December 14th - 19th

Our last full week of school this year!  Hard to believe we are almost to Christmas and a new year!!  This week will be full of activities, play practices, and tying up loose ends.

We will have spelling words coming home this week.  They have been doing a wonderful job with these!  We have had many 100's!!!!

We are having a small birthday party Monday afternoon for Ms Ploederl.  The students brainstormed words to describe her last week and we put the words into a word cloud.  We framed the word cloud and the students all signed it.

We made a quilt to give to Jesus for his birthday.  Each student made a quilt square and Ms. Ploederl is sewing the quilt together.  We want this to be from the students so we are asking each student to bring a dollar for the supplies.  Thanks in advance!!

Our Christmas Concert is on December 22nd. There will be a 9:30 am and 6 pm performance.   Students in our classroom were either sent a note of what they needed to wear or they have a costume at school.  If they are in the choir they should be in their Sunday best and then they will change before the play.

December

14th - Ms. Ploederl's Birthday

18th - Mass

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

23rd - Early release and start of Christmas vacation

25th - Christmas

24th - January 3rd - Christmas vacation!!!

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year!!!

Ms. Ploederl and Mrs. Cowart

December 7th - 11th

We have been very busy in our classroom!  We have been working on a number of activities and added play practice to our schedule.  Needless to say the students have been great and we have been very proud of their behavior and effort!

Guided reading groups are meeting each week.  The books we are reading are so much fun!  We have been focusing on character traits and text to self.  Please help to remind your student to complete the assignment on time.  If they aren't prepared when our group meets, they miss a lot of important information.

We will be having a math test on either Wednesday or Thursday this week.  They should do great on it!  They need to know how to find answers to math facts 6, 7, and 8's.  They also need to be able to multiply math facts by groups of 10's.

We have been asked by Ms. Morrin to make a gift for baby Jesus to put under the tree at school.  The class voted on making a quilt.  Each student has chosen their quilt square they are going to make.  Ms. Ploederl will sew the quilt together for us.  This is a secret between classes, so please don't share outside of our room.  Thanks!

December

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 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

October 26-30th

It was very nice to see many of you at the Harvest Moon Festival on Saturday night.  It was a great night with a lot of wonderful prizes!

This week we will have a spelling test on Friday, so watch for the new list to come home tomorrow.  The students have been really proud of their tests!  Thanks for studying each night at home.

There will be a math test this week, probably Tuesday.  I will review with them tomorrow and send home a study guide.  If I feel we need another day of review, then I will move the test until Wednesday.

Guided reading groups will be getting new books this week.  When there is an assignment in guided reading we write out post it notes which the students are to put in their student planners.  If you aren't seeing these notes, please ask your child where they are, and let us know so we can be sure they that it gets resolved.

Calendar:

October

30th  - Mass and wear Halloween colors after Mass

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 great week!  

Mrs. Cowart and Ms. Ploederl

Making our boats out of aluminum foil.

Madison's finished boat.

Walker finding out how many dice his boat can hold before it sinks.

Happy boys

Fun at the Resch Center before Mass.