Newsletter 9-27-12

Ms. Little’s Third Grade Beacon

September 27, 2012

Upcoming & Important Events:

·      Thursday, October 4^th – Picture Day

·      Friday, October 5^th – Dismissal at 12:30

Classroom News:

Molly: Last week we made cursive “it” pictures. We learned how to write the word “it” in cursive, so we made cursive “it” pictures to celebrate. A cursive “it” picture is a picture with the word “it” hidden in the picture. I thought it was fun.

Lily: For Read Aloud we are reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. This is what is happening now. Edward is in a doll store. We have snack while Ms. Little reads to us.

Sophia: On Monday Ms. Little showed us on the Smartboard how to do number patterns. She showed us how to work with numbers. We had the first three numbers in the pattern, and we had to figure out the rule for the pattern and write the next three numbers.

Tyler: For a spelling activity we did Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check. We did it because we are learning how to spell. It is tiring when we pick up the page.  It helps us practice our spelling words.

Colin: Our new homework is to read for 15 minutes each night. It is important to read. I LOVE BOOKS! I am reading Geronimo Stilton.

Seamus: We played a Math Around the World game last week. It was fun because if we beat everyone we would win a prize. I’m going to start next time we play because it ended on me.

Ali: Yesterday we learned about rounding. Rounding was stupendous. Ms. Little said, “Five to the sky, four to the floor.” For example, if you had the number 77, you would round it up to 80, because the 7 in the ones place is 5 or higher.

Jameson: Last week in Music we played Stella Ella Ola. We also played the drums. After that, we lined up for recess.

Jesse: In Gym we did relay races. We practiced soccer and dribbling. We also had a fire drill.

David: In class we played a math game where we had three minutes to see how many addition cards we could solve. We sat in a circle, Ms. Little held up a card, and we tried to get as many right as fast as we could.

Daniel: The last time we went to Library was September 19^th. Mrs. Patino read us tall tales. One of them was called Satos Do. Another one was called Blue Shoe.

Nathan: This week we received notebook planners. Then Ms. Little taught us how to use them. We could use them to write down our homework if we wanted.

Elizabeth: In Art we are making heads out of our initials. We took tissue paper and cut out our initials and we glued them on paper. After that we looked up what our names mean. And Mrs. Santillo looked up what our last names mean, too.

Brenna: In Writing Workshop we learned how to write leads. A lead is the beginning of a story. I started my lead with an action. We are writing in our notebooks.

Seanalee: We are calling people to send us postcards. We have already gotten some from Hawaii, Utah, and Colorado. It’s awesome.

Emily: Yesterday we made state imagination symbols after we learned about Massachusetts state symbols. First we had to write “state imagination symbol” and then we sketched a picture. After that we colored the picture in and put it in our finished work bin.  For example, some people did imaginary animals, creatures, and ice creams.

Madison: In Writing Workshop we are taking a big story and turning it into one little moment and taking the reader’s mind and bringing it into a whole different world. We call the big stories watermelon stories and the small moments seed stories.

Phaydan: In Cursive we learned how to write the lowercase letters w and e. We also learned lowercase i, t, u, and l. We learned twenty-three words in cursive.

Logan: Last week we started write, cut, make. It was fun. You had a pencil, scissors, a glue stick, and a piece of paper and then you were ready to do write, cut, make. To do it, you took a piece of paper with boxes and wrote your words with one letter in each box. When you were done writing your words, you cut the letters out. When you’re done with that, you glue all the words on a big piece of paper. When you’re done with that, you write your words on the other side of the paper. Then you write your name at the top of the paper. The whole thing is about learning your spelling words.

Ms. Little: Thank you to all who attended Back to School Curriculum Night last week.  I sent home handouts of the information that was presented.  The same information can also be found on our class website. Please let me know if you did not receive it, or if you have any questions about the third grade curriculum.  Have a great weekend. J