Poetry

Hello all!

Everyone in room 8 is getting very excited for our poetry recital coming up on December 21st!  To prepare, we are reading and writing poetry every day.  One of our favorites so far is Willam Carlos Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow.  Here are some examples of our class poems inspired by Williams:

so much depends/upon/a piece of a paper/covered with stick figures/in a glass bottle/in the sea.    – Hunter K.

so much depends/upon/brown buffaloes/beside a blue river/at the breaking of dawn/between two long alleys. -Christian P.

so much depends/upon/a white sheep/sleeping/behind the tall grass/the tiny water/dripped. – Wen Z.

I encourage you to check out some of the fabulous poetry websites on the home page of the blog.  You can write fun poems using magnets, and you can read some fantastic poems written just for kids!  If you find anything great, please write about it on the blog so your friends can check it out! 

Love, Ms. Denault

P.s. Keep practicing the song with the sign language that we learned!!! I know I will be practicing :)

Tuesday 11/22/11

Hi everyone!  I’m so glad to see that you are exploring the blog!

We’ve been learning about suspense in our writing, and tomorrow we will finish up describing our WILD THINGS, and then we will create them using lots of fun materials.  Here are some awesome examples of our suspenseful “wild thing” writing:

I skipped along the path of the park.  I passed a lot of people selling things like a hot dog man, a cotton candy woman, and a popcorn seller.  Instantly, I heard some people scream with terror!  I looked back to see what went wrong, but there was nothing in sight, so I kept on walking.  A moment later, I heard some thumps on the ground.  I stopped and looked.  Nothing was there.  I kept on walking but I started to trudge.  Out of nowhere I felt some fur touching my arm.  I froze, but then turned my head and there in front of me was a wild thing!!  Red scales covered its face.  There were stiff, bright red hairs on his stomach.  He had gigantic green round eyeballs.  I looked down and saw his silly, thick chicken legs.  ”I thought wild things were supposed to be scary!” I thought to myself.  He made a mean roar at me.  That was when I saw his sharp, jagged teeth.  I also saw his claws and they were not that sharp.  He started to walk towards me.  ”Is he about to chase me?” I thought to myself.  He started walking faster and faster!  By Keara M.

I was traveling through the forest.  Just then, I saw a tremendous shadow.  ”Who’s there?” I yelled.  Nothing was there.  I started sweating.  I kept walking.  Out of nowhere, branches crackled.  I spun around but I saw nothing.  I started to walk faster.  Suddenly I heard “woosh, woosh.”  ”Who’s there?” I said.  But no one responded.  ”It must be the trees,” I thought.  I spun around to look, and there was a wild thing!  His eyes were dark green, its horns were white.  It had sharp, pointy claws.  It had stiff fur, and its teeth were sharper than the horns!  By Drew T.

And an example of a “wild thing” description:

“What’s that?” I stammered.  The ground trembled as I looked up in shock.  I stared at the towering wild thing.  Its eyes were as big as boulders and the color was bright yellow.  I noticed his long bushy tail that lead to his feet with stretched out claws.  He was the color of a dark brown sun tan.  He had big ivory horns that looked jagged and covered with black hair.  His face was as pale as the moon.  He opened his mouth with a loud roar.  His teeth were yellow with long, pointy fangs.  Gray scales covered his legs.  He stomped his feet which made me jump.  I noticed his padded toes.  ”Gosh, he’s so big!” I thought.  By Ava F.

I can’t wait to see how our wild things look tomorrow!

Week of November 21

Hello everyone!!!

Happy November!  I can’t believe Thanksgiving is already upon us.

Some things I am thankful for are my wonderful friends and family, my golden retriever Sunny, and my health and happiness.  Most important, I am thankful for having such awesome students, and for our time to learn together in a great school where everyone takes care of each other.

What things are YOU thankful for this year??

Monday

Hi everyone!!!

I would like to announce the newest competition available to you on our favorite math website, SUMDOG!!! You can now play all of your favorite sumdog games and compete against your friends practicing MULTIPLICATION!  The times tables that are available to you are: 2′s, 5′s, and 10′s.  Remember, a quick way to multiply is skip-counting.  Try out the new competition and let me know what you think!

Love,

Ms. Denault

This Week

Hello families!

This month, we have 4 birthdays to celebrate!  Happy birthday to Drew, Macy, Hanna and Christina!  Each child gets to pick a present from our present box on his/her birthday.  So far, most of you have generously brought in a gift for our present box.  In case you have not brought one in yet, our children would greatly appreciate it so that each child gets one.

In reading this week, we are focusing on several things.  We are practicing “tuning into interesting words” during our reading, and trying to use context clues, or the surrounding sentences, to figure out the meanings of any unknown words.  This expands our vocabulary!  We are continuing our note-taking strategies while reading non-fiction text.  During read-aloud, we are reading Bunnicula, a mystery.  Please make sure that while doing your Mystery Book Reports, you are keeping track of the clues on sticky notes, and you are answering the questions in complete sentences, and in your neatest third grade handwriting!

In writing, we are working on “thoughtshots” that expand on a specific feeling.  The students are practicing “showing” the feeling rather than “telling” it.  Here is an example from Emily N. :

“Louisa’s face was as red as blood.  There was steam coming out of her ears!  She was mad.”

In math on Tuesday we took a subtraction quiz, completing our unit on subtraction.  We are beginning to move into multiplication this week!  The children are so excited about this.  We will be learning how to show multiplication using pictures as well as number sentences.  Later in the week, we will learn a game called Circles and Stars that you can play at home!

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

A Few Reminders

October book order forms were sent home earlier this month.  These are due by October 31.  Last month, we earned 3 brand new books for our classroom!  Remember, every time you order a book, we get points that go towards earning books for our class.  You can also order online! Our class code is GQX6Z, and the link is www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. 

Our mystery book reports are due Thursday, November 3rd.  Please make sure you answer all of the questions in complete sentences, and that you are using sticky notes to jot down the clues as they come up in your reading! 

Happy Thursday!

October 11, 2011

Greetings, families!

I hope everyone had a fantastic long weekend and enjoyed the marvelous weather outside!  I carved pumpkins, made applesauce, and went to the beach!  Feel free to share some of the wonderful things that you did this weekend

This week, even though it’s a short one, will be quite busy for us.  In reading, we will begin learning a note-taking strategy while reading expository nonfiction.  Good readers identify the headings in nonfiction text, and they can identify the main idea and important details throughout the text.  We will also begin reading and learning about mysteries, just in time for Halloween!  I will begin a new read aloud book in class called Bunnicula by James Howe, and this will tie in wonderfully to your mystery book report, which was sent home today and is due Thursday, November 3rd.  I hope you are all enjoying your mystery books at home for nightly reading!

In writing, we will learn how to create feeling snapshots that expand on a certain feeling.  We are learning how to “show” the feeling, instead of “telling” it.

In math, we are continuing our work with subtraction strategies.  We will focus on two-digit subtraction, regrouping across one digit.  There is a great resource you can access online as a visual to help you with your math homework this week.  The link is http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/category_g_2_t_1.html and just click on “base blocks subtraction”.   It should look familiar because we will learn how to use it in math on Tuesday, but if you have questions please ask!!

Go, Slow, and Whoa!

Hello everyone!

Today in science we discussed go, slow, and whoa foods, with a focus on the sodium in our food.  We talked about what high levels of sodium does to our bodies, and how we can tell how much sodium is in our food by reading the ingredients on food lables.  Ask your child to look at the food label for his/her favorite snack and determine if it is a go, slow, or whoa food based on the amount of sodium in it!

October 5, 2011

Hi everyone!

This week we are continuing our work with visualizing while we read.  In our writing, we are working on describing objects in order to create a picture in the readers’ mind.  So far, we have described a sunken ship, a giant squid, and a jack-o-lantern!  Here are some fabulous examples:

“I glanced at the jack-o-lantern.  His big, scary mouth caught my eye.  His teeth were jagged and sharp like a shark’s.  His eyes were slanted just like he was doing an evil laugh.  If I listened closely I could hear the flames inside crackling, and it made the pumpkin seem like it was cackling.  The jack-o-lantern felt bumpy and lumpy, and his eyebrows were slanted as if he was mad at me!”   By Grace F.

“I was trick-or-treating on Halloween night when I came up to a spooky, horrifying jack-o-lantern.  Its face reminded me of Frankenstein!  It looked very evil.  I felt alarmed just looking at it.  If you listened closely, you could hear the candle crackling inside its mouth.  As I listened, I could hear whoosh – the wind flowing into the jack-o-lantern’s mouth.  I rubbed my fingers across the blazing, horrifying jack-o-lantern at that certain house.”  By Patrick S.

We also earned 45 bananas for hard work, and the class decided to trade them in for a computer day!! So today, we learned how to use laptops!  All students created a username and password on www.storyjumper.com, an excellent website that allows students to create their own books online!  This can be accessed from home, too.  Their usernames and passwords are the same as their sumdog ones, so they won’t forget   Ask your child to show you the book they started today!

Our new vocabulary words this week are chores, tutor, culture, uniforms, resources, and certain.  Have your child practice these words by showing you the movements while saying the definition!

We have been practicing our reading stamina in school, and so far as a class we’ve made it to 20 whole minutes of uninterrupted silent reading.  How long are you able to read at home??  Feel free to post your responses here

One last reminder…tomorrow is PICTURE DAY!  Come to school wearing your best smile and bring your picture order forms.  We will be taking them at 9:05.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Hello Families!!

We had a very busy day today.  We took our first district-wide assessment this morning- the writing prompt.  Tomorrow, we will take the editing and revising assessment.  I am looking forward to reading the writing prompts because from what I’ve seen so far, we have a class full of GREAT writers!!

In writing we’ve been working on writing snapshots of a setting, being sure to include adjectives to add details, and the 5 senses to create a vivid picture in the readers’ mind.  Here is an example of a beautiful snapshot of the beach written by Christian P. :

“I walked onto the beach.  The hot brown sand was the hottest sand I’d ever felt.  I picked up a handful of it and it went quickly through the splits of my fingers.  In the distance I could hear waves crashing like a volcano erupting.  The wet sand near the water was deep and I saw a seagull on the surface of the water.  I looked closely and I could see a hermit crab trying to make his way to the pebbles in the water.  The air was filled with the smell of sunscreen.  I closed my eyes and could smell the salty sand.”

And another example, written by Hanna P.:

“At the beach I couldhear waves crashing and seagulls calling in the distance as if to say, ‘I want food!’  The pebbles, rocks, and shells feltrough under my toes.  The wet sand feltlike quicksand when I stoodfor too long.  I took a big whiff and got the faint scent of somebody’s grill.  ‘Mmmm.’  I closed my eyes and my mouth watered with delight.  I can see big waves crashing, crabs crawling around, and the bright sun reflecting from the sand to my eyes.”

The children know that when I read a beautiful snapshot out loud I get goosebumps, and these certainly gave me the goosebumps!   Great work third graders!  I sent the snapshots home today, so ask your child to read theirs out loud to you.  They take great pride in their writing!

I hope everyone had a great start to the week!

Ms. Denault