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!