A Note from Mrs. Endres… Today is an overcast, windy April day as I sit in my kitchen overlooking the woods in our backyard. The scrubby, bright green bushes are swaying quite elegantly and a few of the bare trees appear to be budding. There’s a pop of white color here and bright pink there. Some trees are ahead of the game. Winnie the Pooh would no doubt be helping Piglet stay upright in this wind on this blustery spring day. Spring is such a wonderful time for renewal. We are blessed to have four seasons in Missouri. Right when we get tired of one, another one equally as pretty arrives. There is a new season in my family as well. Last weekend we celebrated the marriage of our third daughter, Gretchen, to her handsome Army sergeant, Seth. As we were doing the anniversary dance where all the married couples take the dance floor to reveal through elimination who has been married the longest, I looked over and there was the doctor who announced, "It's a girl!" twenty-two years ago dancing with his lovely wife and dear friend of mine. How did the time go so quickly! A house full of noise and mess lasts only for a short season…relax, embrace it, and enjoy it! Believe it or not, you are going to miss it! -Mrs. Endres Upcoming Dates to Mark on Your Calendar April 10 Cade’s Birthday April 15 Geometry Test April 27 Mile Run in PE—wear tennis shoes and bring a water bottle April 29 MAP Rotation Lessons—change classes on Gold Team for communication arts lessons--Fun! April 29 Watch Dog Dad—Mr. Douglas May 5-6 MAP Testing for Third Grade (Comm. Arts/Math) May 12 Field Trip to Bennett Springs (permission slip to go home soon) May 18 Field Day at BIS (be saving DoJo points for the dunk tank!) May 19 Career Day at BIS May 20 Last Day of School April Curriculum Reading: The Explorers recently finished a cause and effect comprehension unit the end of March and first week of April. Folktales were used as a review of narrative elements, sequencing, and determining cause and effect relationships. Explorers discovered the author’s purpose for oral traditions of the past: to entertain, teach a lesson, or explain something about nature. We enjoyed several folktales from West Africa, Japan, and China. Last week we began a nonfiction unit on determining the main idea. We read quite a few science texts to support our plant unit. This week we will begin an Underground Railroad unit where we will focus on main idea in both nonfiction and fiction texts. We will then make a link from main idea to theme. We will build our vocabularies while exploring the quality literature on this topic! Spelling: The past three spelling lessons have revolved around prefixes. As an extension, the class also practiced recognizing base words with two affixes--prefix-base word-suffix. We will continue working with suffixes the next few weeks. Writing: March saw the completion of our five-paragraph essays on Austria. The class did an exceptional job writing these nonfiction pieces. Right after the essays, we moved to persuasive writing. We are currently writing persuasive letters following the OREO approach to opinion writing. We also reviewed RAFT (role, audience, format, and topic) in preparing for our piece. Students will all have the same role which is to persuade the reader to action and the same format which is a friendly letter. Students had choice on choosing their audience and topic. While studying persuasive techniques, we learned that repetition and appealing to the emotions are part of persuasive author’s craft. There are several transitional phrases which also help drive a point home. The students are enjoying this writing activity. Next up, poetry! We will begin by reading poems looking at poetic devices and then move on to creating our own poetry anthologies. Math: We are nearing the end of our Geometry Unit. During this unit, we created a geometry “burrito” book where all important vocabulary has been kept. We will finish up on 3-dimensional shapes and their nets early this week before beginning a unit review. The test will be Friday, April 15. Our next unit will be Graphs. Students will work on collecting, charting, and analyzing data. It is a fun unit of high interest to students. Science: Last week we took our Plant Unit test and everyone was successful! It was a hands on unit with several plant experiments taking place in the room. Students kept a plant journal for our “Plant Needs Experiment” data to be collected and then analyzed. We conducted a celery experiment to witness the path that water takes in a plant, and we watched lima been seeds germinate in the window. We will revisit living organisms in May when we study our Missouri ecology unit called “Nature Unleashed.” Social Studies: This week we will begin our Economics Unit. Students will learn how are economy operates and the part that the U.S. plays in a global economy. Students will be taught about banking, budgeting, and marketing. The unit is rich with vocabulary and for many students, the first time they have really thought about being a consumer. We will read quality literature during reader’s workshop to support our economics unit. These stories will begin with bartering and trading and move to boom towns of the wild west—how businesses begin when there is a need and/or natural resources nearby. This will lead to a cowboy unit complete with armadillo stories suitable for a campfire. MAP Testing May 5-6 Third grade students will be taking the MAP test Thursday-Friday, May 5-6 online in the math lab (it has student computers). The communication arts test will be on Thursday followed by the math test on Friday. We have already taken a MAP diagnostic test online as a practice so students are familiar with the format. Students are also receiving MAP test taking computer instruction from Mrs. Wilson in the computer lab. Her mantra is, “Tools are not toys.” The test will be administered in the morning with a long break for lunch and extended recess before resuming in the afternoon. We will not have specials on those days. For those parents who signed up for water, thank you! I will send a reminder home closer to the date. Also, on the first day of MAP testing I will place the encouraging letters that you wrote during spring conferences on student desks. If you did not have time to write a note in March, please send in a note to your student with the envelope marked with his/her name and MAP on it. I will add it to the pile. Student Achievement Student Completes Xtramath.com Cy Douglas has completed all levels of xtramath.com, a website which practices basic math facts through three operations: addition, subtraction, and multiplication. He is the first student who has mastered all levels with speed and accuracy. Congratulations, Cy! Students Meet Reading Counts Goal for Third Quarter Jaxon Dublin, Avery Duncan, Derek Cox, Aaron Ashley, Stella Scowden, and Garret Cook reached their Reading Counts goal and were rewarded with a $7 trip to the Scholastic Book Fair in the library. Congratulations, readers, for making your personal goal! Multiplication Timed Tests Astin Brown, Cade Raney, and Derek Cox have all completed multiplication timed tests twice from 0-11. That’s 50 problems in three minutes! They are currently working on division facts. Congratulations, boys, for a job well-done!
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AuthorHello! My name is Heidi…I love my family, the Lord, and chai tea lattes! I’m a wife to an amazing husband, mama to four wonderful kids, new Grammy to a cute baby boy, and a chubby 3rd grade teacher. (I've eaten too many birthday cupcakes!) I love people, learning, and creating. Thanks for stopping by! May you be blessed today as you bless others. Archives
March 2020
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