September 23, 2011
Happy Birthday Olivia B. !!! 
•Reading- We finished reading, The Waterfall this week and took the A. R. test after reviewing the story and listening to the story on the CD. We started looking at many waterfalls around the world in the computer lab. Next week, we will choose a few to write about. The site we are using is: World Database for Waterfalls.
We also had our first certificate level reached in A.R. Congratulations to Pradanya for passing the "Ready Reader" level, achieving over 5pts. and passing at 80% or greater. I bet many more will pass by Tuesday!
Syllables- This is one of the skills tested on the upcoming district tests in October. The kids looked through shopping ads, magazines and more to find words with 3, 4, and 5 syllables. We're still hunting for a goal of 10 words each.
-Also, everyone took home the Renaissance Learning "Home Connect" letter. Once you sign up at home, you'll be able to view your child's progress on A.R. and help develop positive conversations about tests taken. It can be a real learning experience if a child does not pass a test (often at the beginning of the year students pick books well above their reading level). Students are asked to choose books only in their comfortable reading level, unless approved by the teacher. We will take the reading level test (called STAR) a few times during the year, so that we can all view the growth your child is making. You have a copy of your child's first test in the Falcon Folder. As a parent, I came home today to see an email from "Home Connect." It told me that my son took a specific book test today on AR, and listed his score. Immediate feedback gave me something specific to discuss and celebrate. I then went online with him to show him his "bookcase." It shows all the books he's taken so far this year. By the way, teachers never see these pages. Just for parents and students! Please email if you have any problems or questions.
-Have you used www.arbookfind.com yet? It's a great resource if you want to see if a book has a test on AR, and more importantly creating an individual book list for his/her book range. Check it out !
•Welcome Back- We never divulged the winners!!! The students came up with many words inside "Welcome back", like comb, black, etc... Jennifer was the top, top winner at over 40 words! Aidan was the 2nd highest, then Walker, Joshua and Olivia M. . Way to go!!! Apparently, there's over 70 words that can be made.
•Math- This week focused on addition with and without regrouping. We practiced on our whiteboards, used the Internet (www.internet4classrooms.com) and our practice pages. We will continue this next week, adding in subtraction.
September 16, 2011
Happy Birthday Camryn !!! 
Language Arts-
•In reading, our next selection in "Off to Adventure" theme was Ballad of Mulan. Student learned of a girl that disguised herself as a man to fight in a war, preventing her elderly father of having to go off to war. Some students have seen the Disney version. In a couple of weeks, we will be showing part of this movie in class, and compare/contrast both versions. We went do www.eduplace.com/kids to play "eWord" game that helps us with the vocabulary words in the story. After reading the story together, we also listened to the CD of the story, as we all followed along. Our grammar lesson focused on words that have double meanings.
•Renaissance Learning has begun! Students last week took a reading test online which they call STAR. Your child now knows (or can look in their green folder if forgotten!) their ZPD (zone of proximal development- better known as your comfortable reading level). Students are expected to stay within their ZPD for their homework reading and in-class independent reading. If you're not sure a book at home is a "AR" book, you can visit www.arbookfind.com and check by typing the title. If it's listed, there's a test for that book and your child is welcome to read that book. If there is not time to check on that at home, just write down the title/s, have your child bring to school and we'll check here!
Be looking for a letter from Renaissance Learning next Thursday. It'll show you the easy steps to signing in. Once you do that, you'll get a short email each time your child takes a test. You'll have your own private "bookshelf" showing all the books available. I had no idea of what the parent version looked like, until I had the opportunity to do that for my son. You'll appreciate the immediate feedback and be able to talk positively how well they did on their test, or positively on how they can improve next time. Was the book not at their ZPD? Did he/she take the test well after finishing? We're always trying to look at what students did well and how to improve next time.
•Handwriting- We practiced and reviewed "f", "b" and "l" page. Please note any corrections that are made with handwriting. Students that have shown their readiness in handwriting will be beginning cursive in October. Students making their letters incorrectly, mainly starting at wrong place, will find making the cursive letters harder than the rest. With D'Nealian, moving to cursive is quite simple, usually just adding a connecting line.
•Vocabulary Tests- students learn one word a day that we call our Vocabulary word. We talk about the meaning, part of speech, then answer orally questions about the word. On Friday, we have a quiz on the 4 words of the week after reviewing each of them. Most everyone has been receiving 100% or +4 (missing just one). Anyone with less than four is probably not being careful. If your child has missed more than one, please go over it with them. Sometimes is just being careful and reviewing your answers. On #5, they have to write that word in a sentence. It must be spelled correctly (written 3x on the paper!) and must have a capital and period.
Math tests- Most students did a very good job demonstrating their knowledge of place value.
100%= 5 students
85-95%= 7students
80%= 4 students
70-75%= 5students
below 70%= 3 students
Behavior Chart- Both rooms 30 and 31 have noticed that this group of kids are quite chatty. Learning to be respectful and courteous is a goal for many of these kids. Instead of penalizing the kids that are doing a good job, we have decided to show part of Disney's "Mulan" as a class/student reward. Each student has a 6 day behavior strip. To earn the movie, each student must have 4 or more stars. I hope all 24 of our students will make movie day!
Mrs. Khalid will have the other kids in the conference room at that time.
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September 9, 2011
Student Council Elections
We had an awesome election day! We had six candidates who each came up to the front of the class to run for Student Council. Every parent would have been proud of the six who tried. Their speeches were short, clear and specific. I just hate that we can only have just two. But.... two were selected and they'll do just great! Congratulations to Olivia M. and Jennifer !!!
Language Arts-
•Students worked on learning about sentence fragments and complete sentences. We saw a mini movie from Brainpop that also reinforced complete sentences.
•Base words- working on identifying base (root) words from the prefix or suffixes
•Reading Buddies- this week students paired up with their buddy!
•S.J. Sharks- "Reading is Cool" program- we're all signed up to participate. They will send the kids bookmarks and 7 medals for the teacher. Each month, the teacher will select a Top Reader for the month and a medal will be awarded. This starts October 1st and runs through April.
Math
•We worked on place value with expanded form, word form and standard form
•Next week, we'll review and have our first chapter test
Social Studies- Celebrating our Heroes
•On Friday, we all wore red, white and blue! The 3rd grade kids looked fantastic! We talked briefly about Sept. 11th and watch a short animated video of the events on Brainpop. Schools around the nation celebrated the day as
"Patriot Day" (officially held on Sunday), a day set aside to celebrate our heroes in America and how working together in a peaceful world is what we all strive to do. We watched a Reading Rainbow selection that read the story, "The Tin Forest". After the story was read, the host (Lavar Burton) talked to a class that was across the street from the towers. These kids were very touched by all the cards and gifts sent from around the world to them. Over 10,000 paper cranes were made from a school in Japan. If you have the opportunity to see that on your television, it was very nice and appropriate for the kids. We talked about the heroes we have today. Kids will be writing about their heroes next week
•Book Orders- thank you for those that have ordered online or sent in checks. Everyone received the code you need, in case you'd like to order online. This month, they have an incentive for ordering and possibly earning 5,000 book points for the teacher- I'm 1/2 there already!
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September 2, 2011
Student Council
Elections-
Wednesday is “Election Day”! If your child would like
to run for the position of Student Council Rep., please have them write and
practice a 1-2 min. speech for the class election. They can state their desire
to be our rep, along with telling us why they would be good for that job. Two
students will be chosen for the first half of the year. Later in the year, we
will hold another election, so two other reps can be a part of the school group.
Meetings will be held at lunch on Wednesdays.
Page
Protectors- I did add these clear protector sheets to my "Wish List" page. I need
about 20 per kid, as we had papers to our Memory book each month. One small
package or box, would be greatly appreciated. This binder will go home at
the end of the year. You’ll see them at our parent conference day!
Homework- is
expected to be complete and neatly done by each Friday. Students will have one
"grace day" if they forget but if forgotten by Monday, he/she will
start a new packet all over until that is complete or the other one is returned
during recess and lunch. That usually only happens to one or two students once
during the year!
Language
Arts- We started our first story, Lost and Found
this week. Three students fall into the school's lost and found box, only to
discover many different types of rooms and caves and interesting things.
Students practiced the skill of summarizing by retelling parts of the story.
Friday, each student created their own "room" that they'd like to
visit in the "Lost and Found."
We continued practicing our printing. Please look
over the letters to see if your child needs to practice on letters at home. If
you see your child has letter/s that are not formed with the D'Nealian format,
please have them practice at home. They can use paper, whiteboard, electronic
board- any way to help!
This
was a standard for 1st and 2nd grade.
Math- Place Value
Our key terms practiced were expanded form, word form
and standard form.
We worked understanding place value numbers on our
math workmat boards, on paper, and on the Internet. Yes, we found websites about place value! We used eduplace.com, www.internet4classrooms.com and toonuniversity.com for place value activities.
Morning
Standards Warm up- Each
day, students answer 5 language and 5 math problems. After lunch, our partner
corrects our paper in red pencils and then when it’s returned we fix our
mistakes by using a blue pencil.
These skills are now correlated with the state standards and now feature
a graph at the end of the week. Students color their scores to see how they did
during the week.
Parent
Helpers- I have
started with a couple of parents in the room, but all who have returned the
blue form will get an email soon. I will need to alternate helpers each week,
as we have had so many people volunteer.
Have a great three day weekend!
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August 26, 2011
Our 1st newsletter of the school year! Welcome
to third grade, parents! This newsletter page is where you will get regular
updates about the happenings in our classroom, usually on a weekly basis. You
can see this webpage anytime, but if you've signed up for our
"Newsflash", you will get an alert message when there are changes on
the webpage, usually the weekly newsletter, but sometimes an announcement or
reminder.
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Stanford Football
Fan???
Stanford Football Kicks off in 12 Days Stanford
Football, ranked #6/7 (USA Today/AP) nationally in preseason polls, will kick
off the season on Saturday, September 3 against San Jose State at 2:00 p.m. The
game against the Spartans will be the annual Bill Walsh Legacy 'Kids Free'
Game. All kids 14 & under receive a free general admission ticket with
advance registration. Accompanying adults may purchase general admission
tickets for $14 at the Stanford Stadium Ticket Office on game day. Kids will
also have the opportunity to run the field after the game.
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A big THANK YOU to all who have brought in donations
to our classroom. We have lots of tissue and wipes to last quite a while.
Wonderful!!!
Volunteering- I have
been very fortunate to have many of you express a desire to work in the
classroom. This could be one of the years that I may even need to alternate
helpers. The time is usually about an hour, sometimes less. I need about 4
parents each week to help with clerical duties, along with a library parent. I
will have a form at Back to School night that you can fill out, but feel free
to email me if you have a desired day or time. I also have "at home helpers" who do things at home (cutting,
stapling, sorting, etc...). Another big way to help is a copy parent. If you work at a company that can donate the use of
their copy machine, there are always packets that I'd love printed. All in
class parents are required by the district to have their TB test results
registered in the office.
Times needed:
Monday
(8:20-9:20), Tues. or Thurs (1:30-2:30)
Wednesday Library (9:15-9:45),
Friday
morning 8:20-9:20 or 10:20-11:20
•Reading-
This week we started our reading textbook by Houghtin Mifflin. The first
section is called, "Back to School." It reviews with the students the
reading strategies that they'll use all year as they read, or what good readers
do without realizing. (Predict/Infer, Phonics/Decoding, Monitor/Clarify,
Question, Evaluate and summarize). I part of a story each day, demonstrating
each of the good reading strategies. Now, we're ready to begin our first theme
next week called, "Off to An Adventure."
•Handwriting
in 3rd grade starts with a review. It quickly reviews common letters, and this
week we did the letters that start at the dotted line, "a, c, d, e, g, o,
s." Most students did a great job and know how to form the letters
correctly. There were some students who had difficulty because they start their
letters in the wrong spot. Please help them try and correct this, so that they
can be ready for cursive. On
•Homework-
Monday, students will take home their homework packet which includes an
alphabet of proper formation of printing and cursive. This should be kept in
their homework folder. For their reading homework, we want children reading
books that are at their reading level and of interest to them, while they are
independently reading at home and school. Reading aloud to your child is still
a wonderful experience and good practice for hearing fluency and expression. Homework reading, though,
should be independent, not shared or read aloud. Of course, you can help them
on words, and please ask them about what they are reading too! When they
have to write down their summary sentence for homework, it may be beneficial to
ask them first what the chapter was mainly about. If you need to help your
child the first month with the reading form, that is fine.
•We saw a mini movie on "Back to School" at
www.brainpop.com, where there
are hundreds of mini movies and some lessons for topics of all school subjects.
Math- This
week students took a pre-assessment inventory. We will take this same
assessment at the end of the year too!
•Websites:
We did go into the computer lab this week. Students who turned in their
Internet permission slip went to our class webpage and chose from a list of fun
but educational sites. Ask your child what activity they chose!
•P.E.
This week we started our weekly P.E. groups with rooms 8, 31, and 35. Please
make sure that your child wears comfortable shoes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
After lunch, we line up in rows, do a few warm up exercises, run a lap or two,
then divide into 3 groups. The kids rotate groups each week, so after three
weeks, they have learned three different games.
Science- This
week, we learned more about Hurricanes. We watched a mini movie on Brainpop.com
and also a Bill Nye movie. Next week, we will write a class paragraph on
Hurricanes. Ask your child what they remember!
• Choice
Time: Did you hear about that? We have a short 20-30 min. called,
"Fun Friday." For those students who have caught up on all their
work, earn some choice time. Those that haven't finished their classwork or
homework, use that time to catch up, so that they do not have to take any work
home for the weekend. Everyone made it this week! We do have a
"Ketchup" board by the blue door. We use this to list assignments
missed by students. That way, they know what still needs to be completed by
Friday.
•Back to
School Night is next Wednesday (8/31) at 6:00p.m. K-2 classrooms, 6:30
cafeteria (PTA), 6:45 3-5 classes. Remember this is a time for parents only, no
children please. This will be the time for you to hear about your child's 3rd
grade year.