Polar Express Day!

 

This Friday, December 16th is our class Polar Express Day!  Students get to wear pajamas to school, hear some excellent reading fluency from a great storyteller, play the chimes, watch the Polar Express movie and enjoy hot chocolate and other brunch goodies, in addition to some other fun curriculum activities.  They are welcome to bring slippers, but please leave larger items, such as pillows and blankets, at home.  Look for a December movie of the students posted to the blog over Winter Break.  Have a great week!

6th Grade Buddies and Stained Glass Windows

Last week we met with our 6th grade buddies for the first time!  Each partnership read a brief story about Ellis Island immigrants, then made a Christmas cube about what the holidays might have been like during that time.  Our buddies helped us with our fluency and higher level thinking skills.  We also got a lot of practice with speaking and listening skills. We're excited to meet with them again this week!

We've also been doing some stained glass art projects.  We looked at pictures of some buildings in Salt Lake City that use stained glass to tell a story or remember a special event.  Then we made two different kinds of stained glass on our own - one with tissue paper and one with markers on transparencies.

There have been quite a few updates on the blog lately.  Check out the calendar of events for current event due dates and Polar Express Day.  Scroll down to see our birthdays, student of the week and current curriculum.  Also, click on "Exploring Enrichment" and "Read and Write with Ease" for Christmas Around the World and KidBlog, in addition to several other new links.  Happy Holidays!

November Highlights

I can't believe November is almost gone! The above video contains a few highlights of what the children have been working on in school.  They were especially focused on analytical skills as we discussed various changes that have taken place over time due to interactions between different people. Change over time is a huge part of their social studies core.  We are marching forward with memory object stories (published on the computer!), multiplication meanings and facts, cursive (we're almost to upper-case!), and new adventures with 6th grade buddies this month!

Starring . . . the Students!

This week I decided to use portions of the students' writing to highlight a few things we've been doing at school.  The students below were creative in their ideas and detailed in their facts.  Enjoy!

First, we've been studying aspects of Native American culture such as language, religion, and art.  The students have each chosen one of five North American tribes to focus on.  When we learned about storytelling traditions and symbols, the students had to write a story that could take place in their tribe's geographic location (for example, tribes living in heavily forested areas wouldn't be hunting buffalo). Here are a few of the stories:

A chief went in the morning. He saw some bird tracks. He decided to go hunting in three days and three nights. A spirit appeared. He went hunting again. He camped under the stars.  He killed a bear. He went home. He was a wise man.  by: Jacob N.

Two friends met and started to dance. And there were two brothers and they had a blanket and it was in a teepee. Then they started a campfire. It was by a tree. And then they saw a fish to go swim. A chief crossed the mountains. A chief saw bird tracks and then he won an award for finding the bird tracks. It started to rain and he saw a hill. There was a sign that said, "No deer here at all." And then he invited some friends to a feast at the hill where there were no deer at all.  by: Andee 

The chief went hunting for deer.  He camped under the stars. When he woke up he saw lots of bear. He ran home at lightning speed. He had a feast of deer. He got an award for getting food for the tribe for one month.  p.s. There was lots of deer.  by: Luke

 

On November 15, 2011, our class was able to go on a walking field trip to Alta High School to see "Crazy for You."  Here are some thoughts the students had when they returned:

First we walked up to Alta. Next we sat down. Then the play began. After the play, we got to high five all the actors. Finally, we walked back.  by: Emily

The play is about a city boy and a country girl that fall in love. And a city girl and a country boy who fall in love, too.  by: Ethan
We got seated. The play began. It was kind of a musical and dancers were there. They kissed nine times. It was gross. We saw five different parts. We left at 12:00. We came back and had lunch. by: Alexa

The field trip we had was fun. There was a lot of Gershwin music. People would clap to the beat. It was the best play I've ever seen in my life! It was very, very funny. There was a lot of dancing. There was silliness, because one fell into the street and did not get up. Some people mimicked a lot. We got to have granola bars and give high fives to the actors and actresses. I love the play. by:Emma

I loved our field trip because they danced and singed. My favorite part was when they got married. We got to high five the people in the story. I said to a girl that she was my favorite and she said I made her day. She wanted to know my name. I told her. She said her name is Christine.  by: Taylor

November Informational Book Report!

The students have been preparing just over a month to be able to complete this particular book report.  They learned about sequence words (first, next, then, after, finally, second, third, fourth, last, etc.) and completed a writing project giving detailed instructions about something they were already experts on.  The informational book report takes things to the next level, by having the students read about something they aren't familiar with and create a sequence "filmstrip."  Below is a brief overview of the instructions, as well as a photo of a sample book report.

1.  Students choose an appropriate informational book on their reading level related to history/social studies, science, or the arts.  They should not choose topics they're already familiar with or that are too complex for a third grader to clearly outline in four steps.

2.  The topic they choose should include some type of process or sequence they can explain to others.  Here are a few simple examples:

History – "Ruby Bridges goes to the William Frantz Public School" or "The First Flight of the Wright Brothers" or "Man Lands on the Moon"

Science – "The Life Cycle of a Butterfly" or "How a Tornado Forms" or "Mining for Copper"

The Arts – "The Beginning Positions of Ballet" or "What to Prepare When You Audition for a Play" or "How to Draw Charlie Brown Cartoons like Charles Schulz"

3. Students then complete the film strip according to the rubric in their homework folder and prepare to present it to the class.  They're also encouraged to practice their keyboarding skills by typing the sequence or process on the computer and gluing it onto the filmstrip, as shown below:

Front

Back

Finding Books on Your Independent Reading Level

Thank you for coming to parent-teacher conferences last week!  It was such a treat to meet with each one of you and to celebrate your children.  Below is one good tool from the report card, that I didn't get to share with everyone, about finding books for your children on their independent reading levels.

The comments section of each student's report card included a lexile independent reading range.  Over the next year, lexile scores will replace the current alphabetic leveling system (L, M, N, O, etc.) because they are more accurate.  A good research-based leveling system has an important purpose: to match readers with text, so they can practice the fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills they need to improve on.  (The students should also know how to use the informal “5-finger rule” to choose books on their reading levels.)  Here is how to use the lexile score on your child's report card:

1.  Click on "Read & Write with Ease" on the class blog.
2.  Scroll down to this icon to find the lexile website.

3. Enter the lexile range and click submit.
4. Select interests and click submit.
5. Scroll down to browse the books on that level.  Google preview is available for you to read the first several pages of many books.
6. If you'd like to find and reserve a book from the public library, the link is on the blog directly below the lexile.com icon.
7.  You can also look up books you already own to see how close they are to the independent reading range.

Happy Halloween!

Thank you, parents, for making this such a special day for the students - from getting up early to do costumes, hair, and make-up, to staying up late for trick-or-treating fun! Here is our class picture and a quick video from the parade and party today. 

Inca Pottery

The students requested that I include the recipe for the clay we used in class.  I know there were a few kids whose pots were "less than whole" shortly after arriving home:) There were also a few kids who wanted to be able to make more extensive projects on their own.  Clay comes in many varieties; the air-dry ones tend to be easier and less-expensive to make, but can be less sturdy, as well.  Baked or fired clay is more complex, but lasts longer.  If you have any ideas or experience with clay that combines the "cheap and easy" factors with the "sturdy" factor, I would love to learn more about it.

We studied Inca artifacts as an expression of their culture and environment before we made the pots.  The kids were very excited to work with clay and to create "authentic" pieces.  I was pleased with their thoughtful work. Below are just a few samples.

Writing!

Dear Parents,
This week the students will bring home their first formally graded writing work.  While the students write everyday, they only have one, formal, long-term project per month.  September's project was writing informational paragraphs about patriotic symbols we researched as a class.  Several students went on to create colorful flyers, using their opinions and reasoning to convince Mr. Jameson to go on vacation to their favorite patriotic symbol.  He actually looked at each flyer and wrote the class a detailed reply.

The new Language Arts Common Core focuses heavily on improving writing, especially in these three genres: informative writing, opinion writing, and narrative writing.  This type of rubric will be used to score all long-term writing projects.  It includes all of the writing skills that students should master by the end of third grade.  However, students will only be graded on skills that have been explicitly taught and practiced in class.  Using the same rubric and focusing on three main writing genres will clearly show the children's progress throughout the year.  This first score is a starting place for each student - the progress they make over time is the most important thing I will be looking at.  Feel free to bring any questions, comments or concerns about writing to parent-teacher conferences.  I have thoroughly enjoyed going through their first writing project.  They worked very hard over a period of 2-3 weeks.  I hope you enjoy their successes, as well!

Sincerely,
Ms. Mallett

A sample product by one of our fabulous 3rd grade writers

October Fun

The students have been doing a fantastic job on their current events! They went through the process of learning how to do them at school, including finding articles on the blog to print off, writing questions, and retelling the event orally, so that they could feel confident when they prepared their own current events.  So far, the current event presentations have followed the instructions in the homework folder, have been understood well by the students, and have sparked many engaging conversations in our classroom!  All remaining current events are due this week.  Click here to see specific due dates for the students.

Thank you for getting online to schedule your appointments! The online scheduler is now closed. Parent-Teacher Conference notes will be sent home this week for confirmation.  If you need to change your appointment time, please contact me.

We have been so busy this month that I am finally posting pictures. Below is just a sample of the activities our third graders have been enjoying.  Thank you for your support, parents!

Parent-Teacher Conferences Online Scheduler Open

Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up on Nov. 2-3. The Online Scheduler is available on Altara's home page Oct. 10-22, so that you can plan for Parent Teacher Conferences at your convenience.  Instructions are below.

1. Click the following icon:

2. Scroll down to "Altara Elementary" and click "go."

3. Type in the school password (altara) and click "login."

4. Type in your student's ID number.
(hint: The student ID is the username for Envision Math found on the sticker inside of your child's homework folder.)
5. Select an available time slot that works best for you.

If you have any problems or would like support setting up your schedule, feel free to visit the office or call Susan Taylor, our school secretary, for assistance.

Adventurous Field Trip!

Tomorrow, Thursday, October 6th is our walking field trip to the Living Planet Aquarium.  We were given a one-time opportunity for the students to have a free entrance fee and there were limited days available. We grabbed it up quickly, as the lessons and exhibits tie in directly to the third grade science curriculum.

The weather forecast tells us that this is going to be an adventurous field trip with cooler temperatures and rain.  The good news is that we had originally planned on walking to the wetlands, which would have placed us outside, dripping wet all day, so we would have had to cancel.  Now that we're going to the aquarium, we can look forward to being in a warm, dry building after our walk in the rain!  Students should come prepared with coats, umbrellas or hoods, and good rainy day walking shoes.  Our class will be departing from Altara at 9:15, so all chaperones need to arrive about 9:00 to get groups organized.  We will arrive back easily by noon.  So far, these students have volunteers coming with them: Lizdian, Kai, Alexa, Michael, and Marley.  See you on Thursday!

Pres. Obama's 3rd Annual Back to School Speech

Pres. Obama addressed the nation's students on Sept. 28th.  Our class predicted what he might say to school children and were right on 12 out of 16 predictions!  Among other things, he encouraged students to try a wide variety of things at school, to stretch themselves by trying hard things at school, and to practice working together and getting along with each other.  He also said we should listen to our parents and our teachers (which were two of the things the children predicted:) Click here to view the entire speech.

PTA Jog-a-thon 2011

Thank you to everyone who participated in this year's Jog-a-thon! We had a great time raising money for our school! 

Testing, Testing . . .

This week the 3rd graders will be taking the IOWA Basic Skills Test. The IOWA is a statewide, norm-referenced test used to determine what children know at certain grade levels in order to adjust curriculum standards and benchmarks.  On Tuesday the 20th and Thursday the 22nd, we'll spend about an hour each morning testing.  Attendance is very important, as make-ups are difficult to administer.  The patience of students, parents, (and teachers:) is appreciated during this time.  The IOWA can sometimes be frustrational since it is an end-of-grade-level test given at the beginning of the year.  It's also the first time these students have transferred answers onto a separate bubble sheet.  However, such a test also has the ability to show how high students can perform above grade-level.  Award certificates are given out nation-wide for exemplary scores in all subject areas.

3rd Grade Celebrates Constitution Week

The students were very patriotic this week! They did a presentation on citizenship for the kindergarten classes to teach them about being responsible, being respectful, and being safe.  They also studied and wrote about three of the five patriotic symbols we chose to focus on as a class.  On Friday, we had a special "field trip" to Altara's Freedom Wall where we recited the Preamble of the Constitution for Altara T.V.  The video below includes pictures from all of our Constitution Week activities. We love our country!

For more fascinating facts about the Constitution, click here.

 

"Book in a . . ." Container Book Report

Great example from Chrys

Many of you have been looking at the book report assignment that the children will be turning in on Thursday, September 29th.  A fantasy is a fictional story where there is a struggle between good and evil that often involves magic or creatures that don't exist in real life.  The characters or objects do things that couldn't happen in real life. Adventure stories have a character who lives by his wits and skills and is constantly placed in dangerous situations.  An adventure story may or may not be a fantasy story, since there are nonfiction adventures, as well.

The students may use books at Altara's library or any other location.  They should choose books they haven't read before that are appropriate for their reading levels (not too hard or too easy).  Here are a few websites children can use to find various genres of books at or near their reading levels:

Lexile.com
Book Adventure
Scholastic Book Wizard

Remember to check the rubric in your homework folder for instructions.  If you have any questions or concerns about the book report requirements, feel free to contact me.  Happy Reading! 

Poetry & Fluency

We have just begun to learn about reading fluency in our class.  Fluency is when readers decode text accurately and effortlessly with appropriate rate, volume, phrasing, intonation, and expression.  Basically, good readers sound like they're talking to you.  "Keep a Poem in your Pocket" was a fantastic poem for practicing the first of these skills.  The students asked if we could invite Mr. Jameson to hear us recite, so I recorded it for everyone on the blog to hear, as well.  Mr. Jameson sent our class this email: 

Ms. Mallett's Class,
Thank you for letting me come in and listen to your poem. I loved how expressive you all were. The hand signals were also fun to watch and helped me understand the poem. Thanks for the invite. You really made my day!

Mr. Jameson

Keep a Poem in Your Pocket

By Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

Keep a poem in your pocket

And a picture in your head

And you'll never feel lonely

At night when you're in bed

The little poem will sing to you

The little picture bring to you

A dozen dreams to dance to you

At night when you're in bed

So . . .

Keep a picture in your pocket

And a poem in your head

And you'll never feel lonely

At night when you're in bed

We Love Math!

The students have been working hard the past few weeks building a strong foundation of number sense.  They can read, write, say, build, stamp, write a story for, and analyze numbers up to the ten thousands place.  Not only that, they did a fantastic job with their online math homework last week!  Below are a few pictures of students practicing place value skills together.

Jake and Michael conquering large numbers as a team.

This game is way too much fun for Emily and Taylor!

Lizdian and Emma focused on gaining knowledge!

Kai and Joe filling up their place value game board together.

Bella shows us just how large a ten thousands rod is!

Our Class Community

This week as we began routines, procedures, and curriculum we integrated some community-building activities and lessons.  We learned about our own strengths and the strengths of others, especially at school. The students took a multiple intelligences survey to discover not how smart they are, but how they are smart. We also read the book "Enemy Pie", talking about friendship and how to take good care of each other in our class. Finally, we enjoyed a lesson on diversity. The students know that there are different cultures, families, religions, languages, talents, styles, and many other things at our school and in our class. These things make us unique as individuals, strong as a group, and are always to be respected.  We ended by watching a video clip and learning this song by Kira Willey:

What a fantastic first week we had together!

Welcome Back to School

We had a busy first day of third grade!  The students began learning a lot of the rules and procedures.  We read a book about the first day of school called, "First Day Jitters", that had a great surprise ending.  The children also completed a spelling assessment to determine their levels, some short addition drills, a place value lesson and game, self-portraits, and their first keyboarding lesson on the home row.  They did great!  Here are a few pictures from today:

Ms. Mallett's 3rd Grade Class 2011-2012

the boys:)

the girls:)

Happy Independence Day!

The 4th of July is coming up.  Here are a few games and activities to celebrate!

Free Online Games for the Fourth

Crafts for Kids
Independence Day Fun