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