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

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