Happy Friday!

Wow!  We are loving www.sumdog.com!  I just checked on the status and we have some knockout results!  In less than 48 hours, Aidan has done 1039 subtraction problems!  Drew is a close second with 992 subtraction problems!  That’s not all!  Spencer has worked on 1534 addition problems, and Tommy is right behind him having done 1199 addition problems.  It’s incredible!  The numbers are going up as I write this!  Let’s keep that excitement for math facts going as we head into next week!  We’ll be working on our addition and subtraction strategies, so the more practice the better!

Today we learned about the U.S. Constitution.  Ask your child for some fun facts that they learned today about our nation’s beginnings.

In writing we worked on MadLibs and all had sore stomach muscles from all the belly-laughter that was going on!  It was a great way to practice our nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs work.  Try some over the weekend with the family!  I hope you have as much fun as we did today with them!

Enjoy this beautiful weather!  Is anyone planning on going to the Big E this weekend?  Feel free to post what exciting fall fun you participated in this weekend!

New and Fun Ways to Practice Math Facts

Hello Families!

Today your children got to experience the Whiting Lane mobile computer lab for the first time!  We had a great time playing math games using the website:

www.sumdog.com

Students got to customize their avatar and compete with each other for speed and accuracy with addition and subtraction facts!  Students have usernames and passwords which they can use to access their accounts from anywhere!  So encourage your child to play on the computer each night and gain fluency and accuracy with their math facts!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Dear Families,

I hope you are enjoying our class blog!  I just wanted to update you on a few happenings in our classroom. 

Today we had a Whiting Lane School Code assembly where the students watched plays written by Whiting Lane students showing the correct and incorrect ways to follow our school code.  Be sure to ask your child how it went! 

We learned four more vocabulary words today.  Ask your child what each word means and to show you the movement that goes along with each!
1.  frustrated
2.  trudged
3.  gushed
4.  imitated

We also learned some important sign language signs to use in the classroom.  Here is a list of words we talked about today.  Ask your child to show you what each one looks like!
1.  yes
2.  no
3.  wait
4.  bathroom
5.  sit down
6.  stand up
7.  please
8.  sorry
9.  stop
10.  talking
11.  silence
12.  confused (which is very similar to washing machine!)
13.  stay

Homework tonight is to work on Tony’s Candy Grab.  Encourage your child to use color and neat handwriting and coloring in order to get the check plus plus grade!  Also encourage your child to read for at least 20 minutes tonight and record the title of their book in their reading log for tonight.

Happy Fourth Day of School!

We are having a splendid time getting to know each other in our third grade classroom!  We have been practicing routines and getting to know the expectations of third grade.  Ask your child what kinds of rules and expectations we’ve been talking about this week!

In math we are exploring how to create graphs from data tables, exploring the vertical axis and the horizontal axis, and answering questions based on the data displayed on the graph.

In reading we are working on building our reading stamina.  We are very good at reading silently in one spot for 12 minutes as a class.  We will be working all year on increasing our stamina to at least 45 minutes.  You can work on this goal at home with your child by setting a timer and challenging your child to sit in one spot and read continuously, without breaks.  Start off with 12 minutes and try to increase this time by a two or three minutes a week.

We’ve been exploring how to fill other people’s invisible feeling buckets by paying attention to our own behavior.  Check in with your child and discuss how they could fill your bucket at home, and see what ideas they have of how you could fill their bucket. 

Please be sure to order your Scholastic Book Club books online if you are interested. 

Today we introduced this week’s vocabulary words.  Be sure to ask your child for the definitions of these words:
1.  pleasant
2.  loyal
3.  coincidence
4.  murmured
5.  modeled
6.  recited

Homework tonight is to fill out the Family Names Data Table and Graph.

Welcome to Third Grade 2011-2012!

Hello families!

We had a fabulous first day of school! Your child has no homework tonight except to deliver YOUR homework for tonight. Please take time to read through the first day of school packets, sign and return all of the necessary documents. Also, be sure to send us your email address, as that is the best way to contact us throughout the school year. If you are interested in contacting us, please send an email to:

lindsey_roberts@whps.org
kim_denault@whps.org

Tomorrow we have Library in the morning so we get to stock up on great books to read over the long weekend! Please be sure to check out the scholastic book club orders if you are in need of some great third grade level readers. Visit www.scholastic.com/bookclubs and enter our class code: GQX6Z. This will enable you to order books online using your credit card instead of sending in checks. The site is very secure and parents have loved using it in the past.

If you haven’t already, please send in a spiral notebook tomorrow for your child to use as their writer’s notebook this school year. Also, we have a very late lunch and many students got a bit hungry before it was time to eat. Healthy snacks are more than welcome during the morning before our 12:30 pm lunchtime.

We look forward to a great year!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Roberts-Walstrom and Ms. Denault

Lunar Eclipse Breakfast

Tuesday, Dec 21 2:30a to 5:30a
at The Children’s Museum, West Hartford, CT
Price: $5 for TCM members, $7 for non-members
Age Suitability: Kids and up

Lunar eclipses occur at least twice a year, but we will not see another one as well until 2015. Wake up early and join us for coffee and muffins in the museum courtyard as we watch the best lunar eclipse of the decade. We’ll light the fire to keep warm, and if the weather doesn’t cooperate we’ll watch a Webcast from inside the planetarium dome.

Pre-register by phone, e-mail, or on-line.
events@thechildrensmuseumct.org

Event Website

Register Here Online!

Celebrate the Winter Solstice with a Total Lunar Eclipse and Ursid Meteor Shower

An article found on yahoo.com written by
Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben
– Sun Dec 19, 1:45 pm ET

Attention parents: Tuesday, Dec. 21, will showcase an event you and the family won’t want to miss. No need to purchase expensive tickets. This event is coming to a galaxy near you. Keep the kids up late for winter solstice plus a total lunar eclipse and meteor shower. That’s right folks, it’s a TKO of the sun with a meteor shower to light the way.

It’s not a common event that a total lunar eclipse coincides with Winter Solstice. The last time this happened, 372 years ago, Anne Hutchinson was being ousted from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for reading the Bible with other women. For our winter solstice, Ursid meteor shower and total lunar eclipse event, we will have front row seats. Enjoy this once in a quatercentenary (400-year) event.

Getting the Ursid meteor shower, named Ursid because it emanates from the star Kochab in Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, is a special bonus. The Dec. 22 to 23 Ursid meteor shower is usually difficult to see because of the full moon around that time of month. The total lunar eclipse does double duty as is not only blots out the moonlight and makes the Ursids visible, an eclipse is pretty amazing to watch, too. A total lunar eclipse can be viewed safely with the naked eye, also. Unlike a solar eclipse which must be viewed with a pinhole camera or with special glasses, moonlight is not strong enough to harm the eyes.

When is the best time to view the winter solstice, total lunar eclipse and Ursid meteor shower? According to Space.com, it depends upon where you live. West Coast viewers will want to start watching about 9:30 p.m. while viewers on the East Coast will see the total lunar eclipse best at 12:30 a.m. (just after midnight).

The eclipse will reach full strength at 12:17 p.m. out west and 3:17 a.m. in the east. Across the country, the time zones add an hour as they move east. Live Science says that “across the country, the eclipse will be visible until the moon sets in the west and the sun rises.” Another fascinating phenomenon about a total lunar eclipse is that the moon may appear deep orange or blood-red. For best viewing of the Ursid Meteor Shower, try to get as far from city lights as possible. Open fields and at the beach across bodies of water are best viewing sites.

Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben, a 10-year veteran homeschooler, has nearly three decades of experience as a special needs and general education teacher. She has created hundreds of themed units and lesson plans on everything from ancient Greece to biodiversity to personal finance to poetry. She holds a BS in psychology and a degree as Dr. Mom from the university of life. She writes about parenting for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.

Entry in the Scholastic and Plimoth Plantation Ultimate History Lesson Contest

Check out Emmy and Leah’s entry into this exciting contest. We hope to win! Check back after December 20th for the results!

Whiting Lane Elementary School
47 Whiting Lane
West Hartford, CT
06119
(860) 233-8541

Dear Plimoth Plantation,

We are writing to enter your contest for the Ultimate History Lesson. In third grade, we learn about Native Americans and our class is interested in the Wampanoag and the first Thanksgiving. We want to compare and contrast them to the Pilgrims and our lives today. We are interested in their relationship after the first Thanksgiving that we can’t find in our research. We need to know the history of where we came from, and more about the interesting lives of people that came before us. We would be thrilled if we won so we can teach others about it.

Sincerely,
Emmy and Leah
Representatives of Mrs. Roberts-Walstrom’s third grade class

Pilgrim and Native American Information

Hello Students!

We got a chance to explore The First Thanksgiving website today in class and I hope you get more of a chance to explore it tonight. It has wonderful information about the daily life of the Pilgrims, what the Mayflower was like inside and the lives of the Wampanoags who greeted the Pilgrims when they arrived. Check out the site and leave a comment here telling me what you learned! Thoughtful answers with complete sentences are rewarded with a homework pass! Explore and Learn!

http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/

Picture Retakes

Tomorrow, November 9th is picture retake day! If you’d like to have retakes of your child, please send in the pictures that we sent home last week. Picture retakes will be done between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m.