Sunday, September 27, 2015

September 28 - October 2, 2015

What a beautiful evening!  I spent the last hour outside watching the Lunar Eclipse in amazement!  I hope many of you were able to view the Blood Moon also!

This week there will be a new spelling list coming home on Monday.  Please continue to study the words each night.  They are so proud of themselves when they get an A or A+.

In math we will continue to work on multiplication by 3's and 4's.  So far they know how to multiply by 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10.   Believe it or not, they also know how to divide by these numbers!  Please try to practice these facts at home.  We have been making different fact projects to help us practice our facts.

In social studies we finished reading our September newspaper.  We learned about glaciers and what they did to the land in Wisconsin.  We also learned the five different regions of Wisconsin.  The last page of the newspapers are due on Thursday this week.

Guided reading groups are well under way.  The four groups are enjoying their books and the projects and activities that go with them.  We are spending a lot of time learning how to find information in the book after we read it.  Sometimes the information isn't right there in print and we have to infer what the author is telling us.

Here are some important dates coming up to remember

October:

2nd- Mass with Rosary to follow/Pet Blessing from 2:20-3:00 pm
6th- Fire Department Visit 10:00 am
9th- Mass
13th- Home and School Meeting 7 pm
16th- Mass
19th- Field Trip to Xavier High School to see a play
21st- Catholic Schools Mass With Bishop Ricken at the Resch Center All Day
23rd- No School
24th- Harvest Moon Festival
30th- Mass

Have a great week!

Let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Mrs. Cowart and Miss Ploederl



Sunday, September 20, 2015

September 20, 2015

We are finally settled into our routines and the students are understanding the expectations of being a third grader.   Just a reminder that school starts at 7:45am.  If they are not in school by this time they will be marked tardy.  

Thank you for remembering to sign their student planners.  This class is really good at making sure they are signed.  We will be sending home a folder each week that has all of the students corrected work from the week.  We try to send this home on Friday, but sometimes we don't have enough to put in them and we wait until Monday.  Please remove the papers from the folder and sign the front.

This week the spelling test will be on Monday.  The new list will be coming home Monday night. Students should practice their words every night.  

We started guided reading groups last week.  Students now know the level at which they should be checking out books from the school and classroom library.

In English they have been working on sentences and fragments.  We have been stressing the importance of using capital letters in the appropriate places and using ending punctuation.  

In math we have learned to multiply and divide by 2's, 5's, and 10's.  This week we will learn 9's, 3's, and 4's.  We use these facts in story problems and the students have to decide whether to multiply or divide.

The newspapers came for Social Studies and we began reading them last week. We talked about how Wisconsin has never had dinosaur bones found in it.  This week we will talk about how the glaciers moved through parts of Wisconsin.

There are a number of important dates coming up:

September:
22nd- Back to School Night Pizza, Meeting, and Check out our Classroom
5:00 pm Pizza, 5:45 pm Meeting, 6:30 pm Classrooms
24th- School Pictures
25th- Mass

October: 
2nd- Mass with Rosary to follow/Pet Blessing at 2:20-2:45 pm
9th- Mass
16th- Mass
21st-All Catholic Schools Mass With Bishop Ricken at the Resch Center All Day
23rd- No School
24th- Harvest Moon Festival

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please let us know.  Have a wonderful week!

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl

Sunday, September 13, 2015

September 13, 2015

This will be our first five day week of school.  The third grade students are settling in nicely.  We are working hard as a class to remember to use our time wisely and to listen to directions the first time.  This not only means listening in the classroom, but also in the lunchroom and at recess.

This week the students will have their first spelling list.  The students are given a pretest.  If they get a 100 on their pretest they do not have to take the spelling test on Friday.  The spelling words will be written in their student planner and the test will be on Friday.  Please practice the words each night.

We will begin our guided reading groups this week.  We will each have two groups to work with, which means we will have a good amount of time to spend with each group.  The students will receive their guided reading level on Monday, so they will be choosing books to read at this level in the classroom and in the library.

In math we will be learning to multiply and divide by 2's, 10's, and 9's.  Keep practicing x5 multiplication facts.  They should be able to quickly find the answer to all x5 facts through 10.

There is an early release this Wednesday, September 16th at 12:30.

Other important dates are:

September

16th- Early Release at 12:30pm
18th- Mass/ Fox Cities Kids Run
22nd- Back to School Night Pizza, Meeting, and Check out our Classroom
5:00 pm Pizza, 5:45 pm Meeting, 6:30 pm Classrooms
24th- School Pictures
25th- Mass

Have a great week!  If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know.

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl




Monday, September 7, 2015

Welcome to 3rd Grade 2015-2016


Welcome to 3rd grade!!

We have had a fun first week and are enjoying the third grade students!  They are very creative and have some wonderful ideas!

The first week we spent time learning our classroom and the expectations that are new this year. Students are going to bring home a student planner every evening and are going to ask you to sign it when they finish their homework.  If they have their student planner signed every night in September, they will get a surprise from us.

Your student will have homework this year.  They will have time to work on it in class, but expect them to bring something home most evenings.  Our expectation is that they bring it back finished the following day, unless specified in their student planner.

Both of us will be working with different groups in guided reading.  We finished running records with the students this week to see what reading level they are at.  Their level may be different than it was at the end of last year.  Our expectation is that they choose books at the library and in class to read based on the level they are at.  We will test students through out the year to be sure they continue to make progress.

In math the students will begin their book learning multiplication and division.  They learned times five facts the first week.  At home they can practice times five facts through ten.  This week they will learn what equal groups mean, the commutative property, how to divide, and their times two facts.

Our science unit will start with physical science and matter.  We will be learning about solids, liquids, and gases.

Social Studies in third grade is mostly read from newspapers and relates to Wisconsin history. Each month we will have a new newspaper to work from. We will periodically work out of a textbook, but not very often.  The newspapers are not delivered yet, so we will begin talking about Communities and Map Skills.

This week we will begin working on our first cursive letter.  The students will make a learning permit and promise to write in their neatest handwriting.

Important dates for September:

11th - Mass - Please remember No shorts!
16th- Early Release
18th - Mass and Fox Cities Fun Run
22nd - Back to School Night - 5:00 Pizza, 5:45 Meeting, 6:30 Visit Classrooms
24th - School Pictures
25th - Mass


Please let us know if you have any questions.  We want to work together to make this a great year!!

Ms. Ploederl - lploederl@stedwardk5.org
Mrs. Cowart - rcowart@stedwardk5.org