Christmas

What a fun week in 3rd Grade!  There is nothing that warms our hearts more than sharing the Christmas story with your children.  We spent a lot of time this week talking and reading books about the birth of our Savior.  These students have such a heart for JESUS!  What an awesome reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.

Thank you to all of you who came to help with Gingerbread houses.  The students had a wonderful time creating these and there are many photos on the smugmug site for you to enjoy.

We also want to thank the parents who planned our class Christmas party on Thursday.  The students made an adorable snowman craft and enjoyed lots of great treats.  

We also enjoyed a wonderful chapel this morning with Positive Options (formally Lakeshore Pregnancy Center).  Our class collected over 120 items to bring!  Thank you for your generosity to this cause.  

There is NO homework over Christmas break!  We encouraged your children today to keep reading, but let them read whatever they want at whatever level they desire.  We wish you and your family a WONDERFUL Christmas vacation and many blessings in the New Year.  

Blessings,
Erin and Lynae

The weeks leading up to Christmas are so exciting in our 3rd grade classroom.  The students are thrilled with all of the items that they have collected for the Lakeshore Pregnancy Center (Positive Options) and we are keeping a running total of all of the items that they have brought in.  We are also spending a lot of time during our devotions talking about Advent and the anticipation we have for the birth of our Savior.  The class worked really hard this week on their academics as well so that we will be able to enjoy a lot of fun events this coming week.  Here a glimpse of what is happening in our class!

Reading:  This week in reading we looked at how our characters can act differently than what we might anticipate.  We also tried something that can be very difficult for younger children which was to identify a "theory" or a big idea about life from watching what our characters go through and how they react to it.  They did such a wonderful job with this.  We have some deep thinkers in our room.  We also identified what it was that our characters really desire and what seems to always get in their way and then what is there reaction to it.  Next week we will wrap up our book clubs and when we return from Christmas break we will start learning how to read through nonfiction with POWER!

REMINDER-reading minutes due Monday with a parent signature.

Writing:  This week we have continued to revise our writing by adding sensory details, transition words, and internal feelings and we edited our writing by making sure we used appropriate punctuation, upper/lower case letters, and that our spelling was readable.  Next we we will publish. 

 

Math:  We are almost done with our unit on measurement, elapsed time, and graphing.  A review test went home with your child on Thursday and needs to be returned to school on Monday.  If there are any problems on the review test that are tricky for your child to solve, have them circle the problem and I will reteach those concepts on Monday.  We will be having our math test on Tuesday, December 16.

 

Bible:  We will finish our unit on Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac early this coming week.  We will then be focusing more on the Christmas story and the meaning of advent.  We also continue to learn Luke 2: 6-20.  This Bible memory passage is due by Friday, December 19.  We are reciting it a lot in class and have illustrated each verse as well so most students should be able to say it confidently.

Social Studies:  We wrapped up our study of Michigan’s geography this week.  We focused specifically on different regions in Michigan and reviewed for our test that we took on Friday.  We will be studying the economy of Michigan in our next Unit. 

Reminders:

• Thank you to all of you who are able to come in on Wednesday, December 17 for Gingerbread houses!  The kids are SO excited for this activity!  A letter when home Friday with all of the details that you need to know. 
• We are continuing to collect donations for the Lakeshore Pregnancy Center.  Instead of exchanging student gifts, we encourage the students to give to this cause.  What a great way to show God’s love!
• We will have our classroom party on Thursday, December 18 in the afternoon.  Thank you to our room moms for organizing this event for the class!

Blessings,

Lynae and Erin

HOPE

This first week of advent has caused much stirring in my heart.  This week I have been reminded repeatedly of how blessed I am to be able to put my HOPE in my SAVIOR!  We have not been promised lives without struggle but we have been promised HOPE.  

And again, Isaiah says, "The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him." May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Romans 15:12-13

Reading: this week we have started our second books in our series.  It has been so amazing to listen to your children discuss their insights on their characters.  This week we spent time looking at our characters and thinking about what life lessons can we learn from them and then how our Christian Faith is linked to that.  Ask your child about some of their life lessons they learned this week.  We also have been in a discussion about HOPE.  Right now our characters in our story are going through a severe draught and my question to the children was--What do we put our hope in.  They all said Jesus.  My next question was--what do people put their hope in if they do not know Jesus.  They looked at me and the room went silent.  To me this was am amazing moment.  This showed me that they know the only hope you can have comes from Jesus.  WOW! Your children humble me everyday I am with them. 

Writing: this week we have learned how to make our personal narratives more powerful by revising our leads that pull the reader in, revising by adding sensory details, and by adding more descriptive transitional words and phrases.  Your children continue to knock my socks off with their writing.  They love it and everyday when writing time is over--they complain because they want to keep doing it.

Math:  We continued studying measurement this week with liquid volume and mass.  Students solved word problems dealing with milliliters, liters, grams and kilograms. 

We also worked this week on the concept of time.  We reviewed how to tell time to the minute and then began solving word problems dealing with elapsed time.  Some students are able to find elapsed time by using a clock but most prefer to use a number line to find their answer.  We will continue working on this next week. 

Bible:  We are studying Abram and how God fulfills his promises to him.  This week we learned how God changed Abram’s name to Abraham.  We then looked up the spiritual meaning of all of the student’s names and created a keynote project with their name meaning and a special verse for each child. 

We also studied Lot and how the city of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed when God could not find even 10 righteous people living there.  We see over and over again how God desires for us to live a life that is pleasing to him. 

We are also learning Luke 2:6-20 in class.  This is a long bible memory so we are illustrating it as well.  Any additional practice on this passage at home would be great!

Social Studies:  We continued our study of Michigan this week by focusing on the different ways good, people and ideas move in and out of Michigan.   We focused specifically on how the Great Lakes play an important role in our transportation of goods and how this is unique to our state.  We also learned a bit about zebra muscles and how they have infested the Great Lakes.   

Reminders:

·            If you are interested in volunteering to help with gingerbread houses on December 17 you can sign up on our blog under the “Gingerbread House” posting.  We would love as many volunteers as we can get.  Thank you for your willingness to help in this way!

·            We are continuing to collect donations for the Lakeshore Pregnancy Center.  Instead of exchanging student gifts, we encourage the students to give to this cause.  What a great way to show God’s love!

Erin and Lynae

  

Gingerbread Houses!

Dear Parents,

On Wednesday afternoon, December 17, from 12:40-2:00, the third graders will be putting together gingerbread houses.  We are excited about this annual Christmas project!  Children will be taking home a gingerbread house of their very own.  In order for this day to be successful we are asking for a few things.  To make this as easy and organized as possible the teachers will collect the items needed for the construction of the houses.  We will also have a special decorating icing ready to go at school.

In you have any spare and/or stale candy you are looking to get rid of, and would work well for the gingerbread houses, we would be willing to take that off your hands.  We are also in need of any cake decorating equipment that you would be willing for us to use that day.  Most importantly, we are looking for as many volunteers as we can get to help with the construction of the houses.  Because volunteers will be assisting small groups of students, we are asking that no siblings be taken along.

If you are willing and able to help with such a challenge, please let us know via the sign up genius by clicking HERE so we can plan on your assistance.

Thanks so much!

The Third Grade Teachers

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches this year, I (Lynae) can not help but share with you how full my heart is to be teaching your child.  These 22 kids have completely stolen my heart and I give thanks for each one of them.  I have been so incredibly blessed this year to have a wonderful job share partner and to be entrusted to help instruct these precious children.

It is never lost on Erin or me the importance of teaching these kids to love and live for Jesus.  I am so thankful for a place like Holland Christian where we can freely talk about God's love and how he has a wonderful plan for each of these students.  I am so thankful for a staff that strives to teach children the importance of serving God.  I am so blessed to be a small part of your child's life.  I am blessed!

"I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High."  Psalm 7:17

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

What a week!

We all survived our first two snow days of the season.  I think that this is the first time in my entire teaching career (20 years) that I have had snow days before Thanksgiving.  Amazing!  

This week marked the end of our swimming lessons.  Your children did a wonderful job with this change in their routine.  I must say that it will be nice to get back into a typical daily schedule though.

In reading this week, we practiced noticing patterns in our characters feelings and actions, how they interact with other characters in the story, and how they react to problems they are faced with and then we ask ourselves, "what does this reveal about our characters"? They are doing an amazing job discussing their thoughts in their book clubs.  

In writing this week we have learned how to use our story mountains to organize our story into paragraphs.  This week we have worked on building our paragraphs by adding more details which results in us creating our first draft of our second personal narrative.  It is great to see already how your child has grown as a writer even compared to their writing from September.

READING MINUTES-please remember to have your child turn their reading minutes in Monday morning.  Also, it is very important that if they have brought their series reading book home that it comes right back to school the next day or they will get very behind.  Thank you.

This next week we will not have any word work due to Thanksgiving break.

Math:  We began measuring line segments to the nearest inch, half inch, and quarter inch this week.  We have also begun to look at what a fraction looks like and how it relates to measurement.  On Friday we did an experiment with liquid volume to see how cups, pints, quarts, half gallons, and gallons relate to each other.  We will continue to work on our math facts at school but please encourage your child to practice them at home as well. 

Bible:  We are studying Abram and how God fulfills his promises to him as he listens to God’s voice.  This week we learned how Abram’s nephew Lot made choices because they were easy for him.  We talked about how following God’s will isn’t always easy but so worth it if we are listening to what God desires for our life.  I love how this class gets into our Bible discussions!  Their love for God is amazing!

Social Studies:  We continued our study of Michigan this week by focusing on Natural resources in Michigan.  We learned facts about Michigan’s forests, fertile soil, and water.  We will continue learning about natural resources next week as we look at minerals and oil. 

Advanced Notice: 

·            Due to the snow days, Monday’s lunch menu has changed to macaroni and Cheese, steamed broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and a muffin.

·            A note was sent home on Friday from the Children’s Advocacy Center.  They will be coming to our classroom on December 3 to talk to our class about skills to keep their bodies safe. 

·            December 17- You are invited to join your 3^rd grader in building a gingerbread house!  We will be creating these houses in the afternoon and would love it if each child had an adult to help them.  It is a great afternoon of fun and we hope you can make it.  We will be sending more information on this soon, but for now mark the date on your calendar!

·            We will soon be starting our service Christmas project at Pine Ridge.  Rather than exchanging student gifts, the students are asked to donate baby items that are then given to Lakeshore Pregnancy Center.  We will be having the kick-off to this event right soon when LPC visits us for a chapel.  It is a great experience of giving to others in need in our community. 

We hope you had a wonderful weekend!  Erin and Lynae

What a fun week!  

First of all, swimming lessons are off to a great start.   Your children are little fish in the water and it is a lot of fun to watch them swim! Those lovely swimsuits are definitely not a favorite for most of the students, but they still have a great attitude toward swimming class!  If you want to come watch this week, your child will be swimming from 12:35-1:20 on Monday-Thursday.  There are no swimming lessons on Friday.

Secondly, it SNOWED this week!  I love the enthusiasm the class has over seeing the snow again (definitely much more enthusiasm than me!).   The prayers of the students are prayers of praise for the change in seasons and for the blessing of playing in snow.  What an awesome creator our God is!

Here is what we have been doing in class:

Reading:
This week in reading we have started our new unit on studying characters throughout a book series. This is a very fun unit because they are doing this in book clubs. Ask your child to tell you about it. Our mentor text Sarah, Plain and Tall is such a great book. It is one of my favorites. Each day your student first meets with their group to discuss the previous day's teaching point and then we meet as a whole group and practice a new strategy. One important skill required in book clubs is how we talk to others but more importantly, how we listen and respond. We have actually practiced this using very specific prompts. This is a very important life long skill. This week the students set their reading goals and tracked the main and secondary characters of their story as well as the setting.



Writing:
This week we have practiced writing with sensory details a bit more as this is a very important skill so that our readers can experience our small moments that we are writing about. We also picked our next small moment that we want to publish for our 2nd personal narrative and we made our writing plan by putting the moment bit by bit on post it notes on a story mountain.


HOMEWORK ALERT: Your child has brought their story mountain home this weekend and they need to read it to 2 other people adding more verbal details than what is on their post it note. They also need to have those 2 listeners sing it in their homework folder for Monday. Please make sure that the story mountain comes back on Monday.


ALSO--I do need your help. It is very important that your child meets their book club reading goal every day and if they bring that book home to finish reading that it comes back with their orange reading journal the next day. If it does not come back, they can not participate in their book club because they do not have anything to share because they did not do the work. I appreciate your help on making sure that this happens each night. This reading can count for their normal reading minutes as well--just record it as such. Thank you!

Math:

We worked hard all week in preparation for our Friday Math test.  We reviewed multiplication and division facts, practiced finding area, and drew many pictures to help us with two step story problems.  Our test today went very well.  I told the class that their confidence in Math has grown so much since the beginning of the year!  I also told the students that as long as they did their best, I was extremely proud of them.  They DID do their best and my heart is full of pride.  What a hard working group!  Next week we will start a new unit dealing with measurement, time, and graphs.

Bible:

We wrapped up Psalm 121 this week.   We also began Psalm 100 which is a review for the class from previous years.  We have been studying Abram and how God calls him to leave his home and move to a new land.  We have mapped out Abram's journey to the land of Canaan and we have begun to focus on the promises God makes to Abram.  How incredible to see God's salvation plan unfolding in this story of the Bible!

Social Studies:

We learned this week about Michigan's climate (seasons, precipitation, lake effect, and temperature) as well as vegetation (orchards and forests).  We also focused on human characteristics in Michigan such as bridges, major highways, the Detroit tunnel, and lighthouses.  The class really enjoyed learning about the building of the Mackinac Bridge and we enjoyed a book and video on this topic.  I also showed the students a website that allows them to see photos of Michigan's lighthouses.  Several of the students asked to have this website to explore some more at home.  It is www.terrypepper.com/lights/state_michigan.htm

Have a great weekend!

Lynae and Erin

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend of rest, relaxation and family time. This weekend there was much joy and cheering in the Wyma household with the recent Calvin Men's soccer victory and the Women's Volleyball victory.  Gold and Maroon were flying all over our house. Quoting my husband, "It is a good DAY to be a KNIGHT!" (I am sorry to all the non-Calvin fans out there, I do not mean to gloat).

All joking aside, we have been having a wonderful time in 3rd grade.  We enjoy watching your children learn each and everyday.  They are so unique and have such precious spirits and we LOVE the individuality our class has.  They are such hard workers and they take their job of learning very seriously.

A REMINDER:
SWIMMING STARTS MONDAY: We will go each day from 12:30-1:52(this includes our bus ride there). Parents are welcome to come and watch. Your child will not need to bring a suit or towel as they will be provided for them and the kids are THRILLED about the fashion statements the suits make :). On the swimming days, it would be helpful if your child does not wear any accessories...jewelry, rope necklaces...only because they often get left behind and it takes more time for them to get them on and off. You also might want to pack a snack for the afternoon as they will be hungry when they are done.


Reading:
We finished Because of Winn Dixie.  We did a few special whole group activities to culminate this story.  We did an in depth study of some difficult vocabulary from the book. Your child worked with a partner using their Ipad and they studied a particular word and then on Monday, they will present these words to the class.  These words will be added to our word wall and the goal is to start using these words in our writing.  Ask your child what their special word was.  

We also did a fun silent "write around" where we each had 3 minutes to add external and internal traits to each of the characters from Because of Winn Dixie.  This was fun and they did a wonderful job.  They are now hanging on our door--take a look if you are in the building.  

As readers this week, the students were able to use any strategies from our giant toolbox to use during their independent reading time.  Ask your child what works best for them as a reader.  

On Friday, your child had to analyze a character from the story and talk about a life lesson that they have learned and how they can apply that to their life.  We want our students to not just read and recall but to apply it to their life and to see all of the life lessons through their Christian Faith Lens.

Next week we start our new unit on reading books within a series and it will be done with your child participating in a book club.  The mentor texts we will use will be Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark. We will study how characters change as they go through certain life events.  We will also be spending a lot of time teaching how to speak, listen and respond during a book discussion.

Writing:
This week we have been working on writing our 2nd personal narrative.  We have learned how to make it more powerful by writing about our "firsts", "lasts", and small moments we have had where we have experienced strong emotions.  We have also learned how to write using sensory details to help our readers experience our story.  We will spend a little more time on this next week as this is very difficult to do.

I want to let you all know that your children's spelling sentences are looking so much better than when we started.  They are paying much closer attention to forming letters correctly, using uppercase where appropriate and using punctuation.  I can also tell that your children are coming home and doing their word sorts.  Thank you for your help with this.

Math:  This week we were persistent as we worked on two step word problems.  We began by learning the correct order of operations when working with two step word problems (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add and Subtract).  Students have learned the order by memorizing the acronym PEMDAS as Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. Students then started carefully reading story problems where they needed to use a two step operation in order to solve the problem. We continue to draw pictures of our math problems to make sure they make sense.

Next week Friday we will be having our second math test.  I will send home a practice test on Monday that the students have until Thursday to work through.  Have them bring the practice test back to school on Thursday and we will go over it together. 

Bible:  We finished our Unit this week on the fall of creation to the story of the tower of Babel.  We took a small assessment on this unit on Thursday which came home with your child in their Friday papers.  We focused very specifically this week on the Noah and the ark and the Tower of Babel. We continue to learn how God desires that we always put him first in our hearts.  The class continues to stand amazed at God’s love for his children even though we are sinful. 

We also completed illustrating our Psalm 121 books.  About half of the class has turned in their bible memory on Psalm 121 to me already.  This is due next week Friday, November 14.

Social Studies:  We continue to dig deep into our study of Michigan.  This week we had a lot of fun exploring the Michigan map.  Check out our smug mug site to see some of the fun!  We learned about the different landforms in Michigan (peninsulas, islands, sand dunes, and mountains) along with the different bodies of water (bays, lakes, rivers, and waterfalls) that are in our state.  We also began studying Michigan’s climate and vegetation.  The class is doing a great job with this unit and I love their enthusiasm for the state of Michigan!

Have a wonderful day!   Erin and Lynae

We had a wonderful FULL week of school!  It felt good to be back in the swing of things after having a few days off for conferences and the convention and the kids were ready to learn as well! We enjoyed meeting with each of you for conferences and are so thankful to journey with each of your children through Third grade.  We treasure all of the students in our class and consider it an honor to teach them every day.  As always, feel free to contact us anytime with any questions or concerns you may have.

We have had a busy week!  Here is what we have been doing:

Math:  This week we continued to build fluency with our multiplication and division facts.  We are also carefully reading story problems and drawing pictures to help us determine which order of operation is needed to solve the problem.  This coming week we will begin two step story problems and continue to work on our math facts. 

Bible:  We have been studying in the book of Genesis and learning how sometimes it is hard to obey God.   We have learned about Adam and Eve, Cain killing his brother Abel, and how their disobedience led to some tough consequences.  We have also studied the story of Noah and the ark and the challenges that Noah faced while building the ark.  Yet we see God’s protection and love for His people shinning through these stories and His salvation plan unfolding.  What an awesome God we serve!!  The students LOVE reading the stories directly from the bible and take turns sharing their thoughts and insights.  Bible continues to be a favorite subject of many kids and I just treasure this time as well.

Bible Memory:  We have begun Psalm 121.  As we learn each verse we are writing it down into a memory book and adding an illustration to help us remember it.  I will send home a slip on Monday with the NIV version we are learning so you can practice at home with your child as well.  

Social Studies:  We have begun our Social Studies unit called “The Geography of Michigan.”  We have learned what it means to be a geographer and we are busy studying about the natural and human characteristics of our community.  We have also focused on Michigan’s location through exact and relative terms.  The class LOVES this unit so far and is so excited to learn more about their state.  They especially love the book Legend of the Sleeping Bear this week.  I love to see their enthusiasm for learning!

READING
This week we really got very deep into thinking about our characters and connecting with them. We first looked at the objects that our characters hold close and what does that reveal about them. We then looked for patterns in the relationships that our characters have with others. This lesson fostered a conversation in our reading time about how relationships that we have with others can sometimes help us or hurt us and then we have choices to make about the importance of that relationship in our life. We also talked about which characters in our book act like image bearers. That is pretty high thinking for our 3rd graders. It always amazes me how deep my students think about their books and how they feel so comfortable to share. We also looked at the problems our characters face and how they overcome them. Before I taught this lesson, we talked about how we overcome our own challenges and problems and talked about how Jesus helps us overcome everything. I then asked the children how they thought people without Jesus overcome tough times in their life. They all just looked at me because they really could not image it. This led us into a discussion about why it is so beneficial to believe in Jesus and to put all of your faith in Him.

Reading this week was AMAZING!!

WORD WORK
Thank you all for signing your child's homework folder showing that your child explained their sort to you on Monday and they did it. I hope it was a bit more clear about what you can do with those sorts. You might want to have your child sort their words several times per week. One way to help your child spell the words is to follow this procedure:


1-have your student read the word
2-have them look at the word and spell it out loud
3-have them turn the word over and write the word without looking
4-have them flip the word back over and check their spelling
5-have them put all of their correct words in a pile and their incorrect words in a different pile
6-have them continue to practice(in the same way as mentioned above) the incorrect words until they get them all correct


SPELLING TEST
When I give the spelling test on Friday, I am also going to be using that as a test to correct letter formation and placement. I have talked to the children about this. If they put an uppercase letter in the middle of a word, it will be marked incorrect even if it is spelled correctly. This is part of a 3rd grade standard that your child needs to master--using uppercase and lowercase appropriately.

Just as a side note--I am sure that you have noticed how neat your child's writing has become using the penmanship paper and raising the expectation a bit. CELEBRATIONS!!!!

WRITING
This week in writing we have started our second unit on creating an even more powerful personal narrative. We kicked off the unit by reading a book titled Come on Rain by Karen Hesse. She is an amazing writer and uses some many of the strategies that we will be learning about in this next unit. We will use her book for our entire writing unit to study her work so we can then practice it in our own writing. This week we learned that not only can personal narratives be about important people, places or things in our life but we can make them even more powerful by writing small moments about the "FIRSTS" in our lives. My examples that I modeled for them were...The first time I had to call 911....The first time I had a student teacher...The first time I dropped Elise and Maddy off at Pine Ridge... This next unit is a unit in which we really want the children to write with much more emotion. They did an amazing job with this as some of them shared their writing on Friday.


REMINDER: Swimming Lessons will start the week of November 10-21. We will go each day from 12:30-1:52(this includes our bus ride there). Parents are welcome to come and watch. Your child will not need to bring a suit or towel as they will be provided for them and the kids are THRILLED about the fashion statements the suits make :). On the swimming days, it would be helpful if your child does not wear any accessories...jewelry, rope necklaces...only because they often get left behind and it takes more time for them to get them on and off. You also might want to pack a snack for the afternoon as they will be hungry when they are done.

Blessings to you in the upcoming week!

Lynae and Erin

What a wonderful week we have had in 3rd grade.  Our students are working so very hard on everything they are doing.  We have amazing children that we are just loving as we are really getting to know them.  We can't wait to share with you everything they are doing at parent-teacher conferences.  They are each a blessing and have been created with their own unique personalities which are shining through.

We take this very seriously as we have been given these children as a specific appointment from God and he has put them in our care each day with his perfect plan for their lives in mind.

Psalm 139:13-16
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Here is what we have done this week:

Reading-In the story Because of Winn-Dixie, we have been studying our characters very deeply. This discussion has led us on some very serious conversations about life choices, passing judgement on others, and trying to understand and empathize with others.  This unit on character study lends itself so well to also talking about the character traits of Christians as "Image Bearers" of Christ. Everything your child reads this year is filtered through their lens of Christianity.  We have been talking about that during our mini-lessons and then as they go and practice in their own reading, they are also reading through the eyes of their Christianity.  This week we learned to listen to our internal voice to make connections with our characters and to continue to grow our ideas about our characters as we watch them change throughout the story.

Writing-In writing this week we have spent a lot of time working on our penmanship and complete sentence writing.  As we have worked hard on revisiting correct letter formation, we have also worked hard on publishing our first personal narrative.  We can't wait to share them with you at conferences.

Math- This week we focused on multiplying by factors of 6 and 8.  We used many different strategies to help us find the products.  We also focused on word problems and drawing pictures to help understand what mathematical operation needed to be used to solve a problem.  At this point we have learned all of our multiplication and division facts for factors 0-10 with the exception of 7’s, which we will study next week.  I am so proud of this group and their determination when they work in Math.  These concepts can be challenging but everyone has a wonderful attitude and does their best!

Science- Each child was given a research topic dealing with changes to the Earth’s surface.  Your child researched one of the following:  Volcanoes, Landslides, Erosion, or Earthquakes.  They then took the information that they found and created a Keynote presentation.  We will be finishing these up next week Monday and presenting them on Tuesday.  I loved seeing the students work so independently on these projects and their presentations are turning out great!!  I look forward to sharing them with you at conferences.

Bible- We focused this week on Day 6 and 7 of the Creation story.  We learned about Adam and Eve as well as the Garden of Eden.  Your children LOVE reading the story of creation right from their personal bibles and have so many great questions and observations about how sin entered the world.  We talked a lot about how God gave Adam and Eve free choice and how the choice was made to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  We also talked about how God gives us choices and how He desires for us to have a relationship with Him and follow Him daily. 

Upcoming Events

Parent Teacher Conferences  Tuesday, 10/21 4:20-8:40 and Wednesday, 10/22 3:00-8:40

NO SCHOOL  10/22-10/24

What an awesome week at Pine Ridge!  I think one of my favorite events of the entire year is Grandparent's Day.  There is so much PRIDE in the classroom during the time that the Grandparents come visit.  It was fun seeing the students share what they enjoy about school with their Grandparents.  The program in the gym was also just amazing.  It just brings tears to my eyes to listen to the students sing praises along with all the Grandparents.  God's faithfulness just shines through it all!  Click here to see some of the pictures that were taken.

Conferences:  Conferences will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 21 and 22.  Sign-ups for conferences are available online and you should have received an email this week about how to do this.  If you are unable to sign-up or did not receive an email with sign- up instructions, please contact Laura Norman in the office and she will be able to help you with this.  

Swimming lessons:  We will be attending swimming lessons from Monday, November 10 to Friday, November 21.  A permission slip went home for you to sign on Friday.  Please return them to school as soon as possible.

Here is what we did in 3rd Grade this week:

Reading:  This week we have started our new mentor text, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.  The children love coming to the floor for our mini-lesson. This next reading unit is all about building ideas about our characters in the books that we read and it requires deep thinking while we read. This week we not only started to identify our characters but to also we learned how to envision them, and empathize with them and see their point of view.  Your children are doing a wonderful job with this and they are loving their reading time.  It is amazing to see how engaged they are during reading time.  

Writing:  This week we are publishing our first narratives which will be shared with you at conferences.

Math:  This was a week of review for our Math test that we took on Friday.  We covered multiplication and division of the factors 0,1,2,3,4,5,9,and 10 as well as word problems and finding area.  We will start our second unit next week which continues with multiplication and division.  At this point each student has a preferred strategy for solving multiplication and division problems and we are working at becoming more fluent in our facts.  Any additional practice that you can give your child at home is greatly appreciated.  

Bible:  We are continuing to practice Psalm 103:1-8 for our Bible memory.  We made it through verse 8 on Friday and will continue to practice this passage this coming week.  If your child is able to recite it to you at home please send in the paper stating he/she said it to you and how many helps were needed.  In class we began our unit on the study of Genesis.  We learned that Genesis means "beginning" and how God is an awesome creator!  We worked through the first 6 days of creation this week as well.  

Science:   This week we focused on renewable and nonrenewable resources as well as how we can care for God's earth.  We learned how important it is to care for the land we have been given and what we can do to help conserve farmland as it is a long-time renewable resource.  We also looked at oil and how it is nonrenewable.  The class learned how harmful oil spills can be to us and to animals and how oil spills are cleaned up.  We also looked at how we can use renewable resources more so we don't use up our nonrenewable resources.  

Blessings,

Mrs. Stielstra and Mrs. Wyma

AUTUMN is on its way!   My weekend math equation:

COLD + DAMP = Mrs. Wyma's house is clean

I try to find the blessings in weather such as this!!

We have a lot of learning going on in 3rd grade--Take a look!

Reading- this week we worked on making inferences while we read as a way to strengthen our comprehension.  This is a very complex activity for children but I again was so impresses as they worked on this and how they were able to start doing this in their own "good fit" books.  We also finished The Marvelous Journey of Edward Tulane.  Next week we will use the mentor text Because of Winn Dixie to being our next unit of reading which is all about studying our characters.  

Writing: this week we have learned how to end our story with action, setting, dialogue or a feeling/emotion as well as add more details to the heart of our story.  This next week we are starting to edit and revise and publish our first personal narrative and I am excited to share those with you at conferences.

Math-  This week we continued to work with factors of 3’s and 4’s as well as story problems dealing with multiplication and division,  Next week Friday, October 10, we will be having our Unit test.  To help your child prepare, I sent home a sample test this weekend.  They have until Thursday, October 9 to work on this at home.  I told the students that if they do not understand a problem, they simply need to circle it and bring it back to school.  We will be reviewing a lot next week and answering any questions that your child may still have.  This practice test will be your child’s math homework for next week. 

Science-  We focused on rainfall and landslides this week.  We learned how a lot of rainfall affects our soil and also the importance of maintaining healthy soil for farmland.  We also had a lot of fun on Friday when each student made their own brick.  They took their knowledge about earth materials and particle size and decided which earth materials would best be used to make their brick.  This was a lot of fun and everyone is eagerly waiting to see how their brick dries up!

Bible-  We continued to be bible explorers this week and focused on the Map section at the back of the bible.  We also spent a lot of time talking about the importance of spending time in God’s word.  Students found favorite passages in the bible and added them to their rings that we made last week.  So many students loved this activity and we had a long list going on the board of our favorite verses.  This was also a wonderful activity for reviewing how to find passages in the bible. 

This week we also had some special guests (HC BOYS VARSITY FOOTBALL PLAYERS) come and read to us. This was so fun for the kids to do.  When the story was over, the boys did a wonderful job interacting with the kids.  FUN!!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 9, Grand Parents Day- see the Pine Ridge Post for specific details

Ditto Update:  Each year ditto contributes $165 per pupil, toward annual tuition costs.  As a way of supporting ditto's efforts, our class will be hosting a Work Bee on Monday evening, October 13 , from 6 - 8pm.  What a great way to volunteer and have fun at the same time!!  Please make every effort to support ditto and our HCS and ZCS community by attending our scheduled Work Bee.  See you there!!

Have a BLESSED Sunday!  Erin and Lynae