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