Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with your families and friends. I can't wait to share in this joyous occasion with our son, Paxton. Please make sure you are reading and practicing your basic facts over your long weekend. Here are a few pictures of Paxton!

Time Practice

Can your child tell time on an analog clock?  Here is a link to some time games you can play with your child. It will also be added to the Links for Parents and Students section of the blog.  

Array Multiplication Game

Today we played a game that used arrays to help us multiply.  Please check out this link to play the game. You will also be able to access this game from the Links section of the blog.

Reading/ Writing/ Spelling News

READING NEWS:

This week we will be starting our Understanding Characters unit. We will start the week by getting familiar with our new read aloud, Because of Winn Dixie. We will then learn how we connect to our characters by noticing and paying close attention to the way a character behaves in the story. Next we will create theories about their characters based on details we notice. Lastly we will connect to characters through Empathy. We will do this by imagining ourselves in the story.

WRITING NEWS:

We will focus on two new types of leads in our writing: question and talking leads. We will review a number of examples of both types of leads and then practice writing our own leads. As always, we will do our 20 minute quick write on a number of different topics to wake up our brain!

SPELLING NEWS:

Spelling words went home yesterday. (Words spelled with a long e sound, spelled ee and ea)

sheep

dream

street

east

treat

mean

wheels

peace

real

cheese

leave

stream

sweet

teacher

heat

The spelling test will be on Friday.

HOMEWORK: Your child should be studying their spelling words every night as well as reading 20 minutes and recording it on their November reading log that was placed in their homework tool kit. Those reading logs will be due December 1^st.

Science Fun

 

We have been having a lot of fun in science learning about water and the water cycle. We learned about water in all 3 states of matter: solid (ice), liquid (liquid water), and gas (water vapor). We are currently learning about the different stages of the water cycle: collection, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Today the students worked in groups to make their very own "Water Cycle in a Bag." The students will be observing these over the next week to see, up close, how the water cycle really works! Check out the students hard at work, and their finished products!

 

 

 



The Little Things We Give Thanks For

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving we decided to give thanks to the little things. We each randomly chose an everyday item (light bulbs, shoes, sand, etc.) to brainstorm ideas on why we would be thankful for it. It was a little tough at first, but we all came up with some really good ideas on why it’s important to be thankful for the little things as well. After we got all of our thoughts down on paper, we got to decorate a turkey to help make it look even better!

Stop on down and check them all out!

Here is a close up!

Water Cycle Rap

Here is a link to the water cycle rap song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3NeMVBcXXU

Gleaners Can Drive

Roosevelt Primary needs your help!!

We are on a mission to help Gleaners Food Bank feed as many families as possible this holiday season. Please think about donating canned or boxed goods. Give them to your child to bring to their teacher. The teacher will tally how many items their class has donated. The class with the most items donated will win Special Game Time with Mrs. Keefe and be able to bring their stuffed animal to school for the day!  

Food Drive starts Monday, November 17^th and ends November 21st

NEEDED ITEMS: 

Canned Fruit (no heavy syrup), Canned Vegetables, Tuna Fish, Peanut Butter (in plastic jars), Healthy Cereal/Oatmeal,

Hearty Soups, Canned Spaghetti,  Pasta Beans (black, kidney, pinto, or refried), Canned Meats (chicken, salmon) Pasta, Macaroni and Cheese, Rice, Pancake, or Baking Mixes

Personal Care Items: 

Diapers
Toothpaste and Toothbrushes
Soap and Shampoo

Disposable Razors

THANK YOU for being part of something GREAT!

3rd Grade Learning Community

Today 3rd grade students met to strengthen our learning community.  We plan to do this 2 or 3 times a month.  When we gather we are going to focus on one or two objectives.  Today we learned a new behavior strategy.  Before you speak, T H I N K (T- is it true? H- Is it helpful? I- Is it inspiring? N- Is is necessary? K- Is it Kind?) We also focused on what we were thankful for.  As a third grade team this is what we completed!

What 3rd grade is thankful for...

This will help up to better communicate with one another!

Us Hard at Work!

As a parent you get to hear all about your child’s day when they get home. They will tell you what they learned and how their day was. Rarely do you get to see what it looks like when they are learning. I wanted to make sure that you get a glimpse of what we look at when we are hard at work!

Here you see us reading long and strong from our book boxes during our independent reading time!

Here we are doing our 20 minute quick write to wake up our brains and practice our writing skills.

November Reading Logs

November reading logs went home last Friday. The goal of our reading log is to have your child read at least 20 minutes a night and have a total of 600 minutes read at the end of the month! After your child has read their 20 minutes please have them color in that days calendar square. If you could have a designated spot for the reading log to stay, so your child knows right where it’s at, that would be wonderful.

Don’t forget, November reading logs are due on December 1^st. If your child completes their reading log and it is signed by both you and your child, they earn all that awesome knowledge (and a pizza from Pizza Hut, just for good measure)! Pretty awesome!

Here is a link to the Book It reading log page just in case yours got misplaced.

Happy Reading!

Dear students and families,

Hello! I miss all of you! I hope you are all doing great. I thought I would update you by posting some recent pictures of Paxton. I can't believe how fast he is growing up! Time sure does fly by. He still has his nights and days mixed up. He keeps his mom and dad up at night and sleeps during the day. We are working on this! He still loves to sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom. He also loves his swing and laying on the floor for tummy time. I hope you are all doing great and making wonderful choices at school. I miss you all!

Adjectives!

A great way to get your child excited about learning is to make it fun! Showing them educational videos is a good way to make their learning fun. Here is a video on adjectives we saw in school that helped us learn.

Reading/Writing/Spelling News

READING NEWS:

This week we will be continuing Unit 2 of Reader’s Workshop, Navigating Non-fiction. We will start the week by choosing Just Right Texts and reading with stamina. We will do this by learning that the strategies we used while reading fiction text can be used in non-fiction text as well. We will also become experts and teach others from non fiction text by learning that we can teach using voice, gestures, and illustrations. Lastly, we will grasp main ideas from text by using boxes and bullets to organize information into larger categories.

WRITING NEWS:

While writing our personal narratives we will continue our discovery drafts and focus on replacing words with more descriptive words. As always, we will do our 20 minute quick write on a number of different topics to wake up our brain!

SPELLING NEWS:

Spelling words went home today. (Words spelled with a vowel-consonant-e : The Magic E Rule)

state

close

slide

face

globe

pave

size

smoke

flame

broke

prize

skate

smile

plane

stone

The spelling test will be on Friday.

HOMEWORK: Your child should be studying their spelling words every night as well as reading 20 minutes and recording it on their November reading log that was placed in their homework tool kit. Those reading logs will be due December 1^st.

Math/Science/Social Studies

Math:

We are continuing our work on multiplication and division this week.  We are working with arrays and fact families to show how multiplication and division are related (2X3=6 and 6/3=2).  

Science:  

We will be previewing activities that go along with our next unit on Water!

Social Studies:

This week we are going to learn about American Indians in Michigan.  Students will apply what they have learned about the study of history to American Indian cultures in Michigan. They explore early American Indian groups in Michigan. Students then identify similarities and differences among the groups know as the "Three Fires."

There Are No Lazy Students!

Is your student academically underachieving or unmotivated?  Do they struggle with completing their homework?  Is your student anxious about school and feels that everything needs to be perfect?  Does your student struggle with ADHD?  Do you feel your student is “lazy”?

If you replied “yes” to any of these questions, you’ll want to attend our parenting workshop entitled, “There Are No Lazy Students.”

Ferndale Youth Assistance will host this workshop on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

 in the Ferndale High School Media Center.  The presenter is Judith Lipson, who is a Licensed Professional Counselor and an Educational Strategist with 30 years of experience in education. She specializes in anxiety, ADHD, and Autism Spectrum Disorders. There is no charge for admission.

Pre-registration is appreciated but not required.  To register, or if you have any questions, please call the FYA office at 248-586-8700 or via email atmelinda.hicks@ferndaleschools.org.