Study, Study, Study

Please have your child take a few minutes tonight to study their spelling words.  I am sending home a double sided worksheet that they could complete as their spelling practice.  This is not required but highly encouraged. 

There is also a math worksheet for homework tonight.  Along with the math homework they can practice their math facts and read for 15 minutes.  I realize that this adds up to be a lot of work sometimes.  Do what you can and forget the rest.  Anything is better than nothing. 

Ask your student about our science activities.  I think the kids are really enjoying these lessons and having a lot of fun with them.  I know I am!!

Scholastic News

The homework for tonight is to read the Scholastic News Magazine that was sent home and to write down 3 things that the kids learned by reading the magazine.  If your child is in Project Explore they weren't in the room when we handed out the magazines and don't have to do the homework.

A little over half the class finished the reading portion of the MAP test today.  Our next test will be Language on Friday afternoon. 

I did ask if a couple of the kids could bring a apple or orange tomorrow for our science lesson.  I don't need a bunch but a few would be great.  Thanks!!

MAP Testing

Most student finished their Math MAP test today.  Most of the kids went up about 8 points which is great.  Encourage them to keep up the good work. 

We will be taking the Reading portion tomorrow and the Language portion on Friday.

There is no homework this evening.  You could use this rainy day as an opportunity to work on multiplication facts and reading minutes. 

Spring Has Arrived

It finally feels like spring outside.  Remember the rule we use at Sunset about coats is that if it is below 60 degrees students must have jackets to go outside.  If it is about 60 degrees they may go out in t-shirts.

This week we will be taking our Spring MAP tests.  Our class will be testing on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.  Remind your students to do their best.

There is math homework tonight.  Along with the homework students may work on reading and checkered flag multiplication. 

Let's make it a great week!

April Fools

I made it through the day without being tricked with any April Fools jokes.  You never know what third graders might come up with.  I am hoping that Mother Nature is playing a joke on us with this chilly day.

There is no math homework tonight.  Kids could however practice their math facts.  March Mathness is over and our class scored 551 points which translates into 1,653 minutes of fact practice.  Today we are starting a new incentive that is very similar called Checkered Flag Multiplication.  Check out Twitter for a picture of our race track.

Spelling practice book pages are also coming home tonight for practice.

Out of everything coming home tonight the most important is the field trip packet.  Our field trip will be to the Boone Y-Camp on April 24th.  Students CAN"T go without returning the green "Health Form".  They also need to bring back their lunch choice by the 8th of April.  Look for further field trip details at a later date. 

Tomorrow is the last day for yearbook orders!

Happy April!!

No More Winter Gear!!!

Starting Monday please DO NOT send snowpants or boots with your child.  Even though all of the snow isn't quite gone as of now we are going to be done with boots and snowpants for this year.  Even if it snows again they don't need these things.  We will either be on the blacktop only or inside for recess.

There is no homework this weekend other than March Mathness and the 15 minutes of reading.  Enjoy the three day weekend!!

Yearbook Forms

Yearbook order forms are due Tuesday.  Those need to be turned in if your child would like a yearbook. 

There is homework in math tonight about fractions.  Today in math we introduced mixed numbers. 

The spelling test and reading test will be tomorrow.  Practice those spelling words!!!

Challenge

The homework tonight will be a challenge and it is meant to be.  Please don't give your student too much help, try to make them work through it.  Help walk them through the steps they need to go through to answer the question, however.  I would like them to be able to explain to me how they got their answer tomorrow. 

This homework comes out of our new science program - FOSS Science.  The program is unique in the fact that it has stories that go along with what we are learning about and also incorporates math.  I am sure that some social studies will be incorporated down the road also. 

Keep studying for the spelling test.  Remember that it will take place on Thursday this week. 

Back to School!!

I hope everyone had a much needed and relaxing break.  I was able to enjoy a trip to Arizona to visit my parents with my wife.  It was much warmer there than it has been here.  I am ready for spring already. 

This week we are reading a story titled, "Goodbye 382 Shin Dang Dong".  It is about a girl in Korea that moves to America with her family.  It compares how things are alike and different Korea and America.  As we read this story we will be talking about sequence of a story, adverbs in our writing, and words that are spelled with the same vowel sound as BALL. 

There is homework in math tonight as we continued our work on fractions this afternoon. 

Also coming home today are yearbook ordering forms.  These forms are due back by Tuesday, April 2.  The yearbooks should be delivered in Mid-May. 

Some students did a great job of logging math and reading minutes over break.  Everyone needs to get back in the groove and routine of 15 minutes of reading each night and practicing math facts each night.  I have seen tremendous growth by the students who do this on a regular basis.  Keep up the good work!!!

What Can We Work On At Home??

What can we work on at home? is probably one of the most commonly asked questions at conferences.  I also think it is a question most parents want to know, but don't ask for a different number of reasons.  I also never really feel like I have that great of an answer for parents.  After much thought this is what I have come up.

Does your child read 15 minutes or more each night?  If they are that is awesome, if they aren't then that could be a goal to work towards.  I would also encourage parents to take interest in their reading.  Ask them about their book.  When a student retells what they have read it improves their comprehension of what they have read tremendously. 

Has your child be practicing their multiplication facts?  Currently we are having a competition at school called March Mathness.  Each student gets a point for every 5 minutes practiced.  We are competing against Mr. McGrane's class to see which class can get the highest total of points.  There are a million different ways to practice facts.  Flash cards, ask and answer with someone, make flash cards, write out facts, and several other ways.  There are also many fact practice games on various websites on the internet.  Many of them are linked in the Links section of the blog.  If you find a new one feel free to share it with me.  (Sometimes a website says it is for math, but then the games really have little to do with math so be careful of that.)

Writing is another focus for third graders.  A great Spring Break task would be to write a few sentences each day.  Work on neat handwriting, correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.  Every little bit helps.

With Spring Break coming up we have a great opportunity for kids to practice lots of things at home.  Does that mean I want them to do school work all day everyday?  Absolutely NOT!  A few minutes a day can make a huge difference.  Anything is better than nothing.

Sometimes I think parents wonder if they are working on the right things.  In my opinion there really are no wrong things to work on.  If  you are taking an interest in your child's education and trying to help them become better at ANYTHING, then you are working on something positive. 

Have a great break!  I look forward to break and also a strong finish to the end of the school year! 

Character Counts Day!!!!

We had a fun filled day at the middle school and with the middle school kids visiting us.  Below is a link to a video of pictures and video clips that Emma put together for us.  Thanks Emma!!!

Character Counts Day iMovie

Science!!

Today instead of Math we started some Science.  Sunset teachers are piloting the FOSS Science program that we will be adopting next year.  We will be alternating between Science and Math in the afternoons.  Since we didn't have math today there isn't any math homework. The area of Science we will work on is Measuring and Matter.  Today we talked about having common measurements and good measuring habits and techniques. 

In Reading this week we will be reading the story How My Family Lives in America.  The story is about three young people who all have a parent that was born in another country.  The spelling list that goes along with this story is homophones.  Check with your child to see if they know what a homonym is.  They should be bringing home practice book pages to practice their spelling.  As always, this doesn't have to be returned to school.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day as we will be visiting the middle school and also have visitors from the middle school to celebrate Character Counts day. I will take pictures tomorrow to add to the week's slideshow on Friday.  I will also post Twitter updates.  If your not following our class on Twitter at @mrbrimsclass do so before tomorrow so you can see updates throughout the day. 

Report Cards

Be on the look-out for report cards.  Each child should bring one home with them today.  You may keep the report card and any other papers.  I do ask that you send the envelope back with your student on Monday.  The sooner they bring it back the more Brim Bucks they get!

Also, if you haven't sent back the conference sheet yet please do so ASAP!

There is homework in math this weekend and the opportunity to scored 9 points in March Mathness.  15 minutes of fact practice each day gets them 3 points per day.  The practice does need to happen on three different days.  Keep recording the reading minutes as well.

This morning we had Juli Jaycox visit us to talk about dental hygiene. She gave each kids a toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste.  Students in 3rd grade should already be taking good care of their teeth but they are also getting close to the age where other good hygiene habits need to be started. 

Check out the new video link for pictures from the past week!

Happy Friday and Have a Great Weekend!!!!

A Little Bit of Everything Today!

Another busy, busy day has come to and end here in third grade at Sunset.  Hopefully yesterday everyone got the gold conference form.  If you haven't already done so please return the bottom half indicating if your assigned time will work for you or not.  If it will not I have a couple other openings on that day or I can do a different day after school. 

Tomorrow we will be taking our reading test over the story, Suki's Kimono.  Ask your student what the story is about.  Summarizing a story is a great way to prepare for the test.  We will also be taking out spelling test.  I sent home practice book pages for the spelling words.  Those can be great practice and they do not have to be returned to school. 

We had a much better turn out for our March Mathness fact practice today.  Keep up the good work on that!  We are in a competition with Mr. McGrane's class so every point counts!!

Today was also our day to visit the Kendall Young Library.  The kids really love going there to get books.  I think almost everyone has a library card now.  That's fantastic!

Please check out the SURVEY tap at the top of the page.  It would be great to get a little feedback from the parents.  Be on the look-out tomorrow for a picture slideshow of some of the things that happened throughout the week.  Many of the pictures have already been uploaded to Twitter.  If you don't follow our class on Twitter, sign-up soon.  It's a great way to see what is going on here at school and to get updates.  Simply sign-up for a Twitter account and search for @mrbrimsclass. 

Survey

I'm trying something new.  It may work and it might not.  Please take a minute to check out the SURVEY tab at the top and complete the anonymous survey.

Boots and Snow Pants

Please make sure your child has boots and snow pants here at school every day.  Also talk to them about the importance of wearing them out for recess.  If there is snow on the ground, they need them on.  It would also really help if they wore them to school in the morning.

Our custodians work very hard to keep our building clean all year and have to work extra hard in the winter.  Let's all help them out by wearing boots and wiping our feet when entering the building.  Think about the mess your child makes when they come in the house.  Now imagine the 350 kids Curt has to clean up after. 

Fraction Posters

Today in math we talked about fractions some more as we discussed probability.  We did a block drawing experiment that I think all of the kids thought was kind of fun.  There is homework tonight in math. 

As an extra thing to do I told kids that they could create a poster that explains Fractions with examples.  We will then vote for the best poster and it will be displayed for the rest of the year.  All of the others will also be displayed for a while.  I told the kids it didn't really matter when they returned this.  If it came back by the end of the week or the beginning of next week that would be great.  Some kids even talked about getting poster board to put it on.  That would be great!

Monday Has Come and Monday Has Gone

I can't believe how fast today went by.  It also seemed like the first normal day of school we have had on a Monday in a while. 

In reading this week we are reading a story titled Suki's Kimono.  A kimono is a type of dress that women in Japan wear traditionally.  This led to some discussion about our ancestors.  I told the kids to ask their parents where their ancestors came from and if their parents or grandparents had any idea what type of traditional dress was worn in that country. 

Each student should have brought home spelling practice book pages to work on spelling words.  These also include the words.  If you are studying on Spelling City we are on Unit 5 Week 1.  All of the words this week have a CVVC or CVV pattern somewhere within the word. 

In math we started Unit 8.  Unit 8 is about fractions.  Since we started a new unit today each child should be coming home with a Unit 8 Family Letter.  Remember to hang on to this as it might help answer questions when you are working on homework throughout the unit. Fractions always seem to be a challenging topic for third graders.  The more they can talk about fractions at home the more they will learn about them.  Also, in math don't forget about the March Mathness fact practice.  We have entered into a competition with Mr. McGrane's class to see which class can score the most total points as a class.  To win we will need everyone to participate in March Mathness. 

I have a feeling this is going to be a great week filled with learning!

Friday Fun!!

What a great way to end the week!  We had a Read-A-Thon this morning and the kids enjoyed reading and snacking. 

For lunch we had sack lunch due to the presentations in the gym today.  We even had a special guest for lunch as my wife, Brittany joined us. 

This afternoon we worked on a math test for a while and then had a presentation by the Grout Museum.  The kids got to see some cool science related things.  It also just so happened that we had science kits delivered today so we can add some more science to what we are teaching. 

For pictures from the week check out the video slide show in the Video and Pictures Links. 

Have a great weekend!!

Videos Uploaded

There are some neat videos that have been uploaded in our video links section.  The kids took turns teaching different math concepts today in preparation of the Unit 7 test tomorrow.

Tomorrow will also be our Read-A-Thon in the morning.  The kids may bring a small snack and a drink with a screw-top lid (no pop).  They may also bring their own books from home to read.  Please no blankets, pillows, etc. this time. 

Remember tonight is the Donkey Basketball at the middle school.  It starts at 8 pm due to the middle school music concert earlier tonight.  I know that is past most 3rd grader's bedtimes, but this might be a night you want to make an exception.  I have never seen such a thing before but I have high hopes for a very entertaining night.  Third grade's own Mr. McGrane is rumored to be riding a donkey tonight. 

Wow!!

Wow!!!  I'm impressed by how well the students did on their Unit 4 Benchmark Reading Test.  Most scores were in the 80s and 90s.  Historically the the scores have been in the high 60s to 70s, rarely into the 90s.  Ask your child how they did and congratulate them for giving their best effort as I thought all students took the test very serious and really gave it their best shot. 

This afternoon in math we spent time creating slides that will review a math problem that is similar to the test problems they will solve later this week.  Tomorrow the students and their partner or on their own will be teaching the class about their topic using their slide on the SMARTBoard.  I am excited to see how this turns out.  I plan to video a couple of the kids and post them on the blog so look for those tomorrow. 

We also welcomed a new student in our class today.  Ana Gomez-Lopez is joining or I should say rejoining us as she went to Kindergarten and 1st grade here.  Recently she has been in Mexico.  I am always impressed with how well the students welcome new students into the class.  Everyone is willing to help and make them feel welcome. 

No Spelling

The big announcement for today is that there is No Spelling this week.  This week we will be taking the Unit 4 Benchmark test in reading and doing some other writing activities.  Therefore we will not be reading a new story this week or taking a spelling test.  Your child will still need to read their 15 minutes each night.  We are closer than ever to reaching our monthly goal. 

Friday we will be having a Read-A-Thon.  You should be getting a yellowish note at home tonight with details.  A drink with a screw-top lid (not pop) will be allowed and 1 snack.  Please send stuff for your own child.  No sleeping bags, pillows, stuffed animals, etc. will be allowed this time.

There is homework in math tonight.  We will hopefully get far enough in math this week to take our Unit 7 test. 

We took our spelling test today just in case we have a snow day tomorrow.

If we do have school tomorrow we will be spending our time working on persuasive writing. This is a new type of writing to the kids. If they need something to do on the snow day (assuming it happens) they could spend some time researching for their persuasive writings. Most of the kids are writing to persuade which plants should be planted in our garden boxes this spring. They need to pick plants that can be grown in our climate. They also need to find a couple other points that would show why the plants they pick would be good choices for our gardens.

We spent our afternoon talking about the persuasive writings so we didn't have math. Since we didn't have math and the spelling test is already completed there isn't anything for the kids to do tonight besides their usually 15 minutes of reading. If we do have a snow day it would be the perfect opportunity to do some extra reading.

Math facts would also be a great thing to practice if we have a snow day and the kids have a little extra time on their hands. Practice could be done several ways. Flash cards can be used and if you don't have any just making some could be good practice if they have to write the answers on the back. Just make sure to check their answers for them so they don't practice with the wrong answers. There are also some great links that have math games. My favorite is Arcademic Skill Builders. Mr. Wylie's website in the links section also looks like it probably has a lot of good educational games.

More Snow!!!!!!

It looks like we are probably going to get a significant amount of snow in the next few days.  According to the recent forecast it looks like there could be a CHANCE for early dismissal tomorrow.  Unplanned early dismissals are always chaotic.  Please talk with your child tonight about what they should do if that were to happen.  When the kids know it makes it a lot easier here at school.  Listen to the radio and check KCCI or WHO as they are usually the first to know about early dismissals and etc. 

To try and plan around the upcoming storm we took our reading test today.  The kids all did very well.  The spelling test may happen tomorrow if it starts looking like we will not have school Friday.  If we do take it tomorrow I will allow extra practice time beforehand.  Make sure your child studies tonight and is prepared for a test tomorrow. 

Tonight's math homework always proves to be confusing.  ONLY the problems that have estimates greater than 500 need to be solved.  If the estimate is less than 500 DO NOT solve.  The kids can estimate either to the largest place or to the tens place. 

Dodgeball

Today was the annual dodgeball tournament.  Students could use their Paw Prints to buy a ticket to participate in the dodgeball tournament. Most of the kids chose to play and we all went to Fuller Hall to take part in the fun.  Our class was beat in the final match by Mr. McGrane's class. 

There is math homework tonight.  It should be pretty easy.  Extended facts are just basic facts with zeros added on the end.  I teach students to do that base fact and then count how many zeros are on one side of the equals sign and then add that many zeros to the other side. 

For example:
                             30 x 40 =        
        Base Fact:       3 x 4 = 12

In the original fact there are 2 zeros on the left side of the equals sign so 2 zeros can be added to 12 to get 1,200 as a final answer.