Journal Writing

This week are beginning work on journal writing.  We are talking about writing 7up sentences this means that each sentence needs to be 7 words or more and contain a complete thought using correct punctuation and capitalization.  Our goal is to next week be able to write 3 journal entries as if we were children in the Native American Indian tribe we are studying.  We will be doing some research this week about our tribes and making posters before we do our entries so we are more familiar with them.
Hope you are all having a great week.

Our week

I haven't posted all week but we have done a few fun things.  One of the things we did is on Tuesday we made Chex mix to practice our measuring. They had a great time making it an then Mrs. Black got to join us while we ate it.  We have begun our unit on Native Americans  next week they will be studying  tribes and by doing research on in books and on the computer.  I hope you all have a great weekend.  

11-28-11 Weekly Note

Humrichouse Happenings

November 28, 2011

  I hope you all had a very pleasant Thanksgiving break, I had a great time with my family and from morning meeting I can tell that my students enjoyed spending time with their families as well.  We are entering a very busy time of year with all of the “extra stuff” happening I will try to keep things as consistent as possible here for the kids. Homework packets will come home until the last week for December please make sure to get the reading and math done, if you don’t get to the handwriting that is fine the practice at home is paying off for many students repetition is very important to master some skills like subtraction with borrowing.    Next week is music concert on Monday the kids will need to be there at 6:45. 

Reading

This week in reading we are working on cause and effect, though the students get the basic parts of it reading and figuring it out in a story is different we will work on it in several stories this week. We are working on “ur” as in fir, her, learn, and burn for our phonic skill this week.  As you look at the homework packet please make sure they are doing the questions at the bottom of the fluency page as this will help the skill of inference and deeper thinking. 

Math

            We are working measurement now our first part was on standard measurement and metric inches and centimeters.  Then we will work on capacity and make chex mix at the end of the week for practice.  Finally we will work on time and calendar. When we come back from Christmas Break we will begin our study on multiplication. 

Social Studies & Science

We continue to work on our daily geography. We will finish up our paper on compare and contrast of our planets to earth then start a unit on Native Americans.

Grammar

We are working on past tense verbs and subject verb agreement.   

Hope you have a great rest of the week and as always call if you have any questions.

433-1056 Central Building

Tina Humrichouse

Kindergarten Reading Buddies

Whoo hooo!  Today we got to read to the Kindergartners.  Our goal is to make reading buddies with them and our kick off was today.  We hope to have this grow throughout the year and have the kids make connections with younger kids.  This class will be 5th graders when we our moving into the new buildings and the kindergartners will be 2nd graders so we are working on relationships for the future. All the classes throughly enjoyed the time, attached our some of our students reading in Mrs. Petche's room.  Looking forward to a year of buddy reading. 

Measurement

Today we started our unit on measurement. This unit is very fun for the kids because it has so many hands on activities.  We will be working on this unit until Christmas Break, we hope to do several different projects with this math unit.  Our objective is to help the student be able to measure in inches, half inches, feet, yards, and miles and then centimeters, meters and kilometers.  As in all things everything you can do to this at home will make it much more real for the students. One of the class projects we will do will be to make class Chex Mix, we will include a variety of different things in the mix and if you would like to add please let me know, thanks in advance.

Today in math this class did the COOLEST (sp) thing.  I asked them for different ways to make a 12.  I couldn't believe what they did.  They gave me 26 ways to get to a 12.  This class ROCKS!!!

Planet Posters

Today we are starting our planet posters, this is the culmination of our unit on earth and space.  Each group is responsible for answering seven questions and then finding three facts that they really like. The group will then present their posters and information to the whole class.  After this is completed they will compare their planet to the earth and write a compare and contrast paper on them.  I am looking forward to this process, their curiosity to learn drives them, which is what education is all about, teaching them to problem solve in studies and in life.  Have a great day!

Georgine Wessel

Once a month Georgine Wessel from the Monona County Extension come for science enrichment. Today she came and talked about beavers. She showed us a video that documented a beaver dam being built near her home.  She showed us the trees that the beavers cut down.  How far they drug the trees to the pond and where the dam was being built.  The kids asked great questions and as usual Georgine provided us great information. Be sure to ask your kids what they learned. The picture above shows Georgine in Mr. Adams room, she visits all classrooms when she comes.  Thanks for the visit Georgine, looking forward to many more. 

Observations

          Spent last night grading subtraction with regrouping if you get a chance could you please go over a few problems with your kids, they have problems likes 41-28 down, but not problems like  521-234  or 600-374. We of course do them vertically but the blog won't let me post them like that so if you could write them vertically that will help.  I know they can they just need more practice.  This weeks homework packet will include this kind of subtraction.  
           The other things that I graded looked fine, thanks for your efforts kids.  I also have a parent volunteering in my room this year and am looking for a few more if you would be interested, I could really use help from 9:30-10:10 or from 12:00-12:30.  Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for becoming a follower of my blog.       

Solar System Project

We had an awesome time is PWIM today.  We have been talking about our earth and the actions that it takes in our solar system.  Today the kids after watching a short clip and us discussing it, they came up with this great paragraph and they were able to demonstrate it in groups of three.
"The earth rotates on its axis. The moon revolves around the earth. Together they revolve around the sun on an orbit."
See if they can demonstrate it at home with you, I was so pleased how they did here at school.  Way to go class you make me proud.

Physics Experiments

Today we had a great visit from Mrs. Gay and the high school physics class. Josh Westendorf, Seth Seward, Dani Foss, Zach Maule, and Alex Black did 6-8 minute presentations of different physics experiments.  The kids were totally enthralled and loved every minute, so did this teacher.  I thank them all for doing this and for all of their hard work.  They also had the students help with the experiments which made it even better.

Welcome to our Blog

Welcome to our 3rd grade blog.  I am going to post our weekly acitivities and you can follow this as well as our weekly note.  I will try to add things that we do during the week and post pictures when I figure that out.  We had a great time yesterday for Halloween, thank you to all the Halloween committee for providing the treats.  Our Halloween Fluency walk went great and the community and the children had fun.