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!