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