Updated: March 8, 2010

Water Bottles

Parents, the school is collecting water bottles for some projects that will be completed this spring. Could you please send in EMPTY water bottles (with lids) with your child. Our goal is to gather 400 water bottles by next Friday, March 19. Thank you for your continued help and support.

Subtraction With Regrouping and Across Zeros

Math and Science Night will be Thursday, March 18. You will be able to see all of the Animal Reports and Dioramas (library) and other fabulous Science activities hung up. We will be having some fun and educational math games down in the third grade hallway! PLEASE JOIN US!!!

The past couple weeks we have been working on the abstract art of inferring. I have been trying to incoportate fun, interesting and concrete ways to teach such an abstract concept. We have used spider webs and lint rollers to introduce schema (prior knowledge) We also used "trash" and shoes to discuss the topic of inferencing. The link below helps the students with the many types of inferences.

This cute, interactive game helps students comprehend economics.

Some of you would like to work on your context clues and STAR. I have found a great website that will help you and challenge you to be better thinkers and readers (especially with context clues). Check out the newest game called "The Vocabulary Quiz" by clicking the link below.

Here is a great website that will help students will creating combinations. It is called IXL. This is a direct link to the combination game.

The third quater is flying by! The students have learned so much already and I am looking forward to the OAA. We will begin Math Skills groups next week. These skills groups will be before school and give the students the opportunity to get some extra help in Math. These groups will be by invitation only.

We are working on our animal reports. I will be extending the due date for the rough draft until next, Thursday, March 4. However, the final draft and diorama will still be due on Monday, March 15. NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact me: nspencethomas@reyn.org.

BE A STAR AND PRACTICE FOR YOUR OAT!

Boys and girls, please continue to READ, READ, READ!!! I know that you can all meet the goal of 10 AR points! Keep reading! You only have two weeks left until the end of the third quarter!

All of the children should earn at least 10 more AR points this quarter. There will be an AR Party at the end of the quarter for every student that has earned their 10 AR points. Your children all know what AR level they should be reading. Please do not push your child to choose a book that is too high over his/her independent reading level. Your child will be required to take a quiz on the book that he/she reads, so your child needs to be able to comprehend the story that he/she is reading. There is a way that you will now be able to monitor your child's AR progress.

Reading groups are moving right along. Each group has a book on the independent reading level for that group. In math we are currently working on measurement and area.

The next Spelling Test (February Word Wall Words) will be given on Friday, February 26, 2010. Please click on the link below to print out the newest spelling words.

If you click on the link below you will be taken to a webpage that lists some great, fun, hands-on ways to practice spelling words. We will be using some of these ideas in class!

Parents.... I have told your children, but I would like you to know as well! I am a SPORTS NUT!!! If your child plays a sport, please send in his/her schedule. I would love to come watch my students play their favorite sports! I have been to hockey games, football games, baseball games, t-ball games, softball games, soccer games and dance recitals! I love it all! (Except on Sundays in the fall... Those are reserved for the Dallas Cowboys!)

I have included some links below to online games and activities that go hand in hand with our Ohio Academic Content Standards. I hope that your children use and enjoy them!

This is a terrific game that I introduced in the classroom. It works on multiplication facts 2's - 12's. When you click on the link, you will have to download the "base" version (for free home use). Once you have downloaded the game, you should have an icon on your desktop that your child can click on anytime to play.

Here are some new Language Arts games.

These two websites help students with learning prefixes.

This game will help students practice suffixes.

In these games, students are working on common and proper nouns.

This is a new game that will help students work on synonyms and definitions.

This is a great interactive website to help with synonmys (words that mean the same as another word), The students get to create their own teacher and make him/her walk the plank by answering synonym questions.

Here are three games that I was able to find to work on antonyms. I thought that theye were all pretty cute. There are more of these types of games on the internet and I will keep looking to add more.

This is a game that helps children understand creating words using prefixes and suffixes. Then the created words may be used in a sentence.

Thank you Lindsey for telling us about this wonderful game called "Where's Buster?". Use clues that Buster gives to figure out where he is in the United States. This is great for building mapping skills, which we are woking on in Social Studies right now.

With Spelling City, your child can create ways to practice his/her spelling words.

We have been working on symmetrical shapes. On this webpage the students are able to create their own kaleidescope pictures and symmetrical figures.

These games focus on angles.

This game will help students make change. They have to see how many customers they can make change for. There are many different levels so that all students are comfortable playing the game!

This site walks the students through area and perimeter. Then has practice problems.

In this game students click and drag the Cyber bugs to the bar graph. They must change the graph's scale as more bugs are in each room.

We have been working on using coordinate grids. Help Billy Bug... find his grub!

These games will help your child work on time to the five minutes and reading time related words and finding them on the clock.

If your child wants a challenge, he/she should try "Stop the Clock 4" which works with time to the minute! Go ahead... Give it a try!

This game will help your child master place value concepts to 100,000

Here are some games and activities that go hand-in-hand with the lessons that will be taught throughout the year in Everyday Math. I apologize if some of the links do not work.

Ohio Treasure Chest activities correlate with the Ohio Academic Content Standards. If there is any area in which your child is struggling this is a great website for him/her to use. Your child can choose from many different games and activities.

Internet 4 Classrooms is another great website in which your child can work on certain skills through fun and exciting activities and games. This is another webpage that goes hand-in-hand with our academic content standards.

This game will help your child become faster with his/her rote addition and multiplication skills.

This a great interactive website that is colorful and fun. All of the games are for 3rd graders, but if you wouldlike your hild to have more of a challenge you can also change the grade level at the top of the page.

These a just a few of the many wondeful resources the world wide web has to offer. As I find more games and activities that the students would like I will post them. If you have found any great websites that I did not list, please let me know so that I may share them with everyone! WE WILL ALL BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIRD GRADE!!!

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