Newsletter 9-20-12

Ms. Little’s Third Grade Beacon

September 20, 2012

Upcoming & Important Events:

·        Thursday, September 20th – Back to School Night 6:30 – 8:00

·        Friday, September 21^st – Scholastic book orders due

·        Friday, September 24^th – Dismissal at 12:30

Classroom News:

Sophia: In Art on Monday we got our idea books so we could get ideas for how to make faces out of our initials. We cut out our initials with colored tissue paper. Then we glued the letters on a big piece of paper.

Colin: Yesterday we played a game in the classroom about Math. The game was about three ways to write a number. They are word form, standard form, and expanded form. Expanded form looks like this: 200 + 60 + 2.

Phaydan: Our class is doing a postcard project. We contacted our family and friends and asked them to send us postcards. Four people in our class got postcards already.

Lily: In Music we sang one song called a choice of our song name. We had fun in Music. We worked in groups, too.

Madison: We wrote about a story called How I Spent My Summer Vacation after we read it with a partner. It’s about a little boy who has an overactive imagination.

Jesse: In Math we played a place value game. One person read the card they chose from the bag out loud. The other person made the number with the place value blocks.  Then we checked that they made the right number.

Brenna: In Writing Workshop we thought about objects that matter to us. For example, the object I thought about was my doll. I wrote about the day after I got my doll.

Tatyiana: We got big United States maps. On our maps we are writing the names of the states. I live in the state of Massachusetts. I like the map.

Ali: Last week we started our acrostic name poems. First, we got a chart and wrote down all the adjectives that started with each letter on the chart. Then, we wrote the real poem and added words to make the lines longer. Then we were finished.

Katie: We voted on our class newsletter name. Last Tuesday we came up with ideas for a name. Then we made a list of the names. The name we chose was Ms. Little’s Third Grade Beacon.

Seanalee: Last week we read about the Olympics in Time for Kids Magazine. I read about a guy who had no legs that ran the race. I also read that Missy Franklin came home with four gold medals and one bronze.

Seamus: We have Library on Wednesday. Last time we had Library was last week. We had so much fun because we got to play on the computer.

Jameson: In Writing Workshop we wrote about places that are important to us. I wrote about Johnny Camp because it was my grandma’s birthday and we always go there for her birthday. I also write about Coco Keys. Jake, Anthony, Jake’s Dad and I went to Coco Keys and we had fun. I went in the hot tub, too.

Daniel: At Gym on Friday we practiced passing soccer balls. We played Freedom Ball and warmed up by doing relays and stretching. We all were sweating.

Emily: On Tuesday we used watercolors for our poems. We drew a picture and then put black crayon over our pencil lines. Then we took our watercolors and started painting.

Molly: Last week our class went over to Ms. Burns’ classroom and had first grade reading buddies. My buddy was named Megan. Then we helped them read.

Logan: Last week we started chip trading in Math. This is how it went. We had a white board, an eraser, a dry erase marker, and a big piece of paper with four up and down lines. We had a partner to help. The 1^st column was the thousands, the 2^nd column was the hundreds, the 3^rd column was the tens, and the 4^th column was ones. We rolled the dice and say it ended up as a 3, you have to put 3 chips in the ones space. When you get 10 chips in the ones place, you have to trade the 10 chips in for 1 chip to put in the tens column.

Tyler: I like Writing Workshop because we do it in our notebooks. I wrote a story of when I went to Ocean City. It was awesome there. We wrote about people that are important to us and moments we had with them.

Nathan: We started cursive on Monday. We learned the letters of the word “it.” For example, it looks like this:             . We liked it because we all wanted to learn cursive.

David: Ms. Little is reading us the book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. The main character is a china rabbit. He is the toy of a little girl named Abilene. Abilene’s grandmother made Edward for her. Abilene’s parents don’t really care about Edward. Edward doesn’t like this because he thinks he is a perfect rabbit. Every night Abilene says to Edward that she’ll come home to him when the little hand is on the twelve and the big hand is on the three. One night when she said that and left, their dog Rosie snatched Edward in her mouth. When Abilene’s mom came in she said, “Rosie, drop it!” Rosie dropped Edward. Soon after, Abilene’s family went on a boat to London. Some boys were tossing Edward around. One boy didn’t catch him and Edward went overboard and sank to the bottom of the ocean. He was caught by a fisherman and so he lived with someone named Nellie. Then he lived with Bull, and then with Sarah Ruth. Now he lives with a boy named Bryce.

Ms. Little: Our Back to School Curriculum Night is tonight from 6:30 – 8:00.  I will present important information about the third grade curriculum, expectations, and daily routines. If you are unable to attend, I will send home handouts of the material that was presented with your child on Friday. Hope to see you there! J