First Week of 2017

Happy Holidays!
Thank you for all the gifts! Everyone is so thoughtful! I hope everyone is able to spend time with their family during the holidays and relax a bit! I will be headed to chilly Ohio next week for awhile. I just need to finish Christmas shopping!! 

Rocks and Minerals

Students tried to get all the minerals (chocolate chips, M & M's etc.) out of their "rock" (cookie) with a toothpick. So focused...

Winter Celebration

The students enjoyed making a penguin cupcake today! They looked yummy!

Math- We continue in Module 4 on Multiplication and Area. The students will have a quiz over lessons 1-4 on Friday.

Language Arts-We continue to work on Text Dependent Analysis with nonfiction passages. We will also start trying to identify themes in different stories. 

Science- We continue learning about Rocks and Minerals. 

Social Studies- We will continue to learn about Colonial Times in South Carolina. 

Mystery Hangout

We chatted with a class from Texas today!! The class did great asking questions. 

Here is what the students learned about Texas and the other class' school...

I learned that the population of Texas is 26 million. 

-Rhelani Richberg

I learned their mascot is a Black Stallion. 

-Lily Zell

I learned that their school has second through fifth grades.

-Monika Kamibayashi

I learned that they learn dual languages English and Spanish. 

- Jacob Lopez

Last Week Before Break

Freaky Hair Friday
Love the hair! We have collected a total of 111 food items as a class! The food drive has been extended until Monday morning. 

Science Supplies

Thank you to everyone who signed up to send in items for our science activities. If you volunteered to donate any items, please send or bring it in by Thursday, December 15th. Thanks! 

Think Tank Question
The students have seemed to enjoy my Think Tank questions this year. They do not have to complete the questions, but I always encourage participation. I was looking over the answers to the one I posted this week and no one got it correct. I'm going to type it below and if you have free time this weekend or during dinner you might want to discuss it with your child.  

Question: One piece of lumber was cut to 5 feet long pieces. Six cuts were made. How long was the lumber? *You must draw a picture to show me your thinking. 

Math- We will finish up Module 3 on Multiplication and Division with a test on Wednesday. We will start Module 4, Multiplication and Area. I will email you a link to the Parent Tip Sheet soon.

Language Arts- We will continue to work on text dependent analysis with the passage "Skunk Cabbage".

Science- We are starting Rocks and Minerals.

Social Studies- We continue to learn about Colonial Times in South Carolina.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!!!

Throwback Thursday

Looking good from several different decades today!!! Can't wait to see some crazy hair tomorrow! We currently have 85 food items!

Wacky Tacky Wednesday

Students definitely looked tacky today! We currently have 68 items! Tomorrow is Throw Back Thursday...search your closets!! :)

Top Hat Tuesday

What a great day to wear a hat!!! Tomorrow is Wacky Tacky Wednesday! We are currently at 53 nonperishable food items!! 

Next Week

Gamecock Reading Log
Logs are due on Monday. Please make sure you initialed the form and your child added up all the pages he/she logged on the paper. Thanks! 

Math Facts Fluency Practice
The class has been practicing their multiplication facts using the link below. Your child can change the workout time and the cutoff time for each question. They can also practice their division facts. They know how this works! Great way for your child to practice at home too! Math Trainer (Click for link.)

Food Drive-Service Learning Project

Bring in at least one food item each day and be able to participate in the day's theme...

Marvel Monday- Wear a superhero shirt or cape!

Top Hat Tuesday- Wear a hat!

Wacky Tacky Wednesday- Dress in a tacky way!

Throwback Thursday- Dress from the past decade!

Freaky Hair Friday- Do something crazy to your hair!

USC Intern, Miss Young
Yesterday was Miss Young's last day with our class. She will still be at LCEUC next semester, but she is moving up to 5th grade.  We wish her the best of luck!

Math- We continue working with multiplication and division in Module 3.  Please continue to encourage your child to practice their multiplication facts so they can memorize them.

Language Arts- We will finish up Text Features with a test on Tuesday. We will look at a nonfiction passage called "Do Polar Bears Eat Penguins" and start focusing more on how to answer text dependent questions. 

Science- We will wrap up Desert and Arctic Tundra with a test on Friday.

Social Studies-We continue discussing Colonial Times in South Carolina.

Diamond Dell

The students really enjoyed mining for gems, rocks and minerals today! They should be able to tell you what all their "treasures" are called! I would really like for them to bring their rocks and minerals back when we are studying rocks and minerals. Please remind them to put them in a safe spot! 

Mystery Number

We did our first Mystery Number with a class from Tennessee today! We asked yes/no questions using math vocabulary to figure out what their number was and they did the same. At the end we learned some interesting facts about Tennessee. Did you know Mountain Dew was invented in Tennessee? We also shared facts we researched about South Carolina and our school. 

Students listen to someone ask us a question.

Lauren and Jacob crossing out numbers that we are eliminating. 

We guessed their number! It was 36. 

Read with the Gamecocks

Your child is bringing home their reading log for Read with the Gamecocks. Your child can earn tickets to two games. Men's basketball on Saturday, January 7th and women's basketball on Thursday, January 12th. Every time they read, please remind them to write down the book and number of pages they read. The time to read starts today and ends on December 2nd. The logs are due on December 5th. Please make sure your child adds up the number of pages he/she read before turning in the form. I would love to have everyone participate since I know they are reading!  

The Next Two Weeks

Hard to believe it is almost Thanksgiving and we are almost half way through the second nine weeks! This post will be the update for next week and the week after break. If anything changes as far as assessments, I will let you know.
Happy Thanksgiving!  

Talent Show

Shane and Joseph both participated in the Talent Show from our class this week! I heard they did a great job singing, dancing and playing the piano! 

Animal Story Sharing

One more picture of both classes at our celebration! 

Math- We continue to work with multiplication and division in Module 3. Please continue to encourage your child to practice his/her multiplication facts. The students will have a quiz on Tuesday, November 29th. 

Language Arts- We are focusing on text features, how to locate them and gain meaning from them using different nonfiction texts. We will start our mentor sentence from George Washington's Teeth which will focus on adjectives. I had to put this on the "back burner" last week. 

Science- We will wrap up water habitats with a test on Tuesday, November 22nd. (oceans, estuaries, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, swamps) The students have notes, a Box It and a Study Buddy to help them study. After Thanksgiving we will focus on Deserts and the Tundra. 

Social Studies- We continue to learn about Colonial Times in South Carolina. 

Sharing Our Animal Stories

It was wild in third grade today! The students looked great in their animal disguises and they did a great job sharing their stories with Miss Rosenberg's class! I have to work on grading them and then you will have the opportunity to read your child's story. 

Mystery Hangout

We met with another 3rd Grade class today on Google Hangout. It was so much fun trying to figure out where they were located in the USA. We asked them yes/no questions and they asked us questions. They figured out we were in SC and shortly after we guessed Wisconsin!!!! They told us a little bit about Wisconsin and we gave them some information about South Carolina. What a fun way to connect with another state, learn about our country and practice our map skills! We will do more Mystery Hangouts this year! 

Next Week

Happy Veteran's Day
Thank you to all the veterans for serving our country and protecting our freedom!! The third graders really enjoyed listening to our visitors this morning speak about their life in the military. 

Jacob, Rhelani and Xavier with their military parents. 

Sierra enjoying lunch with her dad!

Lily enjoying lunch too! 

Mystery Hangout ?
The students are SUPER excited about our Mystery Hangout Monday!! We will be "hanging out" with another 3rd grade class in the USA. We will be asking them questions to determine what state they are located in and they will be asking our class questions. This will be a great way to learn the geography of our country and map skills! Please remind your child not to wear any shirt that will give away where we are located! Wonder where they are located? 

Beef O'Brady's Spirit Night

Monday, November 14th is Spirit Night at Beef O' Brady's for Upper Campus. Please click here to learn more! 

Math- The students will have a quiz on Wednesday on addition, subtraction, comparing and ordering numbers as well as expanded and standard form. We will then move into Module 3, Multiplication and Division with units of 0,1, 6-9 and multiples of 10. I will email you a Parent Tip Sheet for Module 3. 

Language- Tuesday the class will share their animal stories with Miss Rosenberg's class. We will be sharing at 2:00 pm, if you want to stop by. Please remind your child to bring his/her animal "costume" if they are going to dress up. We did not get to text features this week so we will start next week. Students should be able to locate them, know their purpose and understand how to gain meaning from them. 

Science-We continue discussing water habitats. (oceans, swamps, estuaries, rivers, ponds, lakes etc.) 

Social Studies- The students will present their paper slide show on their explorer. We will also move into Colonial Times.

Boosterthon Celebration

The students received popcorn today as a reward for raising over $30,000 for Boosterthon. Shane Leigh Bagwell was the student who raised the most in our class so she and all the other classroom leaders had the opportunity to silly string administration this afternoon. 

Next Week

Dictionaries

Thanks to the Blythewood Rotary Club each 3rd grader received their own personal dictionary. The students were super excited about receiving one. I'm sure they will put them to good use during language arts this year.

Parent University

Please click on Parent University to learn about an opportunity on November 29th at LCEU where you can learn how to help your child at home with reading, writing, math and homework. 

3rd Grade Field Study Information
Please look for a yellow sheet in your child's Friday Folder about our field studies this year and how you can pay for them.

Book Fair
The media center will be having a Book Swap on Monday, November 21st. If your child would like to participate they can bring in up to 10 chapter books before the 21st to swap for other books.

Math- We will move away from Eureka Math this week. The students will learn how to read, order and compare numbers to 999,999. They will also learn how to put them into expanded and standard form. 

Language Arts- We continue wrapping up our animal stories and will work on putting the final touches on them to make them fabulous! We will share our stories with Miss Rosenberg's class on Tuesday, November 15th...can't wait to see my WILD class! We will move onto a mentor sentence from George Washington's Teeth with the focus being on adjectives. We will also start focusing on how to locate text features and how to gain meaning from them. 

Science-We continue discussing water habitats. (oceans, swamps, estuaries, rivers, ponds, lakes etc.) 

Social Studies- We will wrap up our unit on Explorers with a test on Friday. The students will also present their paper slide show to the class this week. 

Get Into Character

Students have been working hard on the writing process with their stories about the animal they were "turned into". As I shared in an earlier post, the students will read their story to another student from Miss Rosenberg's class. We thought it would be fun to have the students "dress up" as their animal when they share their story. We talked about it today and they are already coming up with some great ideas!!! It doesn't have to be anything elaborate and they can create their disguise with materials or clothes they already have at home. As of right now we will be sharing our stories on Tuesday, November 15th. 

Next Week

Congratulations to Donovan and Logan!
Our class nominated students to represent our class in student council and then we voted on the students who were nominated. Our girl and boy representatives will be Donovan and Logan!! I know they will do a great job representing our class!! 

Report Cards

Your child has his/her report card in their Friday folder. Please keep the report card, sign the envelope and return. If your child made the A or A/B Honor Roll they will go on the morning show on Thursday, November 3rd. 

Halloween
Please do not let your child wear his/her costume to school on Monday. We talked about this as a class already. We also discussed how I would prefer they not bring in candy on Tuesday. If they have a couple pieces in their lunch box that is fine. 

Reminder: Pictures
Please send in the pictures you do not wish to purchase with your child or payment for the ones you want to keep. Thanks! 

Parent University
Please click on Parent University to learn about an opportunity on November 29th at LCEU where you can learn how to help your child at home with reading, writing, math and homework. 

Math- We will wrap up Module 2 with a test on Thursday. Please encourage your child to continue to practice their multiplication facts.

Language Arts- We will wrap up our animal stories and will work on putting the final touches on them to make them fabulous! Each student will share their story with a student from Miss Rosenberg's class in the next couple of weeks. We continue to work on our mentor sentence from Grace for President with the focus on adverbs. We will also start focusing on how to locate text features and how to gain meaning from them. 

Science- We will wrap up our discussions on Rain Forests with a test on Wednesday. We will start discussing water habitats. (oceans, swamps, estuaries, rivers, ponds, lakes etc.)

Social Studies- We will continue learning about the European Explorers who explored South Carolina. The students will create a paper slide show on one of the explorers we studied. 

Butterfly Camouflage

The students colored a butterfly to make it blend in to our classroom environment. Below are some of the most creative ideas. Logan, Shane and Zhane explain why they chose the spot to place their butterfly. Can you find each butterfly? 

Shane Bagwell

I camouflaged my butterfly to make it very colorful because the crayon picture is. I chose that place because I thought it was really unique and no one would see it.

Zhane Walker

My butterfly is on the calendar. I put it there because I thought it was a creative place. Also because nobody thought of that spot.

Logan Buckley

I chose this spot for my butterfly because I thought the lines on the butterfly would look really blended in with the poster. 

Next Week

Wearing our pink to support Breast Cancer!!!

Math- We continue working in Module 2, Place Value and Problem Solving with Units of Measure. We will continue focusing on rounding to the nearest ten and hundred and adding and subtracting two and three digit numbers. The students will have a quiz over Lessons 12-14 on Tuesday. We will continue to review multiplication facts during our fluency portion of math each day. Please encourage your child to practice their facts at home through flash cards or games.  

Language Arts- The students will continue working on their stories about the animal I "turned" them into. We will also focus on making predictions when reading a story or book. We will start a new mentor sentence from the book Grace for President with the focus being on adverbs. 

Science-We continue learning about the Rain Forest. 

Social Studies- We will start discussing exploration in South Carolina. We will focus on different explorers such as Hernando deSoto, Jean Ribault, and Juan Pardo and their reasons for exploration. 

A Look Ahead

Amazing Me Project

The students did a great job sharing what makes them amazing to other LCEU Gators, parents and grandparents. Below are some of the amazing projects from our class...

More Boosterthon Fun Run Pictures

In case you do not get the school blog or would like to see more pictures from yesterday, click on the link below. 

http://thecommunigator.blogspot.com/

Math- We continue working in Module 2, Place Value and Problem Solving with Units of Measure. We will focus on rounding to the nearest ten and hundred and adding two and three digit numbers. The students will have a quiz over Lessons 9-11 on Tuesday. We will continue to review multiplication facts during our fluency portion of math each day. Please encourage your child to practice their facts at home through flash cards or games. 

Language Arts-We will be working on the writing process with a narrative writing. I turned each student into an animal of their choice and they started writing the "main event" that happens in their story as their animal. Some students are doing a great job of tying in what they have learned in science with habitats and even social studies with Native Americans.  Next week, we will focus on what a great beginning will look like and revising our main event. We will finish up our mentor sentence from When Lightning Comes in a Jar, which focuses on verbs. 

Science- We will start discussing the characteristics of the rain forest. We will also discuss plants and animals that can be found there, how they adapt to their habitat, and different food chains in the rain forest. 

Social Studies- We will finish talking about the three Native American tribes that live in SC with a test on Thursday.  

Boosterthon Fun Run

We had a great time at the Fun Run this morning! I think your child will sleep good tonight! I know I will! :)

Xavier held the flag with his father at his side for the National Anthem.  

Getting excited to start the Fun Run! 

Ratacizak's Rockin' Racers

Decomposing Liters

We started talking about capacity with milliliters and liters today during math. The students decomposed a liter. This hands on activity should really help them understand how big a liter is versus a milliliter and how many milliliters are in a liter. 

Amare and Logan work together to measure out 100 mL for each cup. 

Monika and Nate focus on pouring only 100 mL in their cup. 

Taylor and Marett pour the 100 mL of each cup back into the liter bottle to see how many times it takes to fill it to 1 L. 

Boosterthon

We kicked off Boosterthon with a pep rally this afternoon! Please look in your child's binder for more information. Third grade will run at 8:30 am Wednesday, October 12th in the bus loop! 

Next Week

Amazing Me Project

Just a reminder that the Amazing Me Project is due on October 13th. I can't wait to see how each of my students are special and amazing! 

Our school's fundraiser, Boosterthon, kicks off on Monday with a pep rally. Please look for more information to follow next week!! The Fun Run is on October 12th at at 9:45 am for 3rd grade and will be located in the bus loop. 

Disability Awareness Day

The students participated with the rest of 3rd grade today in a disability event. The event had stations the students rotated between so the they could get an opportunity to better understand how people with different visual, hearing, physical and learning disabilities live on a daily basis. We followed up with a discussion in class about disabilities too. 

Math- We continue work on time measurement and problem solving as well as measuring weight and liquid volume in metric units. The students will have a math quiz over lessons 1-5 on Tuesday. 

Language Arts- I moved today's Inference test to Tuesday. We will focus on the writing process next week and finish up our mentor sentence from When Lightning Comes in a Jar, which focuses on verbs.

Science- We will wrap up Temperate Forests with a test on Wednesday and will start discussing the Rain Forest. 

Social Studies- We continue learning about the Native Americans of early SC. We are focusing on Cherokee, Catawba and Yemassee.