Happy Friday Families!
Below is a quick snap shot of what's happening in Team Otis and then a more detailed depiction of each bullet. We hope you have a fantastic weekend. Short Shots *Spread the Word to End the Word *Friendship Party *Report Cards *Quiz on Non-Fiction Text Features on Friday, February 5 *Coin Collection Magician *Fractions *Magnets/Force & Motion *Swimming this week will be on Monday, February 1 *No Journal this week *Friendship cards due Feb. 10th Spread the Word the End the Word In your child's take home folder you will find a yellow sheet that will explain about the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign. We are connecting the campaign's message with our community gathering presentation in March. Our class, along with the rest of third grade, will present a song to the school that expresses the importance of our words and always remembering to be respectful. You are welcome to join us on Wednesday, March 2 for the community gathering to see the presentation. If your child would like to practice at home you can look up the song "Speak Life" by Toby Mac on Youtube and see the lyrics listed at the end of the email for changed words. https://youtu.be/7rK6O0YtBRY Fraction Friendship Party On Friday, February 12th in the afternoon, our third grade classes will be getting together to celebrate friendship and fractions! The kiddos will participate in different games, art projects and activities all using the fraction skills that we will be learning in class. One of the activities will be to make a friendship trail mix. We will be looking for families to donate some of the supplies. Please click the link below if you would be willing to donate food or your time to this event. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c45adad28a3f94-friendship1 Learners also drew names today and will be coming home with them taped into their planner. They should make a card for each of the three students that they drew - remember that they shouldn't buy things and its a kindness challenge for them. Handwritten notes/sentiments and decorated card. Students also have 3 cards in their folder that they can use or they can make their own. Report Cards Every learner took home tonight in their backpacks a report card envelope. In the envelope you will also find two Handwriting Without Tears cursive sheets that show the proper formation of letters. There is also a handout that has a variety of questions prompts that you can use with your child when reading with them at night. Please take some time to review the report card and let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Coin Collection Magician The Glacier Edge community is so generous that the school exceeded their coin challenge goal this past week. As a reward for their dedication, this coming Thursday we will get to attend a magic show here at school! Fractions This week we began our first lessons about fractions. We have started discovering ways to represent fractions as numerals and in pictures. Next steps include finding equivalent fractions, placing fractions on the number line and comparing fractions. We will be starting our seminar format after another week or two of homeroom lessons. Magnets/Force and Motion In science, we are allowing learners an opportunity to mix with other third grade classrooms to learn about two different topics. This week the Badgers have been focused on learning about magnetism and the Wildcats have been engaging with force and motion. Learners will continue learning about the same topics for two more weeks and then switch. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Amy Changed Lyrics to "Speak Life" "Speak Life" Lyrics Some days life feels perfect Other days, it just ain't workin' The good, the bad, the right, the wrong And everything in between Yo it's crazy, amazing We can turn our heart through the words we say Mountains crumble with every syllable Hope can live or die So be kind, be kind To the deadest darkest night Be kind, be kind When the sun won't shine and you don't know why Look into the eyes of the broken hearted Watch them come alive as soon as you speak hope You speak love, you speak You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh Some days the tongue gets twisted Other day my thoughts just fall apart I do, I don't, I will, I won't It's like I'm drowning in the deep Well, it's crazy to imagine Words from my lips as the arms of compassion Mountains crumble with every syllable Hope can live or die So be kind, be kind To the deadest darkest night Be kind, be kind When the sun won't shine and you don't know why Look into the eyes of the broken hearted Watch them come alive as soon as you speak hope You speak love, you speak You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh Lift your head a little higher Spread the love like fire Hope will fall like rain When you are kind with the words you say Raise your thoughts a little higher Use your words to inspire Joy will fall like rain when you are kind with the things you say Lift your head a little higher Spread the love like fire Hope will fall like rain When you are kind with the words you say So be kind, be kind To the deadest darkest night Be kind, be kind When the sun won't shine and you don't know why Look into the eyes of the broken hearted Watch them come alive as soon as you speak hope You speak love, you speak You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh You are kind, oh oh oh oh oh Some days life feels perfect
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Good Afternoon Families! Here are a few items that need clarification:
1. Tonight is GE Family Tech night. There will be snacks and teachers will be here to present about how tech is being used in the various grade levels, a cop will be here to talk about safety and a pannel of kids will be her to talk about their views on tech as well. If you would like to join us for some tech fun or to ask some questions about apps and things to help your child, the event will run from 5:30-7 in the cafeteria. 2. We know that some of you are already thinking about Friendship Day and so are we. We are so lucky to have 16 amazing kids in our class this year. As we've pondered the best approach to sharing "Friendship cards" with classmates, we've decided that the best approach is to have learners draw names. We will have learners draw three names from a hat. They will create a homemade card for each name they pick. We will even provide them with the paper. We will draw names this week and your child will have them taped into their planner. They should only make a card for these three people. Additionally, we are requesting no candy be attached to the card. We will have a "party" which will include food of some sort. 3. Attached is a picture of the notes from today for Fractions. We started with Brownies... ask your kiddo about that. No homework tonight on math, but be on the look out for a bit of homework tomorrow. 4. Attached is also a set of pics on some examples of country museum projects that are from past years. We talked about them in class to give the students some ideas on what they could do.... not what they had to do. Each child will have a presentation space (a table) and can have smaller items on it, as well as a presentation board, some music, they can dress up if they choose... the options are really only limited by family choice and student desire. If you have more questions about this, please let me know. Also, it is the hope that your student will be bringing home their division test, pretest and reflection tomorrow for you to sign. Please make sure that this comes back in with them after you have taken a look at it as it will go in their portfolio when it returns. There was a lot of growth this unit, I hope it felt as successful at home as it did here at school. Have a great night! Our big thing is using quality sites, so not just googling things . Also the Library sites are far more kid friendly and give age ranges to help with reading level. Web Path express will probably be one of the best for her, as well as world book.
To access these online resources, please go to the Glacier Edge Website and then to "for students" section. Then Library Media. Though these are available as apps on school ipads, they are also accessible on computers at home. Remember, from home databases need the following: username: verona Password: wildcats Culturegrams- This is a database for countries, individual states and provinces. You can compare countries by going into table and graphs and creating graphs. Please use the generate citation (MLA) option to copy and paste for sources. World Book Online- This is an online encyclopedia. Information on all topics use either the “Kids” or “Students” versions. This is a great option for research on many areas. Also, copy and paste the MLA citation for your sources. FactCite- This is a databse. For this project, the learner could access biographies on famous people. Also, copy and paste citation into bibliography. Destiny (WebPath Express) Safe Internet sites on any topic. Please use this instead of having your child do a broad range google search. This will keep the results appropriate and give an age range for the difficulty of the article as well. There is no password needed to access this from home. New book group sheets went out today. Assigned reading is not due until next week. Book groups are as follows:
Monday 1/25: Dragon Masters pp1-15 Tues 1/26: Spiders pp1-17 Wed. 1/27: Trins pp70-81 Thurs 1/28: Gold Coins pp3-20 Fri 1/29: Marty ch17-20 Below is a letter from Ms. Triller. She is also on this email - her contact email is [email protected]. She will have access to all of the same means of communication as we are currently using - your email, the website and Remind, so if you need something, please don't hesitate to reach out. You will hear when she takes over... so far we are still waiting. :) Hello Team Otis Families- My name is Nicole Triller and I will be in Mrs. Otis’s class while she is on maternity leave. I am currently finishing my student teaching at Glacier Edge in second grade with Liz Brooks and Ann Princl. I feel so fortunate to start working with the third grade team and for the opportunity to work with your child! I look forward to building on the hard work that Mrs. Otis has already put in with this class, and to help each student reach their full potential as learners. My goal is to understand the individual needs of each student, and use that help them in their educational journey. I am excited to continue working in the Verona Area School District, and to grow within a group that pushes the strives to meet the needs of students through personalized learning. Before student teaching this fall, I spent three wonderful years working at Huegel Elementary School in the Madison Metropolitan School District. My time there was spent in several roles, including a special education assistant and an assistant in the main office. In my free time, you can usually catch me spending time with my family and friends, playing with my Bernese Mountain Dog and working on the fixer-upper home that my boyfriend and I recently purchased. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns you may have during the time I am in Mrs. Otis class and I look forward to meeting you all. Warm regards, Nicole Triller Hi Families.
The Friday email that went out had some incorrect dates on it for the Country Museum Project. Those were last years dates... This years are as follows: **spring break March 25- April 4 **March 24th is Country Museum: open to all families and school **Projects are due the 21st of March (students will need to have their projects in so that they have time to practice presenting and are able to present to the class before the end of the week presentation for the museum.) **Look for an email coming out as well this week with a letter of introduction from the long term sub that will take over while Im out - Nicole Triller. She is currently student teaching in Brooks/Princl, so she is around if you would like to meet her prior to her taking over. Dictado for this week looks like this: There are many important things to learn in third grade. The teachers are always planning fun lessons because they’re trying to help us discover new things. Their ideas are usually helpful and creative. Have a great day! Good Afternoon Families!
It was a very busy week with Team Otis. Below are a few highlights and some information for next week. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. And don't forget, no school on Monday! Martin Luther King Jr. Day Activity and Discussion This morning we participated in an activity that challenged our learners to consider what rights and privileges they are blessed with. When they entered class this morning half the children were randomly selected to be group A and the others were group B. Based on that selection, during a mock spelling test, students were afforded privileges such as working technology, ample supplies, and an overall friendly environment. Those students from the other group had limited supplies and became frustrated when their peers from the other group were able to access things that they were not. After ten minutes of our simulation, we stopped learners and asked them to think about why we have the day off of school on Monday. Our conversation then turned to Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights movement and how things have changed for the better in the last fifty years. If you have a chance please take a moment to discuss the morning activity with your child. It was a valuable experience that provided reflections. We will continue discussions on Tuesday. Homework This afternoon each child glued a small sheet of paper into their planners that describes the homework for next week. Structured paragraph is back this week - What would life be like with no TV. Reading log continues, and book groups will begin again on Tuesday. Look for new assignments on this as we come back from the long weekend. Math Hopefully you all had a chance to check in with your learner regarding their progress in division so far. There are some options on google classroom if your learner would like to practice over the weekend. Overall, most learners are much further than they have been in past units and its nice to see their excitement. If you have any questions regarding how your child is doing in the unit, please feel free to contact me. Swimming We swim again on this coming Friday, Jan. 22nd. Please remember to send your child with their suit in a bag. Social Studies We began talking about the third grade country museum project this week. Please know that more information about this project will be provided next week, but in case kids came home shouting about what country they want to pick we thought we should give you a heads up. Tues, we will continue discussion and then ask each learner to tell us their top three choices for a country to research. By the end of next week, each learner will be assigned a country and they will begin bringing home more information to describe the project. Attached are three documents (a note to parents, rubric and calendar and document to collect research) that we will be passing out to your kids next week. The Coin drive continues next week. Protective Behaviors with the school social worker will be on Tuesday. Last day of division seminars is on Friday. I hope that you have a great long weekend and as always let me know if you have any questions. |
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November 2017
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