Well, the grade 3 class had their busy Tuesday today. I think some were hoping for a snow day, but alas, it twas not to be.

Students have been working hard on their paragraph writing since Christmas. We have now begun to work on adding “ly” words to sentences and to their paragraphs. The paragraphs the students are writing are amazing with lots of great details in them, especially now that they have to have 3 “because” and 2 “ly” words in the paragraph.

In math, we are starting the 4 times tables as well as looking at converting quarts to gallons and using quarters to make groups of 100. The students are going to be having another “Mad Minute” on Friday so please continue practicing with them at home. Speaking of Math, I have included a neat math game below. Click on the blue Math Lines link and the game should pop up.

Just as a reminder/note; book orders are due Friday and there is a half-day of school this Friday as well.

Math Lines

Today was a busy day for a Monday. We had quite a few people missing today so it made it a good day for some “Ketchup”; a term I use when we take some time for the students to finish up projects or work we have been dealing with for awhile. We also worked on our next spelling word list. The spelling list can be downloaded here (spelling-n-1).

Spelling N 1

Here is the bible verse for this week. It is one of my favorites and one that I used when I gave my testimony.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Hello everyone!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I have managed to catch a wonderful cold. Thankfully, I am

fending it off with a good dose of Buckley’s every couple of hours. I’m just glad it’s not the flu.

One of the other things I did this weekend was to go and visit Stephen in the hospital. I got a chance to see him and tell him that you have been praying for him every day and night; both at school and at home. HIs mom said that he will hopefully be coming home soon and he is looking forward to seeing everyone again. Anyway, he sent along this picture of himself wearing this strange looking jersey. I don’t know why he doesn’t just wear an Oilers jersey! It would probably be more comfortable!!!!!

In social, the students have been doing quite a bit of work on mapping and using cardinal directions to find their way around a variety of areas. We are getting ready for a big project potentially involving a couple of high school classes but I am not telling the students about the project until we get to it. All I will say is that it involves treasure!

As I was looking around for resources, I came across this video. Now, I am a huge fan of the West Wing and have probably watched the series 7 times or more. It was and still is my favorite tv series and I was very sad to see it go. I also happen to know that Mr. Morris, the father of one of our students, also is “hooked” on the series. So, I thought that this would be the perfect video. Not only is it from the “West Wing” but it also is about maps and, specifically, our preconceived notion of what our world looks like as shown by the atlases we use.

Today was a special day as Stephen came back to us. It was so good to have him back after being away with appendicitis!

There was a lot going on today. One big thing was that we ended off our building today. You can see the final budget totals by clicking the link “The Kids Who Rock At Building” link at the very top of the page. We are going to be finishing off their booklets to be handed in and marked. Our next unit of study will be Space. I love this unit as do the students and I am looking forward to doing lots of really cool projects and learning all about space with the students.

Students will be having a quiz on their adding, subtracting and multiplying facts starting on Friday. We will be doing a practice tomorrow. If you would like some practice pages, you can create your own using the Math Facts Cafe link on the left side. For math, students have just finished learning the 6 times tables and equivalent fractions.

Please continue to help your child with their reading every night. They should be reading at least 10 mins a night.

Our memory verse this week is:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Ephesians 4:30-31

We will be doing their memory verses on Friday this week. A number of students had difficulty remembering that they needed to be practicing last week.

Here are the spelling words for this week. You can download them here spelling-m-7or from the box.net widget on the right side of the page:

Spelling M 7

To end off here is another video from the Simon’s Cat series we enjoy! Have a great night!

Well, another week has gone by. This year is going fast already. The students have had an awesome couple of weeks. We are just about to wrap up our building projects and are looking towards our Space unit.

Students had their math quiz today, and from the looks of things, they all did quite well. Starting next week, students will be doing a weekly Mad Minutes. They will have to answer 35 adding in two minutes, 35 subtracting in two minutes and 25 multiplying in two minutes. If you would like to practice for these, you can create your own quizzes using the Math Fact Cafe link on the side under the links.

As we have started our memory verse again, please work with your child on helping them to memorize their verses for each Friday.

Here is the link for next weeks Spelling Words. Justr click on the picture and you will be taken to the new words with the activities.

For devotions today, we did something a little different. One of my favorite bands is the David Crowder Band. So I found a video with their music and words and we sang along with it. Anyway, I thought I would also share it with you.

To end off, I would like to share one of my favorite poems with you. I was sharing it with Mrs. Davies and I was telling her that we had a copy of this poem hanging on our wall at home. So to end of this week, here is a poem that means a lot to me.

Desiderata

written by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Just checking!!

I’ve been hearing lots of great things about the spelling city. The students seem to really be enjoying the activities and the ability to practice their spelling words. Here are the spelling words (m-6) for the week for you to print out if you like. They are also on the box.net widget on the side.

M-6

I am thinking of a way to reward the students for using the spelling city site to encourage them to use it. I will let you know about what I come up with soon. Speaking of tests, we forgot about the 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 times table test today. We will instead be doing it for Friday. That gives the students a couple more days in which to practice.

Mrs. Caswell has passed out the recorders for the students as you may have noticed today (and I am sure you have noticed!). There is also a note that was to go home with it as well. The students will be bringing the notes home tomorrow. You can also get the notice in the box.net widget on the side.

The memory verse for the week is from Ephesians 4:29:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Thank you working so hard on voting for the site. We came a long way and from far behind. We didn’t make it but had a good run nonetheless. Thank you for your support. I have not been able to write as much as I wish I could. I am still adjusting to having a baby at home. However, I am going to really make sure I get some more posts out during the week to help you stay better informed. Thanks!

Last year, before the Christmas Break, I found this great site where students can practice their spelling words, and play word games with their spelling words. It is a great site and I am sure that the students will love. The best thing is that it is free.

There are three sections to the site. The first one is “Test Me”. This part of the site will test the students on how well they know their spelling words. Students can have the word read to them and then hear the word in a sentence. Once they are ready, they simply type the word into the blank. When they are all done, students can check to see how they have done, print a report and print a certificate.

The next section is the “Teach Me” part. The site will read, spell and give each spelling word in a sentence for the students.

The last section is “Play a Game”. Using the spelling words, students can choose games to play to help reinforce the spelling words. There are a number to choose from. There are also handwriting pages with the spelling words to help practice their spelling and handwriting at the same time.

To get to the spelling list for each week, simply click on the picture below and you will be taken right to the spelling list for this week.Each Monday you will see that picture and be able to click on it.

Well, even though it was a short week, many things have been happening here in grade 3. Along with the news about being a finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards, I have been looking out for new ideas and sites to add to our array of technology use in the class. Though I love technology, the massive number of applications and internet sites now available can be overwhelming at times. It can be very hard to choose the best sites to use that will have a longer lastin g educational impact on students. One of the hard things is also the fact that the students have not been able to get into the computer lab. That, however, will change this term with some time being given to the class to get into the computer lab.

We are also looking to incorporate some technology in terms of our social unit and our spelling. Later on, at the end of our mapping unit students will be learning all about longitude and latitude using a gps device to create “geocaches”. I think this will be a lot of fun for the students as well as something new for them. I have also found a great site to help inspire some interest in working on spelling words through the week. I won’t give it away now but I think the students will find it a lot of fun.

Today I introduced the students to a new site in Art. The site is called bomomo.com, It’s an art site where students can guide brushes of differing sizes and styles to create abstract art. Students can then save their art work to show others later. The site is alot of fun though the saving part might be a little difficult to do. Parents, you may have to help them to save the files if the students are wanting to print them out.

The voting blitz is still on for the 2008 Weblogs Awards. You can vote every 24 hours by going to:

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-education-blog/

and voting. One of the students said that he didn’t see anything when he clicked on the link. In that case, you may have to click on the link below to update your “flash”. On the next site, click on the yellow button with the words “Agree and Install” on it to download and install the new flash program. After that, you shouldn’t have any problems.

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/?promoid=DXLUJ

As tomorrow is Friday, we will be having our class meeting. If you are not aware, our class meetings happen every Friday that there is school. I use class meetings to talk about the good things that classmates do to encourage character development and positive citizenship. We also discuss, anonymously, any issues that the students may be having in the class. The goal is to give students skills and ideas on how to solve problems involving relationships and building lasting, caring friendships. My goal is to help students to move away from always having to have an adult solve their problems and rather, give students strategies and skills to know how to navigate the difficult area of dealing with problems on their own. As I tell the students, I am not always going to be with them and they need some ways to solve problems on their own. We will have lots to talk about as we deal with some normal issues from this week and focus on ways to remind each other that vacation is over and we need to get back to the business of learning.

Speaking of the business of learning, students have a test next week on the 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10 times tables. Practicing those times tables with flash cards would be very helpful in preparing students for the test on Tuesday. You can also use the ideas and worksheets on Math Fact Cafe and Multiplication.com to help them prepare.

I’ll write more later, but I just wanted to let everyone know that our class blog is one of the finalists for Best Education Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. This is very neat and exciting for our class.

I didn’t even realize that we had been nominated until I started to notice tons of traffic coming to our site. I checked out where all the traffic was coming from and saw they were all coming from the weblog awards site. Checking it out, I noticed that we had been named one of the finalists. I was extremely honoured and excited. I work very hard to try and make our site an source of fun and information for parents, students, friends and families so I was very pleased to see our nomination.

However, we are still in the voting process. You can vote as well. If you go to this site (click on the blue link) you can vote for our class. Here is the link:

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-education-blog/

Once you get to the site, look for our class blog and click in the circle beside it to vote. I believe that you are only allowed to vote once, but keep checking to see.

Polls close Tuesday January 13, 2009 at 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is 5:00 p.m. (EST) and 2:00 p.m. (PST).

Thank you and vote away!!!!