November 30 - December 4th

Happy Thanksgiving a little late!  I hope all of you enjoyed your family time and ate a lot of turkey!  I had a wonderful Thanksgiving and am looking forward to the Christmas season.

We will leave at 8:30 am Monday morning for our field trip to the Grand Old Opera House in Oshkosh.  We will be watching the play, Ms. Nelson is Missing.  We read the book and are really looking forward to watching the play!

We will be sending a spelling list home this week.  Please remember to study the words each night.  The students have been doing excellent on their tests!  We have had a lot of 100+ test scores.  It would be great if we could get the entire class to get a 100 one week.  We were very close a couple of weeks ago.

In math we will be finishing our unit on multiplication and either taking a test at the end of this week or beginning of next week  That also means we will be starting to take our timed tests very soon.  I will be sending home a form explaining how the tests work very soon.  I also send home flash cards for them to practice with.

We will be having play practices during the week to get ready for the Christmas play at the end of December.  It looks to be like another great play!

November

30th - Field Trip to Oshkosh

December

4th - Mass with rosary after

8th - Mass for the Immaculate Conception

9th - Early Release

11th - Mass

14th - Ms. Ploederl's Birthday

18th - Mass

22nd - Christmas play 9:30am and 6pm

23rd - Early release and start of Christmas vacation

25th - Christmas

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let us know.  

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl

November 17 - 20

Hope the students all enjoyed their day off today!  We went to a teacher inservice and listened to a dynamic speaker.  It was a very energizing day and I hope to be able to use some of the ideas we were given today.

This week we will finish typing our persuasive essays.  In writing we wrote a four paragraph essay on why their chosen classroom pet would be a great idea for our classroom.  This is their first long essay and I think they did a wonderful job!

We will be meeting with our guided reading groups this week.  Please continue to check for their assignments on a post it note.  There were some students not prepared for their reading group last week.  Thanks for your help!

We will be doing another Science activity this week.  This time they are going to be building a simple machine.  I can't wait to see their creativity at work!

In math we will be working on multiplication and division for 0-10 facts.  We are also going to learn how to multiply by multiples of 10.  Our math test will either be the Tuesday before Thanksgiving or if we need a little extra practice, it will be Tuesday or Wednesday after Thanksgiving.

Calendar:

November

20th - Mass

24th - Thanksgiving lunch for students

25th - Mass and early release

26th - Happy Thanksgiving!!  No School

27th - No School for Thanksgiving break

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

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl

November 9 - November 13th

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend!  This is a very busy week!  We have conferences on Tuesday and Thursday and you will get your child's report card at your conference.  This is a big year for third grade, since they will get letter grades on their report cards for the first time.  

This week we will be taking a spelling test on Monday from the words last week.  They will also be getting a new list this week and having a test on Friday.  

We started new guided reading groups last week.  Ms. Ploederl and I both have two groups again, but have moved some of the students around.  We try to meet with each group twice a week.  Guided reading assignments are written on post it notes and put in their student planners.  There are at least a couple of days between assignments and due dates, so the students have had to learn time management in order to get these assignments finished.

We have been working on persuasive writing essays.  The students had to pick an animal and try to convince their audience why it would make a good classroom pet.  I have been working on teaching them how to color code their essays to make it easier.  They will be typing their final copies this week.  I have to say I am very impressed at how well they did on these.  Next we will start on expository essays.

We finished learning all of our math facts from 0-10.  The rest of this unit is geared toward becoming better at these facts.  Practicing these at home will really help them!

Calendar:

November

10th - Conferences

12th - Conferences

13th - Mass with rosary after

16th - No School/ Teacher Inservice

20th - Mass

24th - Thanksgiving lunch

25th - Mass and early release

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let us know.  See all of you at conferences!!

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl

November 2nd - 6th

November is here, but the weather sure feels like the end of September!  The morning recess tends to be quite chilly, so please be sure the students are dressed appropriately.  We had some cold kids last week that didn't bring jackets.

The end to the first quarter is Friday.  It is hard to believe that we are a fourth of the way through school.  If you haven't signed up for conferences yet, please do so.  We look forward to meeting with each one of you.

In math we only have a couple of multiplication facts left to learn.  We have to learn the 7's, 8's, 11's, and 12's.  Please work on multiplication facts at home.  Once we have learned all of our facts we will begin our timed tests and work for an ice cream party.  Each student will be responsible for his or her own success.  More information will come home as we get closer to starting the timed tests.

In science we are working on simple machines.  We will be doing some fun activities in this unit.  I will post pictures when we do.

We have started our cursive letters.  I love how eager they are to learn cursive and how excited they are every time we learn a new letter.  I don't allow them to write any cursive in their school work until we have learned all of our lower case letters.  Then we begin to slowly allow them to write some cursive in their daily work.  Our goal is to learn all of our cursive letters by April, so they have two months to write all of their work in cursive.  Next year they are expected to write in cursive exclusively.

Calendar:

November

4th - Mass

6th - No School/ End of 1st Quarter

10th - Conferences

12th - Conferences

13th - Mass with rosary after

16th - No School/ Teacher Inservice

20th - Mass

24th - Thanksgiving lunch

25th - Mass and early release

30th - Field Trip to Grand Opera House

Have a wonderful week!  Enjoy the weather!

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl