This was a busy week in our 3rd grade classroom.  When I (Lynae) take a look back over the week I am amazed at how much we accomplish.   A few of my favorite moments this week were the following:

• We found 12 different bible verses that mean a lot to us and put them on a ring because the students wanted to take them home and put them in special places so they can refer to them often and possibly even memorize the verses.  It just warms my heart.
• We gathered around the flag pole to pray for our country, our school, and other local schools.  I love the community that we have here at Pine Ridge.
• We won a pizza party with the Walk-a-thon fundraising our class did.  What a blast to receive such a special treat!
• We learned about renewable vs. nonrenewable resources and our job as Christians to care for the resources God has blessed us with.
• The class was able to shop again at our Rock Star Store on Friday.  This is a huge motivator for so many students and so much fun!
• Listening to your children pray for each other each day when we begin school.  These students have such caring hearts and hold each other in prayer faithfully.

Academically, we have been very busy too!  Here is a glimpse of what we have been up to:

Math:  This week we continued to work with Multiplication and division with the factors of 2,3,4,5,9, and 10.  We also focused on how we find the area of an array and learned a few different strategies to help us with this.  We spent a lot of time with cubes the week and learned how 6x4= (2x4)+(4x4).  

Bible:  We are learning about the organization of the bible.  This week we focused some more on the table of contents and also studied the concordance and the footnotes.  I was amazed at how many students loved learning about the concordance.  We would pick a topic, such as joy, and then look at how many verses there were in the bible on that topic and then choose a few to look up and read as a class.  Students also finished their  "Daily Dozen" where they had twelve verses from the bible that they illustrated, put on a ring, and took home to reference often when they need to remember God's promises to them.  We have memorized Psalm 24 and will be starting Psalm 103 this coming week.

Science:  This week we focused on renewable verses non-renewable resources.  We read books and watched a couple of video clips on the importance of renewable resources.  We also talked about how paper, plastic, and glass are made and how often we use these types of items everyday.  On Friday we started studying the importance of farmland and we did a fun experiment with an apple to learn exactly how much farmland we actually have.  (Ask your child to explain that experiment to you!)

Reading:  In reading this week we have continued to work on retelling the big events of our story.  We focused this week on learning more about our characters and their actions and feelings in order to help us recall the big events of he story.  We also learned how to examine the life lessons that our characters are learning which helps us gain a different point of view from that of our own.  Your children are very focused and engaged during our reading time.  It is so amazing to watch.

Writing:  In writing this week we have created our discovery drafts of our first personal narrative.  We looked at published authors and how they create exciting leads which suck the reader in as well as how they end their chapters and their stories.  The children then took what they learned about leads and endings and started revising their own.  Ask your child about the types of leads/endings writers use (action, setting, dialogue, and feelings).

A note from our Music teacher, Mrs Boer....

This is what we are learning in Music Class:

*Hymn of the Month-Take My Life and Let It Be

*Theme Song-Let Your Kingdom Come

*Keeping a steady beat

*Note values

*Tempo

Blessings!

Mrs. Stielstra and Mrs. Wyma

What a beautiful morning it is.  This morning I (Erin) had the privilege of watching many of our students play soccer and how they are a reflection of the image of God.  As a teacher, when I go to events such as this, I am reminded of how awesome God's creation is within each unique child. There is so much more to our children than what they can do academically.

Here is what I saw:

• Children encouraged one another on the field when goals were made as well as when goals were missed---LOVE DOES. 

•  I listened to parents praise efforts rather than end results--LOVE DOES.

• Teams won and lost with humility and grace--LOVE DOES.

• Coaches coached with integrity and positive encouragement--LOVE DOES.

"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in Heaven.   Matthew 18:10

With that said, we know this is our focus as teachers, to grow them up in the LORD through ALL we do in the classroom.  We are having so much fun with your children as we are getting to know them as individuals.  We love seeing who God has created them to be and hope to foster His will in their lives.

Here is what we have done this week in class.

Reading:  We have worked hard this week on how to retell a story in sequential order using only the main events.  This is a skill that we will continue to work on throughout the next week.  We have also finished taking our DISCOVERY reading test and the children worked so hard on that.  We have officially started our word work/spelling and you will get the graded spelling tests on Monday. Reminder that reading minutes are due Monday.  Please make sure to add up the total and have a parent signature.

Writing:  We have picked our small moment stories that we want to publish.  We have also started to organize them by using a time line to make sure we are telling the story bit by bit and not leaving out any details.  Your students are doing an amazing job with their first personal narratives.  They also LOVE to write which is so wonderful to sit back and watch.

Math-  This week we continued to learn about multiplication and division.  We focused specifically on the factors of 9 and 3 and also worked at building fluency with  the factors of 2, 5  and 10.  Most of the students are becoming quicker at coming up with strategies to solve their math problems and I am pleased with their progress.  We begin each day by seeing multiplication as a repeated addition problem, drawing pictures to help us, and understanding how each multiplication equation is related to division.  Most students use their fingers to help them multiply and this is also a strategy they have been taught!  We are continuing to focus a lot on word problems.  At this point I am not nearly as concerned about their fluency with their multiplication and division facts as what I am about each student understanding the process.  

Science-  This week we focused on earth materials, particle size, and water.  The class had a lot of fun seeing how water mixes with different soils and how some soils allow water to seep through while other soils with smaller particle size hold the water at the top of the surface longer.  We were able to related this to the different soils found at the South Side playground (sand) compared to the Pine Ridge playground (clay) and how this affects their play after a rainstorm.

Bible-  We began this week by studying the table of contents.  We learned that their is an old and new testament and how many books of the bible are in each one.  We studied the table of contents and spent time finding books in the bible using this as well.  We also began a book with twelve bible verses students can hold close to our heart and read to remind them of God's promises to them.  

Check out our latest additions to smug mug.

UPCOMING DATES: September 29: NO SCHOOL

                                     October 9: 1:00-2:30 Grandparents Day

                                     October 13: 3rd Grade DITTO work night 6:00-8:00pm

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Mrs. Wyma and Mrs. Stielstra

The Armor of God

Dear Parents,

I absolutely love teaching bible to your children.  I stand amazed almost every day at the pure love this class has for hearing God's word.  We have had so many great classroom discussions already about favorite passages from the bible and the importance of spending time with God.  Each morning we sit in a circle, hold hands, and take turns praying.  This is one of my favorite times of the day as I listen to the heartfelt prayers each child has to offer to God.  We are also busy highlighting passages in the Bible as we have poured into the book of Ephesians.

This week several of our lessons focused on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18).   We did a lesson with oranges that the kids just loved.  One of our oranges was like a child who put on the armor of God (the rind of the orange) and went into the day prepared whatever came his way.  The other child believed the lies of the devil and slowly took off the armor of God (we slowly peeled away the rind of the orange).  We then placed the oranges into a bowl of water and observed what happened!

The class was just amazed at how an orange without it's armor sank.  We talked a lot about how we STAND when we put on God's armor and that is just what God desires for all of us.

Here are a few highlights of what else we have been up to this week:

Math- We are busy multiplying and dividing!  I love seeing the confidence of the students increase as we continue to learn more multiplication and division strategies.  The class has now learned all of their multiplication and division facts for 2's, 5's and 10's.  We practice these facts every day at school as part of our Math Drills but any additional practice at home is wonderful for your child.  We also had our first Quick Quiz so I can see what concepts each child is still working at learning.  Much of our learning is still very hands on and we draw a lot of pictures to understand our math equations.

Science-  This week the class was very excited to work with microscopes as they observed several different earth materials.  We talked about different soils such as compost, potting soil, clay, and sand and how the particle size varies from one earth material to the next.  This group just loves this unit so we had a bit of fun on Friday by bringing in favorite rocks and sharing them with the class.

Bible-  We wrapped up our study on Ephesians this week.  To conclude the unit we made an Ephesians booklet to be placed in your child's bible.  Many of the students asked to take their Ephesians booklet home so they can use it in their home bible and share it with you as well.  We have begun our new Bible memory passage which is Psalm 24.  This will not be due until the end of the month as it is fairly new to many of the students.  We practice our Bible memory every day at school, but your child may need to review at home as well.

Reading:

This week in reading, we are still moving through our book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  Each day using that text, I model a certain reading strategy that the children then go and practice at their own level in their good fit book. This week they continued to practice the strategies of questioning, envisioning, making predictions and they also learned how to read a page in their book and identify what the main idea/event was that happened on that page.  This strategies will become very important when it comes to our lessons next week when we start to learn how to retell what we are reading only including the most important parts rather than retelling the whole story.  We also learned some strategies this week about what to do when we get to a word in our book that we can not read or we do not know what we mean.  Ask your child what they need to do when that happens!  Your children are doing a wonderful job with their reading.

Please make sure that your child brings their good fit book back every day.  It becomes very difficult for them to have to choose a different book in class because they start to get the plot lines mixed up and then all of their comprehension falls apart.

READING MINUTES ARE DUE MONDAY!!

Writing:

This week in writing, we have spent some time generating more personal narratives.  We also spent time learning how to have a writing conference and to talk about what we are working on as writers as well as how to ask a partner about what they are working on.  We also are starting to recognize certain areas in our writing that we need to get better at which becomes our next steps in our new writing.  On Friday, each child picked their story that they want to turn into a published personal narrative.  We will work on this for the next few weeks to start looking at how to make this piece of writing our very best.  

A few items to remember:

• Discovery Testing- September 15 and 16.  Make sure your child eats a good breakfast and is well rested.
• Walk-a-thon- Wedneday, September 17 at 1:00 p.m.  at the High School Track
• Picture Day- Friday, September 19
• No School- Monday, September 29- Staff Development day
• Grandparent day- October 9

Blessings!

Mrs. Stielstra and Mrs. Wyma

Our Second Week In!

Good morning parents!  We had a great second week of school with your children.  They are all doing really well with adjusting to Pine Ridge and many of them are making new friends.  We have posted a few new pictures on our class photo website (the tab at the top of the blog) if you want to take a look!

As we look ahead, there are a few dates to remember:

• September 10- Psalm 23 is due.  Please send in a note if your child has said this to you with the number of helps he/she needed.
• September 15-  All Walk-a-thon money is due to school
• September 17- Walk-a-thon at 1:00 at the High School Track
• September 19-  School Pictures
• September 29, Monday- No School.  Staff Development day
• October 9, Thursday- Grandparent day at Pine Ridge (1:00-2:30)

We are really starting to dive into the curriculum and wanted to take a moment to update you on what we learned this week.

Math-  We continued to focus the week on the meaning of multiplication and drawing out what each multiplication equation looks like.  We focused on arrays (rows and columns) and spent a lot of time building different multiplication problems with arrays.  We also began division this week by using building blocks to figure out our equations.  Much of our math time is "hands on" right now as students get a firm grasp of the concepts being taught.

Science-  We explored rocks and minerals this week.  Students learned that rocks are made up of minerals and we looked at several different minerals that make up granite.  We also focused on different earth materials such as gravel, sand, silt and clay and explored the particle size of these earth materials.  This class loves Science experiments and it is a lot of fun to listen to their predictions as they work!

Bible-  We continued to learn about the book of Ephesians this week.  We focused specifically on the passages about children obeying their parents, what it means to live in "Unity" with one another, and also on the armor of God.  The class really enjoys finding verses in the bible.  As a class, we read out loud the selected passage for the day and we often highlight the verses that stand out to us.

Reading: We have been continuing to build our independent reading stamina. This week we started reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.  It is a very unique book pack with high level vocabulary which has been sparking great conversation.  This week we have been learning that the most important thing about reading is that understand what we are reading about. To help us with that, we have been practicing several different comprehension strategies.  Our first strategy was to listen to our "internal thinking voice" and to ask questions while we read and then as we read, we are seeking to answer our questions. I model this in our read aloud and then they practice this in their own good fit book.The next strategy we learned is envisioning.  We practiced reading certain parts of the text and then sharing what exactly we see in our heads as we are reading those words.  Your children wee great at that which is often a difficult task when tried right away.  The strategy we did today was making and confirming predictions while we read which again will help our comprehension.  I love watching your children read.  

We are finished with spelling inventories and next week I will start to do running records to find their exact instructional level.  Your child will also bring home their good fit book on Monday to read at home for their reading minutes. Look for a book bag with directions on Monday.

We will start our word work/spelling/vocabulary the following week as I need to first make sure that our independent reading routine is down before I add another component to our workshop.

Writing: We have been working very hard on generating ideas and small moments as we are moving through personal narrative.  We have written about important people, places, and things in our lives.  We have been really focusing on writing about small moments.  Rather then writing about your whole day at the amusement park, we are writing about the first time you were in line waiting to get on a roller coaster.  Each day when we are done writing, we share what we have been working on.  This is one of my favorite parts of the day as they LOVE to share and they take such pride in their hard work.  It is GREAT to see.

Have a wonderful weekend with your families!

Blessings,

Mrs. Stielstra and Mrs. Wyma