February 7, 2011

Happy Monday!

It's hard to believe, but we're already finished with 25% of February! Before we know it, it'll be Spring Break....hopefully that will mean some warmer temperatures! :)

We're continuing to be very busy at school working and learning. We're also starting to prepare for conferences. As a reminder, our conferences will be held on February 22, 23, & 24. The students will not have school February 23-25. You'll be receiving a confirmation time for your conferences soon, but if you have any questions before that, please call Mrs. Klocko in the office at 981-1825.

Speaking of conferences...please be sure your child's reading log is up to date in his/her planner. I will be checking these on February 15th to enter information into report cards. Our report cards are due to the office by the 18th, so I must have this information no later than the 15th. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

Our Valentine Party will be held this Friday, February 11th from 2:00-3:00. Please be sure your child has a valentine box/bag ready for that day. I sent home a class list earlier, but if you need another one, please let me know. Thanks to all of you who offered to donate items for the party. A special thanks to Maggie Davitt & Laura Murphy who will be organizing activities for that afternoon.

Mr. Elbert is beginning his "bell to bell" teaching soon. This week, he's teaching everything except for writing, and next week he'll be in charge of everything. He'll continue his full-time teaching from February 15-February 22.

Don't forget that there is NO SCHOOL on Monday, February 14th. Also, February 16th is a 12:00 Early Out.

Homework: February 7, 2011

• Read
• Study Spelling Words
• Home Links 6.10 & 6.11

Monday, January 31, 2011

Homework, January 31st

• Math Home Links 6.7 & 6.8
• Study Spelling Words
• Read

Homework, February 1

• Home Link 6.9
• Cursive Sheet
• Study Spelling
• Read

We had a great Open House at Lakewood on Saturday. It was nice to see such a great turn-out to celebrate many years of hard work on this project! I told Mrs. Anderson this morning that I had forgotten that I was on the planning committee about five years ago that helped decide on the elementary configurations...that's how long ago we started working on all of this! WOW! This is a wonderful building, and we have A LOT to be proud of!

LAKEWOOD NIGHT at BANGBANG RESTAURANT
The third grade teachers will be the 'guest grillers' at BANGBANG Restaurant on Thursday, February 3rd. Bring your family out for some food & fun! Then, turn in your receipt, and our grade level will get 10% back to use for a field trip, technology, or playground equipment. We hope to see you there!

Mr. Elbert
Mr. Elbert is busy teaching most subjects these days. He really fits into our classroom well, and he's doing a great job! This week, he's taking over the rest of the reading responsibilities. Next week, he'll pretty much be teaching all subject areas, and he'll continue teaching "bell to bell" until conference time. He will be with us until March 4th. He's doing a great research unit with the kids right now in Social Studies. Ask your child which National Park he/she is researching and what type of project he/she is working on.

It sounds like the weather may get nasty this week....UGH! If for some reason we have a snow day, I'll get you an updated February calendar so you can keep track of which special your child has each day!

Have a great week!

Mrs. Vroegh

Monday, January 24, 2011

Hello!

We are continuing to be very busy in our classroom! The students are finishing up an "I Have a Dream" project from the work they did learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hopefully they were able to set some goals and think about what they want to do to make our world a better place just as Dr. King did.

They are busy in math continuing to work on geometry concepts. Last week they talked about lines, line segments, and rays. They also worked on understanding parallel lines and intersecting lines. On Friday, they began to talk about angles. This week, we'll continue to build on these geometry concepts. Please be sure to go over the math homework with your child each night.

We finished our Unit 3 test last week, and I'm happy to report that our class had a CLASS average of 84%, which is FANTASTIC! I was very proud of the kids for working so hard on this assessment. We will begin on Unit 4 today. This unit is called "One of a Kind", and the stories will focus on people or things who are unique and one of a kind. This week, the kids will read and discuss a story called Wings. The main character in the story is very different from his friends. Ask your child about the story later on in the week!

Mr Elbert will begin teaching a social studies unit called "Caring for Our Land". The kids will be learing about some of the national parks in the United States, and they will be doing a group project on one of these places over the next couple of weeks.

Addition/Subtraction Facts

I did a quick check on how the kids are progressing on addition/subtraction facts. Many of them are doing very well, but some need to continue practicing. Please take the time to practice these facts at home in some way (flashcards, games, computer). Remember, the goal to be secure is for them to get 40 or more facts correct on the timed test. If you would like copies of the assessment to use for practice at home, please let me  know and I will get you some more. Conference time is just around the corner, so I will be formally asssessing them on this probably the second week of February for report cards.

Book Logs

Just a reminder that your child has a goal to read 20 books by the end of this school year. You should be recording these books in your child's planner. By this point in the year, your child should have read and recorded at least 14 books to be on track to meet the goal. Again, I will check the record sheet at the front of your child's planner around the 2nd or 3rd week of February for report cards.

Conferences

You will have the same day/time for conferences in February as you did in November unless you call the office to make changes. You will receive a reminder about this time in your child's planner a week or two before conferences. If you'd like to check the day/time before that, please call the Lakewood office at 981-1850, and one of our secretaries can help you.

Homework: January 24th

• Read
• Study Spelling Words
• Home Links 6.3 & 6.4

Homework: January 25th

• Read
• Study Spelling Words
• Cursive Sheet
• Practice Book page 6

Homework Thursday, January 27

• Read
• Study Spelling Words
• Home Links 6.5 & 6.6

Have a great week!

Mrs. Vroegh

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This is going to be a short, but very BUSY week in our classroom. Not only will be reviewing for and taking our Unit 3 Reading Benchmark Test, but we will also begin DIBELS testing. I'm going to be asking the kids to focus a lot on reading, and I know they'll do their best on both tests. You can help at home by continuing to practice reading aloud with your child along with making sure he/she is well-rested and gets a good breakfast each morning.

As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, I have challenged the kids to meet certain goals for each test. I KNOW all of them are capable of reaching the following goals on the DIBELS test:

86 words per minute (or better) with at least 96% accuracy.

Thank you for encouraging your child to do his/her best on all of our tests this week.

We will be starting a new unit in math this week as well. Mr. Elbert will begin teaching our geometry unit on Tuesday, and he will continue to teach math for the next 4-5 weeks. He is slowing taking things over in our classroom. This week, he'll be teaching my Intervention group, Social Studies, and Math. He will also take over the morning routines and the end of the day routines. I will continue to be in the classroom supervising him, as well as teaching in the other subject areas. Next week, Mr. Elbert will add small reading groups to his responsibilities.

In writing, we'll be working on a compare/contrast essay. The students will be asked to choose two things in nature, and then tell how they are alike and different in a one to two page essay. We will work through many different activities this week to help the students complete this project. Last week, the kids wrote news stories, and we taped them using the Flip camera. The kids thought this was a lot of fun!

During Social Studies, the kids are finishing up learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They will be thinking about dreams they have for their families and futures as they work in Social Studies this week. In Science, they are continuing to work on measurement activities. We are nearing the end of this FOSS kit, and Mrs. Spurr will be assessing them soon over what they learned during this unit. They will begin working on the Physics of Sound FOSS unit at the end of January or beginning of February.

Last week, we took our mid-year math assessment using our Follow the Leader math program. The skills on this assessment fit well with the national math standards as well as with our own math curriculum. There are skills on the assessment that we have not yet covered, however, I was very happy overall with the growth that many of the students made between the beginning of the year and now. I will be sharing some of this information with your at conferences in February.

Homework for Tuesday, January 18

• Home Link 6.1
• Read (try to spend 10-15 minutes having your child read aloud to you)
• Look over, sign, and return Unit 4 & 5 Math Tests

NO HOMEWORK JANUARY 19 (12:00 Early Out)

Homework for January 20

• Home Link 6.2
• Cursive worksheet
• Read

**There are NO spelling words this week.**

Next week, we will be back to our "normal" schedule. The kids will bring home a new spelling list next Monday, and we'll begin work on Unit 4 in reading.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Vroegh

Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you enjoyed your holiday season. I know I did!! It was nice to relax and spend time with family and friends. I was especially excited to spend time with my new niece, Genevieve. She was born on December 21st, so I got to spend lots of time with her during break. She is adorable!

We'll get back into the swing of things this week. The kids have a new spelling list in their planners. We will test on Friday, January 7th.

This week, we'll read the story A Symphony of Whales. We'll be working on the skill of generalizing. This is a tough skill for 3rd graders, and it's one they will continue to work on in 4th & 5th grade as well. We will take our selection test on Friday.

In math, we're continuing to work on writing and reading larger numbers. We will also move into learning about decimals. Much of our work with this skill will involved manipulatives such as base 10 blocks and the meter stick to demonstrate what a decimal number is and means. Again, this is a difficult skill for 3rd graders, and it's one that we'll continue to work on for the new few years.

We will be writing news stories this week during writing. Our focus will be on learning to include facts in our new stories as well as making sure we've answered the 5 W's (who, what, when, where, why) & the H (how). The kids may choose to share this in their portfolios during our February conferences.

In science, they are continuing to work on measurement skills, and in social studies, we'll learn more about Martin Luther King, Jr. this month.

Please keep the following dates in mind as you look  at your January calendar:

Monday, January 17th: NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, January 19th: 12:00 Early Out

Homework for Monday, January 3rd

• Read
• Study spelling words
• Home Link 5.6
• Cursive Sheet

Homework for Tuesday, January 4th

• Read
• Study spelling words
• Home Link 5.7
• Cursive sheet

Have a great week!

Mrs. Vroegh

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Happy Thursday!

We took our reading test today over the story Night Letters. You should sign and return the sheet tomorrow.

Tomorrow (Friday) will be our "Polar Express Day". We plan to read the book, do some reading activities with it, and watch the movie. We'll also enjoy doughnuts and chocolate milk at some point during the day. The kids have worked hard so far this year, and this is my reward to them. I'm very proud of them!!

Your child can wear his/her pajamas if you choose. I will caution you, however, that we may go outside for recess. Please be sure the pajamas are appropriate for outdoor weather.

Some Things To Do Over Break (in case you're bored)

• READ- I can't stress enough how important it is to continue reading over break. Please try to encourage your child to do some reading each day...or read together.

• Practice Math Facts: Addition, Subtraction, & Multiplication
• Review Telling Time

• Ask your child to read & write 6 and 7 digit numbers to you.

THANK YOU to everyone who brought me a special gift this holiday season. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I really do feel blessed to have such a great group of students and parents. You are all THE BEST!!

Homework for Thursday

Home Link 5.5
Read
Spelling Test Friday

I want to wish all of you a very happy & safe holiday season! Enjoy the time with your families and friends. I'll see you in 2011!!

Mrs. Vroegh

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Hello!

Sorry I'm a bit behind in my posts....I've been having some trouble with the blog. It seems to be up and running at least for today!

Just a reminder that our class is participating in Project Santa. Your child brought a letter home about this a couple of weeks ago. We are still in need of a few items if you are interested in donating anything. Here are some ideas:

Wal-Mart or Dollar General Gift Cards
Diapers or Pull Ups: Size 6/Jumbo
Mid American Energy Gift Certficates
Grocery Store Gift Certficates

Please send any donations to school by Friday if possible, Monday at the latest. THANK YOU!!!

Homework

Home Link 5.1
Santa's Suit worksheet
Read
Study Spelling

We are reading the play "Push Up the Sky" in reading class. Your child is practicing specific part and may be asking to bring some props or costumes to school. We'll be performing the play for other groups on Friday during reading time. The kids are excited about this, and they are doing a great job planning and preparing for the performance!


Homework for Thursday, December 9

Home Links 5. 2 & 5.3
Read
Spelling Test on Friday

Have a great night!

Mrs. Vroegh