Good Morning and Happy Saturday:

The sun is out and I hear warmer temperatures are headed our way--praise be to the Lord!

Reading/Writing: This week we have spent time writing our introduction paragraph to our informational book.  Our goal was to rite a paragraph that would grab our readers attention and create a desire to keep reading.  They did a wonderful job with this and have written amazing introductions.  We also worked very hard on our Chapter 1 which is about tour animal habitat and food.  This included a bit of a geography lesson as we colored in a world map of all the places where our animals are found. They have been working so hard on this book.  Next week we hope to finish Chapter 2 and 3.  

Word Work:  This past week your child brought words home and we will be studying those words for this next week as well for the text next Friday.

Math:  We have been reading word problems carefully and making comparison bars to see where we have an unknown amount.  We then determine which operation we need to use to solve the problem. 

We have also been comparing numbers into the thousands and determining if they are greater than, less than or equal to each other. 

Next week we will be continuing with word problems with extra, hidden or not enough information.  I am impressed with how diligently the students are working! 

Bible:  We have finished up our Unit on Joseph this week and will have a test on Monday.  We saw how Joseph brought his family to Egypt and how God used the bad events in Joseph’s life for His salvation plan.  Joseph trusted God in each situation he was placed in and God blessed him over and over again. 

Our next Bible Memory verse will be Matthew 28: 1-10. 

Social Studies:  We completed our unit on the economy of Michigan.  The class took a vocabulary quiz on the terms we learned and brought these home on Friday.

Science:  We have started a new unit called “Light and Sound.”    We did an experiment this week where we learned that light helps us see different colors and objects.  We also talked about natural and manufactured light.

Reminders:

• On Wednesday please send a picture book to school with your child for their POD time.
• We use our dry erase markers every day in Math and many students are starting to run dry.  Please check with your child if they are in need of new ones to make it though the end of the year.  Thanks for you help in this area!
• Our Kleenex supply is almost out.  If you are willing to send in a box we would greatly appreciate it.
• Reading Minutes Due Monday.
• Fun Night is scheduled for Friday, March 13.  If you would like to help in any way please sign up at the following link:  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c4daaab22a20-funnight

Have a wonderful weekend!  Mrs. Wyma and Mrs. Stielstra

February 28

How wonderful to see the sun shining so brightly yesterday!  It is a great reminder that spring IS coming and that someday we may have outdoor recess once again.  :)  We have had another busy week in third grade.  Here are the curriculum highlights as well as some important reminders at the end of this post.

Math:  Your child’s Math test from Monday was sent home on Friday.  Everyone did so well and was very proud of their hard work!  Our next unit is on writing equations to solve word problems.  This week we made math mountains to show how addition/subtraction and multiplication/division can form many equations.  We are reading word problems carefully and then writing equations from what we read.  

 

Bible:  We continued to read about Joseph in the book of Genesis this week and how God used him to rule over Egypt during seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.  We see God’s hand in Joseph’s life as he becomes 2^nd in command of Egypt and once again sees his brothers when they come to buy grain.   We talked a lot about how Joseph trusts in God no matter what his circumstance may be.  What a great lesson for all of us!

Our Bible Memory next week will continue to be Job 19:25-26.  This will be due on Thursday, March 5.

Social Studies:  This week we talked about Wind Turbines and Wind Farms.  We had a great discussion if this is a good thing to put in Michigan’s Great Lakes.  We also looked at public goods and services that we receive from the Michigan government and how these are paid for through fees, fines, and taxes.  We spent a couple days reviewing all of the terminology from the Economy Unit.  Your child came home with a green study sheet of the terms that will be on our Economy Test on Monday.  We talked about many different ways to study for this and your child practiced some of these techniques in class.

Reading/Writing:  This week we continued our research (gathering facts) on our animals that we have chosen for our informational books.  We first started by identifying subtopics that we thought would be important to write about and then we gathered our facts about the subtopics.  The next step was taking all of our facts and identifying a main idea sentence from the information we gathered and then elaborating on our facts to write them as supporting details sentences.  Your children are learning a lot about their animals and it has been so fun to just let them go and watch.  They are just natural learners.

Next week we will start to write our individual chapters.

Reminders:

• The skating party has been rescheduled for this coming Tuesday.
• We use our dry erase markers every day in Math and many students are starting to run dry.  Please check with your child if they are in need of new ones to make it though the end of the year.  Thanks for you help in this area!
• Our Kleenex supply is almost out.  If you are willing to send in a box we would greatly appreciate it.
•  Reading Minutes Due Monday.
•  Fun Night is scheduled for Friday, March 13.  If you would like to help in any way please sign up at the following link:  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c4daaab22a20-funnight
• March is Reading Month.  To kick off this event, Monday March 2 will be ”Read a Shirt (Sweatshirt) Day.”
• No School On Friday, March 6.  This is a staff professional development day.

WOW!!! What a beautiful sunny day even though it is a bit on the COLD side!

This week ended with a wonderful celebration of our love for one another.  As the children opened their valentines, the room was filled with joy, laughter, and thank yous. It is always so fun to sit back and watch that.  I was reminded again of how awesome my job is that I get to be with your children each day.

Reading and Writing:  This week your child has tackled a tricky skill of learning about and identifying different text structures in non fiction text.  They learned about how authors of nonfiction structure text these various ways...informative, sequential, comparison, and cause and effect.  Along with each text structure, they had to learn how to create a specific graphic organizer to organize their information according the the text structure.   We have one more activity to work on with this next week before moving into our animal research project.

Word Work: This week, due to no school on Monday, we will be getting a high frequency word list home for a test on Friday.  With this word list, you will want to have your child practice these words each night by the read...spell...check method.

Math:  We will be wrapping up our unit next week on multi-digit addition and subtraction.  I sent home a practice test with the student on Friday that should be completed by next week Thursday.  If there are any areas where you child is struggling, just have them circle the problem and I will reteach that concept to them in class.   

Bible:  We finished our unit on Isaac and Jacob and took a test on that information on Tuesday.  Your child should have brought their test home in their Friday papers.  We have moved on to study Joseph and how Jacob loves him the most.  The class talked a lot about the eleven other brothers and how jealous they must have been of Joseph.  We finished the week by looking at how the jealousy of the brothers spirals out of control when they sell their brother Joseph. 

Our Bible memory will continue to be John 14:1-6 for next week.

Science:  We concluded our Organisms Have Character unit this week as well.  Your child completed their popplet of information and you should have received an email from me to view their work.  Each student independently completed the popplets and I was proud of how hard they worked.  We also learned about classification and practiced this skill by classifying different plant and animal cards. 

Reminders:

·            No school on Monday!  Enjoy your break!

·            Our new Bible Memory is John 14:1-6.  This is due by February 20.

·            Reading Minutes are due on Tuesday.

Upcoming Valentines Day Party Details

We had a wonderful time on our field trip to DeGraaf Nature Center on Thursday morning.  The students really enjoyed snowshoeing and we had more than enough snow to make tracks in!  We also learned a lot about the Native Americans of Michigan.  Thank you to Sonya Snyder, Pam Scholten, and Kerri deVries for accompanying us on this trip.

Here are the curriculum highlights of the week:

Reading/Writing:

This week we have spent more time with main idea and supporting details in our own nonfiction books that we have chosen.  This is a very tricky skill for them and this is something that will be taught again in 4th, 5th, 6th...  We also this week learned some strategies for how to figure out the meaning of unknown words when we are reading nonfiction.  We first check the glossary, then we check the context clues, and then we look the word up in the dictionary.  I am happy to say that all of our students are able to find words using a traditional paper dictionary.  

Reading Minutes due Monday.onday

Math:  This week we worked on subtracting three digit numbers with regrouping.  The students need to make "proof drawings" to show that their answer is correct.  We learned several different strategies for showing our proofs.  Next week we will continue to subtract three digit numbers across zeros (300-246) with proof drawings and also do more work with word problems and subtraction.  

Science:  We continued to work on our "Organisms Have Character" Unit.  We compared and contrasted the Beetle and Crayfish and organize our notes into the categories of habitats, physical characteristics, behaviors, and animal defenses.  The students have done a great job of placing their notes in the correct categories and many are beginning to create a web on their ipads to complete their final project.  The class loves this unit and has worked very hard.  

Bible:  We have been reading our Bibles everyday as we study the life of Jacob.  This week we talked about Jacob's desire to leave Uncle Labon and return to his home, how Jacob wrestled with God, and the meeting of Jacob and Esau after living apart for so many years.  The class just loves reading these stories from the Bible.  It has become such a special time that we often start our day with our Bible lesson.  We all sit on the floor and take turns reading the passage and holding discussions on what we have read.  Your children TREASURE their Bibles and many highlight every word we read.  My prayer is that the Bible will always be a treasure to them.

CLASSROOM VALENTINE PARTY

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

This is one of my favorite holiday parties of the school year.    I love to watch the excitement and joy of children giving special notes of kindness to others and then to watch the open their cards so carefully and you hear laughter and "thank you" throughout the room.  It ALWAYS is one of my favorite things to sit back and observe as a teacher.

This year Valentine's Day holds a very special meaning to me.  The theme of LOVE DOES naturally lends itself to who Jesus is and how we are called to be a reflection of that LOVE to others. I am so excited to celebrate this holiday among my students and fellow teachers in a Christian environment.  Just the fact that I can add a bible verse to this letter reminds me of the blessing I have to freely worship and serve the Lord in this amazing school district.

We will be spending the week talking all about God's love and our love for others.  We will also do several fun little Valentine themed learning activities all throughout the week.  We will be making our own special "mail bags" with unique addresses on them.  Then on Valentine's Day, we will take a special time as a class to pass out our Valentines to each other and then we will sit and open them together and let that laughter and gratitude fill our classroom.  We will be taking a lot of time to go slowly and to cherish each special little note that we receive from others.

I will not need any parent volunteers for this party. I am just asking that all students have their Valentine’s filled out and turned in by Friday (the 13th) morning.  Attached to this is a list with all of the student names.

Matthew 22:37

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Our class list:

Belle

Nick

Maddy

Lilly d.

Lilly F.

Raphael

Michael

Lukas

Luke M.

Ellie

Brycen

Caden

Annabel

Erin

Sam

Luke R.

Addi

Josh

Eden

Nathaniel

Gavin

Ava

Mrs. Stielstra

Mrs. Wyma

Have a great weekend!

Lynae and Erin

Upcoming Field trip:  Our class will be going to DeGraaf Nature Center on Thursday, Feb. 5 8:45-10:45 to learn about Michigan Native Americans.  We will be spending much of our time outdoors so make sure your child is dressed warmly.  Thank you to Kerri deVries, Pam Scholten, and Sonya Snyder for your willingness to help on this field trip.

As we dig into our world of nonfiction, we can not read or study these topics without seeing Jesus.  I am reminded of this verse:

Revelation 4:11

"You are worthy , our Lord and God, 
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things, 
and by your will they were created and
have their being."

Throughout our nonfiction reading and writing units, we will study each topic through our Christian lens and see how POWERFUL and AMAZING our Lord is.  

Reading and Writing:
This week in reading we worked mainly on reading sections of nonfiction to identify the main idea and supporting details.  This can be very difficult to do but by Friday, I would say that they all have it mastered.  They are LOVING the nonfiction unit.  Next week will be learning more strategies for how to examine different text structures in nonfiction and how to organize the information we read about.  This will all be leading up to our animal research projects which they are so excited to get started with.

Our writing right now is integrated within our reading and will culminate by your child writing an informational book on a chosen animal.

Math:  We continued to add three digit numbers this week.  The students are reading their story problems carefully and lining up the place value columns correctly in order to compute the sum.  I am so proud of how hard they worked this week.  We celebrated by playing a math addition game on Friday with Mrs. DeZwaan’s class where we even added into the thousands!

Bible:  We looked at how Jacob was tricked by his Uncle Laban when he gave Leah in marriage instead of Rachael.  In past lessons we have seen Jacob as a bit of a deceiver, but this time the tables were turned on him.  The class discussions about this were awesome this week and we continue to see God’s plan unfolding in this story.  We also looked the 12 sons of Jacob and we can predict how God will use some of them in His salvation plan. 

Science:  We continued our unit Organisms Have Character by looking at physical characteristics, habitats, behaviors and defenses of the beetle and crayfish. Students have taken many notes about these creatures and are busy organizing their notes into the appropriate categories.  Next week we will take these organized planners and use our ipads to produce a final project on one of the creatures.  Stay tuned for the awesome results!

Discovery Test:  We will be administering the DISCOVERY test to our class again this coming week.  The Math portion will be given on Tuesday morning and the Reading portion on Wednesday morning. 

Reminders:

·            Our Wacky Wednesday is hat day this coming week.

·            Our new Bible Memory is John 3:16-17.  This is due by February 6.

·            Reading Minutes are due on Monday.

·            Discovery tests will be given on Tuesday (Math assessment)              

       and Wednesday (Reading assessment) morning.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Wyma & Mrs. Stielstra

January 24, 2015

What a great week of learning!  We have begun a new unit in Science that looks at different habitats, we are reading nonfiction texts during Reading Workshop, and practicing multi-digit addition in Math.  Here are just a few pictures of our week.  Feel free to check out many more on our Smugmug site.

READING:  

This week we started our "Reading nonfiction with POWER" Unit and your children have LOVED it.  Nonfiction is naturally very engaging for children. However, reading nonfiction reading requires something very different than just opening the cover and start reading.  This week we have learned that you need to REV up your brain by doing several pre-reading strategies such as previewing text features, making predictions, activating our prior knowledge and then we READ WITH POWER and write down what we have learned.  Your children have done a WONDERFUL job with this.  These reading skills and strategies are also being reinforced throughout our current science unit.  The integration of reading and writing into other content areas is where powerful and lasting learning takes place.

WRITING:

For the next several weeks, we will not be writing during a separate writing workshop time.  Instead, we are doing a lot of writing and gathering information during our reading unit.  Then we will APPLY everything we have learned about reading nonfiction to writing our own information book and an animal of our choice.  This is  very fun and comprehensive project.

SPELLING:

This next week, we will get back to word sorts but I will be starting to alternate those sorts with high frequency words lists like we did this past week.

READING MINUTES:

Please continue to have your children read at home.  Research shows that the biggest indicator of reading growth is how much time your children are actively reading within their appropriate developmental level.  

Math:  We continue to make drawings to understand place value of the ones, tens, hundreds and thousands place.  These drawings help us when we need to round to the nearest ten or hundred.  We also began multi-digit addition.  Student need to be able to prove their answer is correct by making a drawing that shows the answer with the correct place values.  This is a new concept and one that we will continue to work on next week.

 

Bible:  We have been looking at the life of Jacob in class this week.  We focused specifically on Jacob at Bethel and Jacob at the well and his meeting of Rachel.  We see how Jacob is often deceitful but yet God is forgiving and has a sovereign plan for Jacob’s life and our lives as well.

Social Studies:  We continue to look at Michigan’s economy and how we all enjoy different goods and services that are made in our State.  This coming week we will go shopping at the fourth grade Market Day where all of the fourth graders have each made different goods to buy.  There will be limited items that we can shop for so we will have a scarcity issue and be forced to choose our opportunity cost.

Science:  We have begun a new unit called Organisms Have Character.  We looked this week at different plants and made predictions as to where the plant would best grow.  We then created a woodland and freshwater habitat.  On Friday we read, observed, and watched two videos on the bess beetle and crayfish.  We will continue to observe this coming week how God created these creatures for their specific habitat. 

Upcoming Field trip:  Our class will be going to DeGraaf Nature Center on Thursday, February 5 from 8:45-10:45 to learn about Michigan Native Americans.  I would love to have three parent volunteers accompany us on this fieldtrip.  If you are interested, please email Lynae at lstielstra@hollandchristian.org.  Thank you!

Reminders:

Report cards came home on Friday.  Please return the large envelope so we can reuse them again in the spring. 

 Our Wacky Wednesday is pajama day this coming week.

The I AMS for Bible Memory are due on January 30.

Reading Minutes are due on Monday.

Market Day is Wednesday, January 28.  Students may bring $2-$3 to spend on products made by the fourth graders along with a bag to bring their items home.  Our class is EXCITED to shop and already talking about the items they may want to make next year when they are in fourth grade.  :)

A note from Mrs. Boer:

It is time! We are about ready to start recorders in music class. Your child will need a soprano recorder. If you don't have one for your child, you may purchase one in the office for $5. Your child can bring the money to Mrs. Norman and she will give you one. Be sure to write your child's name on the case in permanent marker in case it gets misplaced.

Also, I'd like to welcome Mrs. Sinnema to our class. She is filling in for me while I recover from a broken pelvis and torn rotator cuff from a fall that I had before Christmas. I hope to return to the classroom mid-February.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Lynae and Erin

It was wonderful to have a full week back at school.  The students were ready to learn and we accomplished a lot of material this week.  Along with our learning we also had a several fun events.  On Tuesday several ninth graders came our classroom to read their storybooks that they created in their History class for a final project.  The high school students did a wonderful job of relating to the third graders and our students loved hearing them read.  On Friday we also had a lot of fun playing a Math money game in the morning with Mrs. DeZwaan’s class and then having our writing celebration with them in the afternoon.  There are several pictures posted on the Smugmug site in the January folder if you want to check it out. It was a very busy but fun week.  

Here are more details about our academics:

Reading: The past several weeks we have changed things up a bit from our normal reading workshop routine and we decided to have some fun with a fairy tale unit. Your children did a wonderful job identifying the elements of fairy tales as well as recounting the story by identifying the beginning, middle, and end.  We also learned about point of view and that we often have different points of view about what really happened.  We read several different versions of traditional fairy tales and looked at the stories from the point of view of other characters in the story.

Next week we start our reading unit on Nonfiction.

Writing: We have finished our 2nd personal narrative and the children did such an amazing job with this.  We worked very hard on making them more powerful than the first one we wrote back in September.  On Friday we celebrated by sharing our writing with friends from Mrs. DeZwaan's class.  Here are some pictures from that:

Math:  We have been working diligently with place value this week, especially by making drawings to ensure we understand the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands.  As we move forward into multi-digit addition and subtraction understanding these drawings will be crucial.  We also focused on rounding to the nearest hundred.  I did assess the students on their math facts for addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts as well.  The students are making huge gains in their computation of their facts!

Bible:  We have been learning about Isaac, Rebekah, and their sons this week.  We studied the chapters in the Bible where Jacob and Esau were born, how Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, and how Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing meant for Esau.  The students engaged in great conversation about how lies and deceit can ruin relationships.  We are seeing how God’s covenant promises are going to continue through Jacob.  

Social Studies:  We have been learning about the economy of Michigan.  We studied natural, human and capital resources and how they are used to produce goods and services.  We also learned about entrepreneurs like Henry Ford and focused on terms like scarcity and opportunity cost.

Reminders:

·            No School on Monday due to Records Day.

·            Our Wacky Wednesday is wacky hair day this coming week.

·            Report Cards will come home on Friday.  Please return the large envelope they are sent home in so we can reuse them again. 

·            The I AMS are due on January 30.

·            Reading Minutes are due on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend--Mrs. Wyma and Mrs. Stielstra