Holiday Happenings

Parents,

Please be sure to check the calendar on the left hand side of the screen for information about the many activities we have next week. We are going to be VERY busy with lots of holiday fun before we leave for break!

A few reminders: 

• Please remember to send a packed lunch with your child on Monday for the Challenger field trip.
• It's going to be a cold day Monday and we will be out and about in the frigid weather. Be sure to bundle up your child for the field trip!
• Don't forget to send in the breakfast items you signed up for Thursday morning. Be on the lookout for a reminder in the agenda book at the beginning of next week.
• On Friday, we are dressing in holiday attire for Reindeer Day. We want to really ham this up, as we are going to go caroling to our Little Buddies' classroom. We hope to surprise them! 

Finally, Mrs. Williams and I are compiling a holiday packet that will be due when we get back from break. We want to make sure the skills your children have been learning thus far in class stick with them when they return to school in January. In addition to the packet, please be sure to be working on multiplication facts with your children (flash cards are great at home and on the road) and to always have a good supply of books with your child to help build comprehension and fluency skills. The public library is a great holiday "field trip" to take your child on, as they are able to not only check out literature there, but also have full computer access (FCAT Explorer, Go Math, and Imagine It games/old tests.)

Stay tuned for updates and reminders within the next week. Pictures will be posted of all our exciting activities! 

Happy Holidays!

Stuff the Stocking

We are planning to “Stuff the Stocking” this year for all of our classmates! I am asking that each student bring in a stocking to hang in class by next Wednesday, December 8^th.

At our holiday party, we will exchange treats with one another. Our holiday party will be Thursday, December 16^th. Your child will need to bring a small item to put in his/her classmates' stockings. We have 18 students. Please remember not to spend a lot of money on this! It can be 18 candy canes, 18 little dollar store toys that come in the large packs… nothing fancy! 

So remember, your child needs:

1.)  A stocking ( large sized : can be bought at the dollar store) (by Dec. 8^th)

2.)  18 items to stuff in each stocking. ( ex: 18 candy canes or 18 pieces of gum.) (by Dec. 16^th.)

We Voted!

At the precinct with our voter registration cards.

Election Day 
November 2, 2010

Classroom Updates!

Well, I got a little behind on updating the blog. Here are some things we have been up to lately!

We have been busy collecting Box Tops to help our school raise money. Don't forget to check your groceries and clip any Box Tops you see (they look like the icon above.) Once they are clipped, just send them to school! It's an easy way to help us fundraise! Box Tops are due Friday, October 29th for the school competition!

I had to post this picture. I thought this was pretty creative! Although we won't be making Big Mac pumpkins in our class, please remember to send in a mini pumpkin with your child for our party on Friday. We will do various activities with them! Also, we are still in need of party supplies, so please be sure to sign up to bring in a snack, drinks, or paper products!

Don't forget your child can get on the Imagine It! website and retake past tests for practice! We have worked through a couple of old tests during our centers, but it is always helpful to work with your child at home on these tests to improve test taking/comprehension skills. Just click the green progress reporter button once your child logs in and it will take you to a page that looks like this:

Your child can choose a test to complete. Once it is graded, you can click the green "report" tab and see your child's scores. It's a great tool to improve test scores! 

We met our Little Buddies a couple of weeks ago. Pictures are coming soon. We are just waiting on a few of our kindergarten friends to get photo permission before posting any pictures on the blog. You would be very proud of your third graders for setting such a wonderful example for our younger friends! We will meet with them again the first Friday in November.

Please remember to email me if you have any questions regarding our class.

Technology at Work

We are very fortunate to have a technology enhanced classroom. Not only do we have a Promethean board, but we have many other cool tools to go along with it. Mrs. Owen has something called a slate that allows her to write on the Promethean board from any place in the room! It looks like a ghost is writing on the board sometimes, but we know better now. We are still puzzled how exactly this thing allows her to perform this magic trick, though.

The students also have some new gadgets to play with! Mrs. Owen set up the ActivExpression remotes yesterday, and both Mrs. Owen's and Mrs. Williams' classes got to use them during reading class. Mrs. Owen put questions on the board. Each student had a remote and everybody gets to punch in their answers. When everybody's answer is in, the board registers a poll to see what percentage of the class chose each answer choice. We then see if the majority of the class chose the correct answer. It is a great monitoring tool, and it keeps EVERY student tuned in to learning. The students also like to call the remotes their "cell phone" because you turn it on the same, it feels like you are sending a text message, and you have to press SEND to get the answer to go through! Too funny!

 Jermirca, Justin, and Aaryan type in their answers

 Mikayla chooses her answer on her remote

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Finally, we all know Mrs. Owen has her own voice enhancement microphone because we see it around her neck all day! But, our classroom is also equipped with a handheld microphone to enhance student voices as well. We used this microphone today in class to take turns reading aloud from our Imagine It! story. We get to look like rock stars while we read our stories! How awesome is that?!?!

 Giovanni reads aloud to the class

Kristin reads aloud using the microphone

Animals and Their Habitats

We just finished our unit on "Friendship", and are now moving into Unit 2 in our Imagine It! books. Our new unit is called "Animals and Their Habitats." Our first story taught us how one tree can be a home to MANY different animals! We also talked about ways humans are able to protect animal's habitats. We know a big way to do that is by not littering and keeping our earth clean. Can you think of any other ways?

Don't forget you can log in to the textbook website. Just click the link to the left of the page titled Imagine It!, and it will take you to the log in page. It looks like this:

At the top where is says username and password, enter the login found in the front of your child's agenda book, along with the password. You will want to select Unit 2 Lesson 1. There are games and the textbook can be viewed online! This is an example of what our story looks like this week:

Just scroll through the pages! You can have your child read the story aloud to you, or they can listen to the story by click on the speaker. There is also a highlighter that will highlight the selection vocabulary and say the words and definitions for them. There are questions at the end of the story you can do together! It's really cool!

The Flat People Are Here!!!

We finished creating our "flat people" in our writing class. We are now learning how to write a friendly letter so we can send them on their way for an adventure! Check out the slideshow of your children with their flat people! They turned out really cute!

This photo slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Parent Night

Parents. Don't forget Third Grade Parent Night is this Monday, October 4th in the media center! It will be from 6:00-6:45. Please join us to find out important information about this upcoming year. We will discuss curriculum, promotion requirements, our procedures, and give you an inside look at what your child's year will be like in third grade. We hope to see you all there!

Flat Stanley

We just finished reading a book called Flat Stanley. In the book, Little Stanley Lambchop gets flattened by a bulletin board while he is asleep. He uses his flatness as an an advantage to mail himself off to California to visit one of his friends. We are going to "mail ourselves" off for an adventure of our own. The class has been asked to think real hard over the weekend about somebody they would like to write a letter to that lives in a far away place. It could be another town, state, or even country! On Monday, an information packet will go home detailing the materials needed. If you want a head start, here are the things you will need to send in by Wednesday:

• Two stamps
• A baggie full of items to decorate the flat person with (fabric scraps, sequins, googly eyes, felt, etc.) Only enough for your child's flat person
• The name and address of the person you plan to write to

Here are some pictures from last year's Flat Stanley project:

 Example of a boy Flat Stanley

 Creative example of a girl Flat Stanley

This student received a package in the mail with lots of souvenirs from a family member who took her flat person on an exciting adventure! It's always exciting for kids to get mail!

This project is famous worldwide. You would be surprised at all the Flat Stanley networks there are! The class got really excited today when I showed them some very famous people with Flat Stanley (President Obama, Regis Philbin, Muhammad Ali, even the NY Giants just to name a few!)

For more information click the following link: Flat Stanley World Wide!

Pictures from Constitution Day

Check out the slideshow from our Constitution Day ceremony. Our school was decked out in red, white, and blue to show our patriotism! Florida Supreme Court Justice, Peggy Quince came to speak to our school about the importance of the Constitution. We learned how it protects our freedom. We learned about the Bill of Rights, and how there have been amendments made over the years to go along with the changing times. For example, women were not allowed to vote until the 1920s! The 19th amendment allowed this to happen! So, even though the Constitution was created over 200 years ago, it is still a document that is important and continues to govern our country to this day.

Create your own digital slideshow

We the People...

Constitution Day is tomorrow! Don't forget to wear your red, white, and blue! We are going to have a wonderful assembly in the morning at 9:00 AM. We want to show our spirit and remember to be thankful for this important document that protects our rights and freedoms!

Here are a few links you can check out to learn more about our Constitution:

• Constitution for Kids
• The Preamble
• Ben's Guide to the Government: The Constitution
• The Bill of Rights
• From the White House: The Constitution
• Constitution Games

Constitution Day is Coming!

Constitution Day is Friday! We have been learning all about what the Constitution is and why it is so important to our country. We learned a song today in class (both Mrs. Williams' class and Mrs. Owen's class) and we practiced singing the words to the Preamble of our Constitution. Click the link below to see the video we watched in class today and get your child to sing the chorus of the song for you! 

The Preamble - School House Rock

We Love Reading!

We began switching classes on Thursday and have had a wonderful time doing so! In our reading class, we we read a great play about two friends named Damon and Pythias who were very loyal to one another. The class was assigned parts and we had a day to act out the play and create our own music when it was called for!

Not only did we read a great story, we have been working on our grammar skills. Last week we talked about nouns and this week we concentrated on verbs. To help your child remember the difference, have them log in to Brain Pop. Our username is: springwoodelem, password: owls. Brain Pop has a video about anything you can imagine, so by all means, take a look at as many videos as you want! Try the quiz at the end to test your knowledge.

Here's your weekend challenge! How many action verbs can you think of to describe the events in this picture?

New Schedule Starts Tomorrow!

Parents,

Don't forget we begin switching classes tomorrow! Your children will have Mrs. Owen for reading and writing in the morning. After lunch, they will switch to Mrs. Williams' room for math, science, and social studies! A schedule was sent home in an email and hard copy format today. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about our new schedule.

Two Weeks Down!

Can you believe we just completed our second week of school, and that September is already here? Time flies when you're having fun! Here is an update of what we have been doing in class!

We recently began talking about place value in math class. We are really excited to be working in our brand new textbook. We are even allowed to write in it! How cool is that???? Usernames and passwords will be going home soon so you are able to access the new math series online.

We also began our unit on "Friendship" in reading class. We heard a story about a whale and a mouse who helped each other out in hard times and became great friends. We also read a story this week about two dogs named "Rugby and Rosie." Ask your child about this story, and check out the Imagine It! website if you would like to read this story, or any of our upcoming stories. All students have usernames and passwords stapled in the front of their agenda books. Not only is our textbook online, but there are also great games on there to help build spelling, vocabulary, and grammar skills. The link to our online textbook is under the heading "Frequently Used Links" on the left hand side of this page.

Keep checking the blog for more class updates, and for pictures of your children hard at work in our classroom!

We're Sailing Into Third Grade

Welcome to Mrs. Owen's Third Grade Class! I am looking forward to a wonderful year! The purpose of this blog is to give students a place to show off work, while also giving parents "eyes" into our classroom. Please be sure to check the blog frequently to see the great things we are working on in our class.