Newsletter 5-23-13

Ms. Little’s Third Grade Beacon
May 23, 2013

Upcoming & Important Events:

·        Monday, May 27^th – Memorial Day (no school)

·        Tuesday, May 28^th – Up Day at Fowler

Classroom News:

Katie: Last week we wrote alphabet poems. There are two kinds of alphabet poems. There is one kind where each line starts with a latter of the alphabet. The other kind of poem is where you write the alphabet in the corner of the paper and whatever letter you use, you cross off the letter in the alphabet in the corner. You have to use all the letters at least once in your poem. So those are the two kinds of alphabet poems.

Seamus: We got to write our own fiction stories about whatever we wanted. It was really fun. Everybody had good stories. My story was called Mango Wars. Mrs. Berry came in to teach us how to do creative writing.

Phaydan: In Science we made parts of a plant posters. First, we read a paper and underlined what we thought was the most important sentence in each paragraph. Next, we got a big paper. After that, we drew a flower and made a background. Then, we wrote the sentence that we underlined and drew an arrow to what part of the plant we were writing about.

Nathan: We learned about four parts of a plant. These are the roots, stem, flower, and leaves. We had to make posters about it. We wrote what every part of the plant does. I think my drawing was good. For example, the stem grows up so the plant can reach sunlight.

Cherokee: In Read Aloud we finished A Series of Unfortunate Events and started a new book called Swindle. It’s about two kids that were having a sleepover and not a lot of people came because they thought that the house was haunted. Then they found an old baseball card when they were in the old house. Then they went to a store to see how much it was worth and the guy who worked there said, “I’ll give you $120 for this,” but the baseball card was worth more.

Colin: In Math we were dividing arrays into groups in books. For example, one question said to find 1/5 of 25 so we did 25 divided by 5 and the answer was 5. There were 17 questions in all. My arrays were tiny. I like math a little.

Seanalee: We finished our essays. My essay was about how everyone should respect nature. I had fun doing it. It was hard to do because there were so many steps. First we had to write an introduction, then mini stories, then a conclusion. Then we wrote our final copy.

Madison: In Gym we ran 4 laps and we had to do 10 sit-ups and 10 jumping jacks and a 5 second plank. Then we played dodge ball with Mrs. Foss’s class. I got Ali out two times. I had a lot of fun. In the middle of the game we had to jump in order to throw the ball.

Jameson: Last Thursday we played recorders in Music. We were recording us playing the recorders. We were playing Pop Goes the Weasel, Jingle Bells, and Starlight, Star Bright. Then, at the end of Music we went to recess.

David: In Math we used to be doing fractions. There is something in fractions called mixed numbers. Mixed numbers are when you take a whole number and add a fraction on the end. For example, 2 ¾ is a mixed number. They were fun.

Brenna: We wrote final copies for our essays. My essay was about how people should be kind. We had to write nice and neat. We took our time. We wrote our final copies on pretty pieces of paper and colored in the border.

Emily: Last week we wrote rhyming poems. The first two we had to do were couplets and triplets. A couplet is a poem that has two lines and they both rhyme. A triplet is a poem that has three lines and the rhyming pattern can be AAA or ABA. The A stands for the rhyming part of the poem. And when you were done with those you could do a quatrain (a poem with 4 lines) or a rhyming poem that’s as long as you want it to be.

Daniel: On Tuesday an artist named Erin Sweeney came. We made little books. We drew our dream house. We also drew a dream store. And we drew ourselves. We are going to put them in cases we made in Art.

Tyler: Last Monday in Art we had some fake flowers in front of us. We had to draw the coolest flower we saw. And then we colored it. Then we made a background. When we were done we packed up and went home.

Tatyiana: Last week at Library we did Type to Learn on the computers. We had to type so we put our fingers on J and F. Mrs. Patino also read a book to us about the presidents.

Molly: Last week we had Math MCAS. We rearranged our desks in lines. Some of us chewed gum. MCAS stands for Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. It was not fun.

Ali: The week before last week we started working on poems. Ms. Little said we needed themes. The themes are so we can write poems about the same things. My theme is Christmas/holidays. So far we’ve written haiku poems, alphabet poems, and rhyming poems that were couplets, triplets, and quatrains.

Elizabeth: We learned about Haiku poems. A haiku poem has 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables. The second line has 7 syllables. And the third line has 5 syllables. So a haiku poem goes 5, 7, 5.

Lily: Last week we saw our 1^st grade reading buddies. We got new buddies. My partners are 1^st grade Jada and 3^rd grade Brenna. We read two books. The books were very good. We read a book about a dog.

Jesse: Mrs. Copley from the bank came in to talk about money. She brought in money from different countries. She passed them around. She stayed for 20 minutes. I learned that different countries have different types of money and that I should save my money.

Logan: We signed a paper that is going to go on a t-shirt that we will get on the day before the last day of school. We had to write our name on the front or back of the paper. All the 3^rd grade kids will get a shirt. The people print what’s on the paper on the shirt. Have a good weekend. 

Ms. Little: Thank you to families who have contributed shared classroom supplies throughout the year. We are running low on tissues, extra snacks (goldfish, saltines, graham crackers), and pump bottles of hand sanitizer. Any donations would be greatly appreciated.  Enjoy the weekend.