Newsletter for April 29, 2012

I don't know who Neil Barringham is for the above image, but I thought I'd share it. I really like the image and its message. We're getting close to the end of the year and I'm reflecting on all we've done and all we have yet to do. I feel we've planted seeds and watered a lot of learning and we'll continue to do so as we head into the final weeks of school. I will continue to push each learner to reach their potential up until the last day.

What We Learned This Week

This week's spelling words are batting, jogger, spotted, patting, dotted, hugged, planned, hopping, runner, robber, getting, and shopped.

The three general categories for sorting should be words ending in -ed, -er, and -ing. After students successfully make their sorts, guide them to notice that each word has a doubled consonant before the ending. Each base word has a short vowel sound and ends in a single consonant. These base words are examples of closed syllable words, words that have a short vowel sound and end with a consonant. To preserve the short vowel sound the consonant must be doubled so that the syllable remains closed when the word is divided into syllables. 

Additional words you may want to use include: begging, canned, chipping, chopped, clipper, dragged, dripping, dropped, robbing, sobbed, tipped, trapped, stirring, plugged, knotting, knitted, grabbed, slammed, redder, swimming, jogging, starring, fitted, mopped.

I am sending home one more practice Mathematics OAA today for your student. This is intended to provide additional at home practice for families who have requested it. It is not mandatory and I do not need to have it returned. I have shared with the class that I have experienced math anxiety, as much as I love the subject. My strategy was to over-prepare, to practice math so much that I was relaxed when I took tests. I hope this is a helpful strategy for your learner.

You will notice a new resource on the right side under favorites, UA Archives. Your student and you will likely find some interesting stories and photos here about our wonderful community.

http://www.uaarchives.org/cdm/

Refer to last week's newsletter to learn about RAZ-Kids. I've challenged students to read throughout the week and I've offered an incentive for the student who reads the most each week. This is a great summer reading resource as well and the tests ensure students are comprehending their reading. Please let me know if your student is struggling with their level and I can adjust it. 

I hope to see you at KidsFest tonight. I may be a bit chilly, but otherwise wonderful weather:)

Ukulele Practice Schedule

April 30 - Ukulele Orchestra.

May 1 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.

May 7 - Ukulele Orchestra.

May 7 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.

May 14 - Ukulele Orchestra.

May 15 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.

May 21 - Ukulele Orchestra.

May 22 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.

May 29 - Ukulele Orchestra.

May 30 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.

May 31 - Ukulele Orchestra Performance at 7pm in the Multipurpose Room at Windermere (more information to come). This will be our final ukulele date for 3rd and seniors.

Important Dates & Reminders

April 27 - PTO - Thank you for yet another wonderful KidsFest!

April 30 - Ohio Reading Achievement Retakes (This is only for students who did not pass in fall.)

May 1 - Ohio Mathematics Achievement Assessment (I will provide a morning snack before students begin the test. Students will start promptly at 8:30. Please make sure they are at school on time. Thank you!)

May 9 - Early Release at 1:15 for teacher math professional development

May 12 - Windermere Wish Run (see separate email for more information)

May 28 - No School, Memorial Day observed

June 4 - Field Days, send your student with a water bottle and sunscreen already applied.

June 5 - Field Days rain date

June 7 - Last day for students

June 8 - Summer begins for students

Newsletter for April 22, 2012

What We Learned This Week

It's Easy Being Green

Here are some great photos of the 3rd grade musical performance, It's Easy Being Green. Thank you Mrs. Sethi!

Word Study

This week's spelling words are had, did, hopped, patted, kidded, danced, stopped, made, called, wrote, liked, and held. The two general categories for sorting are irregular past-tense words and words that end with -ed. Ending sounds are /ed/, /t/, and /d/. Many past-tense verbs are spelled with -ed at the end, even though the pronunciation can differ.

Additional words include baked, blamed, cared, graded, ate, met, spoke, won, lined, noted, piped, scored, kept, was, were, slid, sloped, stared, tuned, waved, drank, caught, bought, taught. See earlier post http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2011/09/parent-information-highlights.html for additional activities. Activities we are doing in class include identifying parts of speech, roots, prefixes and suffixes.

We are beginning a comprehensive review of parts of speech, grammar, subject verb agreement, and tenses that will continue through the end of the school year.

Reading

We concluded our author study on Roald Dahl and will begin comparing his work with a new author, Mark Twain. We will start reading Huckleberry Finn on Monday. We will compare Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox in theme, author's message, characters and style.

I want to share a wonderful reading resource, RAZ-Kids, for your student that either wants or needs additional support. Please visit: http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login  Once on this page, you can login using the following password: jhudsonn

Your student can click on their name and they will be redirected to their home page. Please explore this page with your student to learn more about the many options they have. The page will offer at-level texts specifically chosen for your reader's needs. It also offers assessments and even a reader so your student can listen and follow along. There are fiction and non-fiction texts, as well as core curriculum science and social studies links as well. It's a great resource. The class has had direct experience with this site at school. No alignment is perfect and some students may have a too easy or too challenging text level. Please let me know if the text is too difficult. I will be able to adjust and monitor student progress. I would recommend reading one story per night on school nights.

I've challenged the class to really dig into the RAZ-Kids reading by offering a weekly prize for the student that makes the most progress each week. I'll award the student who has made the most reading progress on Monday with a selection of sealed paper bags with mystery prizes in them. They will range from homework passes to buying them lunch from a favorite fast food restaurant (e.g. Chipotle, Subway, Wendy's, etc.). Please let me know if you do not want your child to have fast food and I can ensure they do not select that mystery bag. Happy reading. This will be a great summer reading resource as well.

We began an independently selected research project. I am modeling elements of non-fiction texts: table of contents, tables, charts, glossary and index. We are using the table of contents to help us organize our thoughts and determine how we will organize our research. We started by writing down what we already think we know about the topic and questions we have. Table of contents categories, background knowledge and curiosity will drive our research practice. I hope to have students use PowerPoint or another slide show program to share their findings.

Writing

Students are working on their pen pal drafts for what will likely be our final pen pal letter of the year. I have some fun fiction and research writing projects and an end of the year convention push planned.

Math

Friday, I sent home a copy of the 2010 Ohio Mathematics Achievement Assessment. This represents your student's math homework for next week. I do NOT need it returned. Rather, I would like them to spend time on it nightly, optionally this weekend for those who want to get started, and bring in problems they are confused on. This will also introduce them to the format of the assessment as it is coming up soon. Because I want students to really absorb this material I will not be accepting any homework passes next week.

Ukulele Practice Schedule

April 23 - Ukulele Orchestra.
April 24 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.
April 30 - Ukulele Orchestra.
May 1 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.
May 7 - Ukulele Orchestra.
May 7 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.
May 14 - Ukulele Orchestra.
May 15 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.
May 21 - Ukulele Orchestra.
May 22 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.
May 29 - Ukulele Orchestra.
May 30 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra.

May 31 - Ukulele Orchestra Performance at 7pm in the Multipurpose Room at Windermere (more information to come). This will be our final ukulele date for 3rd and seniors.

Important Dates & Reminders

April 27 - Kids Fest 5:00 till 8:00. Please visit the Windermere PTO's page for more information. http://www.windermerepto.org/ The dunk tank has been cancelled. Maybe you can save your money for next year:)

April 30 - Ohio Reading Achievement Retakes (only for students who did not pass in fall)

May 1 - Ohio Mathematics Achievement Assessment

May 9 - Early Release at 1:15 for teacher math professional development

May 12 - Windermere Wish Run

May 28 - No School, Memorial Day observed

June 4 - Field Days, send your student with a water bottle and sunscreen already applied.

June 5 - Field Days rain date

June 7 - Last day for students

June 8 - Summer begins for students

Newsletter for April 15, 2012

What We Learned

This week's spelling words are: puppies, babies, teeth, armies, feet, cities, pennies, people, mice, children, berries, and men. This week revisits common plurals, replacing -y with -ies, as well as introducing many exceptions to adding -s.

Additional words you can use for this unit are: cries, flies, fries, ladies, skies, spies, geese, moose, buggies, booties, bullies, diaries, fairies, sheep, deer, nineties, pastries, posies, rubies, trophies, women, dozen, and data. See earlier post http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2011/09/parent-information-highlights.html for additional activities. Activities we are doing in class include identifying parts of speech, roots, prefixes and suffixes.

I am asking all students to write their spelling words in cursive. This will be challenging, but without the practice they will struggle to develop their letter-to-letter connections. I am not grading their cursive, only encouraging it. I am also writing on the board in cursive occassionally to develop the skill of reading cursive as the 4th grade teachers will write in cursive next year. I am checking to make sure everyone can read what I write on the board in cursive so no visual learners are disadvantaged.

Please spend some time practicing keyboarding. If you are unable to load TTL4 at home, there are lots of great free online resources. Here is but one http://www.davis.k12.ut.us/cjh/appliedtech/Business/Keyboarding/ Students will take Ohio Achievement Assessments on the computer in the near future and this skill will help them greatly. This is a good summer activity as well. There are a lot of games they can play. I've found numerous inexpensive copies of engaging instructional typing software at Half Price Books on Lane Avenue. http://www.hpb.com/052.html

We are continuing with our author study on Roald Dahl and are writing journal responses to Fantastic Mr. Fox. Students are to write in first person, past tense, and supply a descriptive summary of what we read daily. I'm very pleased with their efforts. Students are sharing daily, which is a great motivation to put effort into their responses. All students who are in classroom reading groups are reading a Roald Dahl book to draw connections to other books by our author.

We are working on our plans for our Tremont pen pals in writing. I am pushing the class to include all of the 5 W's and as many of the 5 senses as possible.

We are reviewing math with an emphasis on problem solving, including showing our work (either drawing a picture or writing a number sentence/model), labeling our answers with units of measure, and circling our answers. I presented the class with a traditional math puzzler: If everyone at your table (There are 9 students at each table) shakes hands with everyone else only once, how many hand shakes will there be. There are many ways to solve this, but one of our students, Tyler Cannon, came up with a fairly sophisticated strategy. Spoiler: You may want to try to figure this out before using Tyler's strategy.

If you would like to see previous Ohio Math Achievement Assessments, you can find them here: http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=1070&ContentID=7479&Content=122453

Mr. Schuster, room parent and UAHS physics teacher, visited us to expand our physical science unit on force and motion.

Students experiment with Bernoulli's principle which states a fast moving stream of air creates an area of low pressure and gives lift due to surrounding high pressure areas. Have your student demonstrate this with you at home. 

Mr. Schuster and his daughter/assistant, Xan, keep a ball hovering in a low pressure area caused by a leaf blower.

Xan about to launch a 2 liter bottle that has been pressurized with a bicycle pump.

Mr. Schuster and his assistant about to launch the potato cannon which uses an air compressor as force.

More soda geysers.

Important Dates & Reminders

April 16 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

April 17 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

April 16 - MOVband challenge is over. Please send your student to school with their MOVband.

April 17 - Third Grade Musical (see earlier post for more information: http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2012/04/3rd-grade-musical-performance.html)

April 21 - Invention Convention at UA High School (http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4935700267914769940&postID=5242561711290921440) As of now I do not have any registrations. I'm assuming no one is entering the Invention Convention this year. Please let me know if you sent your registration directly to Greensview so I can support your student by providing them with an opportunity to present their invention to the class and respond to questions.

April 23 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

April 24 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

April 27 - Kids Fest 5:00 till 8:00. Please visit the Windermere PTO's page for more information. http://www.windermerepto.org/ I will be in the dunk tank. Come take your best shot:)

April 30 - Ohio Reading Achievement Retakes (only for students who did not pass in fall)

April 30 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 1 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 1 - Ohio Mathematics Achievement Assessment

May 7 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 7 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 9 - Early Release at 1:15 for teacher math professional development

May 12 - Windermere Wish Run

May 14 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 15 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 21 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 22 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 28 - No School, Memorial Day observed

May 29 - Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 30 - Senior Ukulele Orchestra. Don't forget those ukes.

May 31 - Ukulele Orchestra Performance at 7pm (more information to come). This will be our final ukulele date for 3rd and seniors.

June 4 - Field Days, send your student with a water bottle and sunscreen already applied

June 5 - Field Days rain date

June 7 - Last day for students

June 8 - Summer begins for students

Newsletter for April 8, 2012

What We Learned

We completed the In View and TerraNova standardized assessments this week. These assessments are combined to determine which students are eligible for enrichment. We typically get the results back late May/early June.

We found time last week to begin our first author study on Roald Dahl, where we will look for repeating themes, language, and style. We will also study Mark Twain, Patricia Polacco, Peter Sis, and John Muth.

http://www.roalddahl.com/

http://www.cmgww.com/historic/twain/

http://www.petersis.com/index2.html

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/

http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/muth/

This week's spelling words are: dunk, unkind, wink, stunk, behind, bound, mend, remind, understand, sank, spend and blink. Spelling generalizations are words that end with -nk and -nd. When words end with these patterns the n is hard to hear.

Additional words you can use for this unit are: pink, tank, junk, mink, bend, found, friend, send, blank, chunk, drank, shrink, trend, hound, blind, bland, skunk, slunk, rank, drink, tender, lender, grounded, and sounded. See earlier post http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2011/09/parent-information-highlights.html for additional activities. Activities we are doing in class include identifying parts of speech, roots, prefixes and suffixes.

Important Dates & Reminders

The MOVbands have been pretty distracting so I'm having students put them in their backpacks or desks except for recess, lunch and specials. Hopefully, once the newness wears off students will be able to wear them throughout the day.

April 9 - Progress reports sent home

April 11 - Early dismissal at 1:15
April 17 - Third Grade Musical (see earlier post for more information: http://3rdgradehudson.blogspot.com/2012/04/3rd-grade-musical-performance.html)

April 21 - Invention Convention at UA High School (http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4935700267914769940&postID=5242561711290921440)

April 27 - Kids Fest 5:00 till 8:00
April 30 - Ohio Reading Achievement Retakes (only for students who did not pass in fall)

May 1 - Ohio Mathematics Achievement Assessment

Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

There will be a series of mathematics open question and answer meetings for the community to better understand the new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The following is from Mr. Neal Bluel, Teacher Leader for Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment.

The following dates there will be an open meeting for anyone to attend a Q&A regarding the new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The meeting will be attended by a UA City School Mathematics staff from 4:00-5:00. Anyone may come at anytime during the hour and we will make sure attendees have all questions are answered.

On the following dates: 

April 10^th, 17^th, and 24^th

May 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd 

Central Office Upstairs Board Room

1950 North Mallway Drive

Upper Arlington, OH 43221

"We would like to provide as many opportunities for community members to ask questions about the upcoming math curriculum changes due to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. This is designed to help address questions about the transition, materials for the new standards, shifts one might see in the classroom, and any other questions one might have regarding Mathematics in UA."

Any person interested in Mathematics in UA City Schools is encouraged to attend this Q&A. This can include but is not limited to parents, community members, teachers, administrators, business owners, civic employees, etc…

3rd Grade Musical Performance

From Mrs. Delcamp:

"Dear third grade families,

Your third grade student is learning about saving our planet by going green.  They are studying about this in their classrooms and are learning songs and activities in music class too.  We will be presenting a musical program that will show you what we know.  The musical is called “ It’s Easy Being Green”.

We will perform this Tuesday evening April 17th at 7:00 in the multi-purpose room.  Please have your student wear a green shirt and nice pants.  They will gather in their classrooms to line up at 6:45.

I also have a fun homework assignment .  Your child is  to create a musical percussion instrument out of recyclable materials.  They will use their instrument to accompany one of the songs in the show. Please have them bring it to school by April 9th so we can use them for practice before the show. 

We will look forward to seeing you the 17th.  It will be a fun evening for your whole family as we all learn about being green!

Musically yours,

Dulcy Delcamp"