, wants, producer and  some more. We also lrned about weather and how a clowd is formed it is formed by little drops of water.

We finish the 39 clues and now we reding Tels of the forth grad nothing. In the fourth grad nothing Peter is fitting with his friend and fugue is the brother and he is tiring to fly. But he fols and noks out his 2 front teeth.

    Sinsely

Braden

Weekly Wrap Up

We made it through MAP testing week! We are a lucky group... we're the only third grade class at Mill Creek to be finished with MAP testing :) Again, thank you all so much for your support!

We will have our field trip to The Candy Factory (http://www.thecandyfactory.biz/) on Monday. We will be there from about 10:00 - 11:00. Thank you for all the volunteers. We are excited for Lucy's mom, Andrew's mom, and Matthew's mom to join us for the trip as we kick off our learning about economics! It will be neat to see a business producing and providing a good to consumers. We will be starting our own classroom economy this month, too! The kids have filled out job applications, interviewed, and have been hired for various classroom jobs. They will earn a paycheck each week... if they do their job ;)

Book orders for April are in Friday folders today. I will submit the order on the 17th. Feel free to order online! The class code is on the top order form. There will be one more in May before summer break (that sentence feels weird to say... how is it almost May already?!?).

Miss Rutz came and taught us about poultry yesterday. She requested if anybody planted their glove gardens, if they could take a picture and send it in, she'd love to see the growing results! Just e-mail them to me and I will forward them on to her.

Reading logs are coming home tonight. We had a week off this week due to MAP testing, but we are going to get back into our routine and continue learning and working hard until the end of the year.

Specials next week:
Monday - Art
Tuesday - Media
Wednesday - PE
Thursday - Music
Friday - Art

I think that about covers it. Keep reading for Brandon's review of the week!

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Dear Families,                                                4-10-15

This week we had a lot of work for one we had the map test which a lot of people did their best but I did too! We also did some real math for a change we did a fun thing but ‘s also pretty productive  we had to design house’s and find the area of each room and once the kiddo’s were done with that than we had to add the total area up I got the total answer right the first time I did 25 times 24 equals 600 so than that was my total answer! Another thing we did is the pacer test yeah I know it’s hard but Andrew and Lucy both did over fifty four and so did a few other kiddo’s  so your definitely getting your money’s worth I mean what other school gets to use tech? we also learned about poultry with miss.rutz we ate hard boiled eggs which are not my favorite at all but a few kiddo’s ate the whole thing which was pretty awesome that there getting some protein in their stomachs since school lunches don’t serve protein well they serve not enough protein for a kiddo.

Anyways my arm is getting tired so I think that means that my work here is done

Sincerely,

Brandon

Weekly Wrap Up

Good morning!
Morgan wrote our blog post on Friday, and I completely forgot to publish it. 

The kids had a lot of fun seeing Junie B. Jones and hiding eggs for our Kindergarten buddies on Friday! It was a busy day :)

This week will bring us MAP testing. We will be testing tomorrow (TUESDAY) and Wednesday. On Tuesday, we will be testing from 9:00 - 10:30 and on Wednesday from 1:00 - 3:00. We will test Math on Tuesday and English Language Arts on Wednesday. We will have a snack those days and be ready to give our very best. Please help your child be ready for the day by having a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast both days! I did not send a reading log home for this week (nor will there be any other homework). If you wanted to have lunch with your child on Wednesday, our lunch time will be changed to accommodate testing that afternoon. We will eat lunch on Wednesday at 12:00.

On Monday, April 13th, we will be taking a field trip to The Candy Factory downtown to kick off our economics unit. I was mistaken when I said we would not need chaperones or parent volunteers. We will need two or three parents to meet us at The Candy Factory on Monday at 10:00. The field trip will last about an hour. Due to space, younger siblings should not attend. 

We will have specials as usual this week: Music, Art, Library Checkout and Media, PE, Music

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Dear Parents,

       

     This week was busy!  On Monday we learned how to add fractions. On Tuesday in writing we picked a short/small topic to give a “sample” of it if you know what I mean. On Wednesday in writing we shared our short/small “sample” on the carpet together oh and I almost forgot the writing sample was for persuasive writing! We also learned about Perimeter. The deffenishtion of   Perimeter is: The distance around a figure. On Thursday we learned a little about Area putting Perimeter aside for the day. The deffenishtion of Area is: The amount of space a plane figure covers. Now Friday was the most exciting day of the week! Starting at 8:55 we went to Stevens College to see the play of Junie B. Jones goes to school. At 11:00 it stopped. Another fun thing we did Friday was we hid Easter eggs

for Miss Reinkemeyer’s kindergarden class( also known as our buddy class!)J That was our week, exciding right?

                                            The writer of the week,

                                                                        Morgan