Hi Parents,

I spoke with students on Friday about taking home SRB’s.  If absolutely necessary, students can bring home their SRB to help with their Home Link, but SRB’s MUST be returned the following day as it is a tool that we use frequently in class.  Students are given time in class to review the daily Home Link and to ask questions and decide whether they will need access to their SRB.  Ideally, students have access to the Internet at home and are able to use their student login and password to access the online SRB. If you need your student’s username and password, let me know and I’ll email it to you.  Let me know if you have any questions.

We will visit Project LOOK! on Tuesday from 10:30-1:00.  The exhibit we will see is entitled Treasures From The Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy.  Our tour will begin promptly at 10:45 and will end at 12:15.  Students will view art with the guidance of a docent, and will participate in a hands-on art project related to the exhibit.

Students will need to bring a bag lunch, as we will be eating at a park very near the Palo Alto Art Center on Newell Road.  Students will also need to wear clothes that can be dirtied during the activity (as per my teacher instruction packet from the museum).

For those of you driving, we will need to have our wheels rolling at 10:30, and possibly earlier.  I will allow the students to take an early recess, so they can get some run around time and then we will need to regroup before heading off.  I think we still may need 1 driver, so if you are able to drive, please contact Kathryn Shugart!

Permission slips were sent home on Friday.  Please get them back by Tuesday morning.  If needed, we will make phone calls home to get verbal clearance for all students who do not bring permission slips back.  This is not ideal, however, so please try to send back permission slips by Tuesday!

I’m looking forward to having a wonderful time!

Hello Parents and Students,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  Here is a look at what we accomplished last week and a look at the erratic week ahead:

In Writing Workshop students worked on a series of lessons on revision and conventions (editing practice).  They also have been typing their pieces on the computer and working them toward a final draft.  After pieces have been typed on the computer, they will have one more revision, and then they will be considered ‘published’ for the time being.  As students complete this process, they begin working on other pieces of their choosing.  They complete the publishing process at their own will.  In the near future, we will shift focus in WW and students will be required to work on nonfiction pieces.  Throughout the year we will shift between more teacher directed lessons and student directed work times.  The upcoming week will find work with similes and another revision and editing lesson.

In Reading Workshop we have been really looking at the work of author Chris Van Allsburg (see his author website in the bar at the right) and getting to know him as a writer.  Students have taken time to construct Impressions-Connections-Wondering charts regarding Van Allsburg’s work and have searched his very extensive website to learn more about him and his writing.  I feel that taking time to get to know the authors that we read is important because it helps remind us that they are actual people as well.  It is always interesting, informational, and often inspirational to learn about where these published authors gather their ideas, the struggles they encounter as authors, and the very real lives that they live.  In the upcoming weeks, we will shift gears to focus negotiating responses to literature.  Students have been trying their hand at response to literature for some weeks now, but during the next month, we will refine our skills.  A series of lessons will be given on this topic.  We will also focus deeply on discussion of literature, which goes hand-in-hand with stronger written responses to literature.  This should prove to be an exciting next few weeks as the students’ thinking is really pushed deeper.

Our Math Workshop time has been spent learning about measurement.  Students in grade 3 are expected to be able to perform linear measures to the nearest 1/2-inch, although they will be exposed to more complex and exact measures.  Students have reviewed the concept of perimeter and have been using it in a variety of contexts.  Last Friday, we shifted gears to dabble a bit in the realm of probability.  We practiced performing a simple experiment a substantial amount of times.  We talked about the necessity of a large sample size and we practice interpreting data on a line plot.  In the upcoming week, students will continue to explore perimeter and will begin to understand the concept of area.  This is a nice lead in to the concepts of multiplication and division in our next unit (probably beginning just before Thanksgiving break).

In social studies we have continued to study the Ohlone Indians.  We will continue to learn about the Ohlones from our district textbook and students will begin to define Ohlone Indian writing projects in the next couple of weeks to help them show their learning about the Ohlones.  More information will come about this when we get into the heart of it all.

Students are about to finish up lower case cursive letters.  We are on track to finish learning cursive letters by mid December and will continue to practice our skills throughout the remainder of the school year.

Information about conferences came out last week.  I have heard from about 50% of the class at this point.  I hope to get confirmation out to parents by mid-week, so I’d really appreciate if the rest of the forms back as soon as possible. Remember, you can send them in physically with your student, or you can email the form to me.  Conferences will be held after school during the week of November 16th, the two days before Thanksgiving Break, and all day on December 1st.

We have a field trip on Tuesday (see additional post) and no school (in observance of Veterans’ Day) on Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday should play out as normal!

Let’s have a great week!

Please download and fill out the conference form below and send it back with your student as soon as possible.

Fall 2009 Parent Conferences

You can fill out this one on your computer, save it, and email it back to me, if you’d rather to that:

Fall 2009 Parent Conferences

Parents, just to keep you in the loop: Students will have a math homelink to work on over the weekend. They will also have work to do in their Reading Response Journals. We have written back and forth for quite a bit now and I’d like you to look over them with your student. Students will need to review their journals this weekend making sure that they are answering questions I’ve asked them over the past few weeks. Some students have been doing a nice job of this on their own, but others are needing some more guidance. Taking a look at the journals will also give you a chance to see some of your son/daughters work that we will go over during conferences near the end of the month. In addition to answering questions, students have the OPTION of writing an additional response entry to earn a ‘thank you’ slip from me. It’s also interesting for me to learn which students choose to do additional work! Let me know if you have questions!

We’ve had a great week in Room 15. I will send out an update this weekend regarding what was covered over the past five days. It will also give details about what is coming up in the erratic week ahead! As a reminder, if you’ve ever got any questions about what is happening in class, always feel free to drop me a line!

Hi Parents,
Book orders for the month of November are due tomorrow. You can order online anytime through tomorrow night or send order slips and payment with your child to school tomorrow. I realize this I late notice, and I apologize. I assumed that you child would have told you about books they desired, but just incase he/she did not, I will leave the order open through tomorrow night. I will put in orders on Saturday.

Hello Parents and Students,

Wow, this is later than I was expecting, but what better time to type this as the first game of the world series begins.  Phillies are up 5-0 over the Yankees right now, and I’m ready to type!  Below is a look at what we’ve been studying recently and the direction we plan to go in over the rest of the week and into next week.

In Reading Workshop we have begun studying the work of Chris Van Allsburg.  There is a link to his website in the sidebar under ‘Authors.’  We are looking at Van Allsburg’s work as an author/illustrator.  We have been charting our impressions from the texts we read, connections to other works that we’ve read, and our wonderings about the texts or Van Allsburg and his work.  We will continue looking at Van Allsburg’s work throughout next week.  We will also begin thinking about the reading strategies we use when we come to unknown words.  We will do this by looking at a text with words covered up and thinking about possible words and why they would work.  We will make reading strategy bookmarks out of what we discover about ourselves.

During our read alouds we have been really focusing on responding to text.  Students have learned the method (at least to begin with) that I want to see them use when responding to text and we have been practicing in class.  In a few weeks, students will be responsible for responding to texts in writing on their own.  They will be required to respond to their at-home reading 4 nights a week (this can also be over weekends).  I aim to collect notebooks to respond to them once per week.  More info will come home about this as it draws nearer.

In Writing Workshop we have been working on personal narratives.  We have done a series of lessons about writing personal narratives and have selected a piece to publish.  Most students have chosen to type their final drafts.  I will be teaching a couple of lessons on revision over the next couple of days and into next week.  Our next focus will be on expository writing.

We have been studying the Ohlone people during our social studies time.  Currently we are practicing taking notes from our social studies text on the Ohlones.  My big area of focus is on helping students to learn what things to jot down in their notes.  We have been keeping a notebook with information that we’ve learned from Keith Gutierrez and from Annette Coleman (from our trip to Foothills Park).  We are practicing our note taking in this same place.  Our culminating project will be a written report on the Ohlone people.  We will do a series of lessons during writing workshop focusing on how to write a report (including fact checking) to aid students as they work/learn.

In Mathematics we finished up our work on addition and subtraction (although we will see this over and over in review) on Tuesday.  Our next unit focus will be on measurement and area.  Today we practiced measuring with a class shoe length as a unit of measure.  Tomorrow we will focus in measuring to the 1/2 inch and 1/2 centimeter.  We will continue with this unit until sometime around Thanksgiving.

We will have Spectra Art this Friday and next Friday as usual.

Information has been sent out from our room parent, Kathryn Shugart, about the next field trip to the Palo Alto Art Center on November 10th.  Please take a moment to look at it and respond.  I would love to be able to walk to the PAAC, but we will drive if we cannot get enough chaperones.

Conferences will be held near the end of November/beginning of December.  More information to arrive soon.

On Friday we will have a Halloween party in our classroom.  At 10:30 the students will participate in the Palo Verde Halloween Parade and then we will have some games and lunch in our classroom.  Parents have graciously agreed to provide lunch, so you do not need to send lunch with your child on Friday.

I think that’s about it.  Let’s have a great rest of the week and an great next week!

Important info about our trip to Foothills Park TOMORROW:
• Late group students need to arrive at school by 8:30 (OK to come
at 8:15)
* Bring a lunch with a drink. We will not be back in time for hot
lunch.
• Snack will be provided.
• Weather is forecast be quite nice, but do dress accordingly. We will be hiking. A hoodie that can be worn in the morning and easily tied around one’s waist would be most appropriate.
* We will be returning to school around 1:00.
• Late group students may go home at 2:00, but I must have a note
from you informing me where they will be going.

Let’s have a wonderful trip!

This is just a reminder that we will have our presentation on the Ohlone Indians with Keith Gutierrez tomorrow starting at 8:30 in the morning. ALL LATE GROUP students will need to arrive at the regular early time so they don’t miss part of the presentation. Late group students will stay through their normal dismissal time of 2:50.