Nevada Reading Week

Here is a link for reading in my classroom (Calendar for Boelter’s Reading Week).  I will email you directly as well for a specific time if you are reading in a morning or afternoon block.  🙂

 

I have two more guest readers planned, Kris Pickering (Nevada Supreme Court Justice), and Phyllis James (Chief Diversity and Corporate Responsibility Officer for MGM).  They will come in after Nevada Reading Week because of scheduling conflicts.  We have two additional guest readers this week who I have not scheduled, but I will as soon as all of the dates fall into place.

Speaking of Nevada Reading Week, please remember that this week is all about reading!  Here are the themed dates we have set up.

Curriculum

This is what we have on tap academically for the next week:

• We are going to stop and read with every opportunity!
• Students will:
  • Understand the function of adverbs and comparative, superlative, intensifiers, and adverbs of degree.
  • Understand how geography influences community location and development.
  • Understanding that shapes in different categories (e.g., rhombuses, rectangles, and others) may share attributes, and that the shared attributes can define a larger category.
  • Start a unit in which they will write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
  • Refer to parts of poems when writing or speaking about a text, and using poetry related terms to describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.
  • This week’s paper homework:  2019-02-25 Homework
  • This week’s vocabulary terms:  Poetry Elements

Field Trip Alert!

On Wednesday, March 20, 2019, our class will head to Lake Mead for a field trip with Park Rangers.  Details on the field trip will come home this week.  You will get a lot of information this week, so I’ll scan those forms and put them on the forms section of the site for ease of use.  I’ll do that tomorrow morning.

SBAC and MAPs Testing

We should have our SBAC and MAPs testing dates soon.  I’ll make sure to post those here as soon as we receive them.  We will start an SBAC question of the day this week for both ELA and Math as we begin to prepare for these.  Students can also study SBAC related terms any time they want to (heh), for ELA homework, or for supplemental math practice by clicking here:

Math Terms:  Math Vocabulary

Terms for Understanding: Vocabulary Grade 3

Math Facts

We are into the application portion of math.  Please have your students practice their math facts with xtramath.org, flashcards, or the programs we use weekly for homework.  Their understanding comes so much easier with that practice.

Also, we will start using Zearn.org this week to supplement our mathematical understanding.  Students can do this as a homework option each night.  I will give login cards to students on Monday and will add them to our login card laminate for use at home and at school.  This is an awesome program!  I am excited to use it to supplement our learning.

Thank YOU!

THANK YOU!  Thanks for being amazing parents.  This week will be awesome because all of you will share it with us at home or in the classroom.  Thanks for encouraging your students to read.  You’d be surprised at how much it improves comprehension.  Have a great week!

 

 

 

You likely received an email or phone call, but I wanted to make sure you knew that CCSD has closed all schools for tomorrow.  Stuckey, and all Las Vegas schools, will not be open tomorrow because of the weather.

In other news, our Skype a Scientist session today was an awesome success!  Your students were inquisitive (even at the early hour)!  They held an academic conversation with an evolutionary biologist from UC Berkley.  They learned a lot, and I think she learned a little from us as well.

Next week is Nevada Reading Week.  We will have a ton of guest readers, and we’d love for you to read as well.  If you are interested, please fill out the google form here:  https://goo.gl/forms/VdpxMNaLWGl43k4D2.  If you have filled it out, I have you penciled in for the day you requested.  I’m just waiting to hear back from other guest readers to solidify the schedule.

Here is the day by day breakdown for dressing for Nevada Reading Week:

On Thursday, I’d love to get a class picture with everyone in their favorite character garb.  I will be dressed as Molly from the Lumberjanes or Scout Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird.  They are both favorites of mine!

I’ll send another email over the weekend with our curriculum plan for next week.  Have a great weekend!

 

Our scientist is available on this Thursday at 9:10 a.m.  Please have your students at school by 9:00 a.m.  We will lineup and go directly to the room to start learning all about the scientific process and adaptation.  Thank you!

Also, Kindness Week started today!

Wednesday, Wild About Kindness Day, – Dress Up Like Your Favorite Animal (No Face Paint.)

Thursday, Spirit Crazy Day – Wear Crazy Hair

Friday, Donate $1 and Knight Up for a Cure and Wear Your Golden Knight Gear.

Parents,

Thank you so much for your help this week with our Heart Healthy Friendship Party.  We had to hold it inside with the rain, and it still turned out great.  (The 4th and 2nd grade teachers may not agree with us!) All of the stuff you donated made it that much better!  The kids got their blood pumping and were able to enjoy some healthy snacks after, before passing out traditional Valentine’s.

Next week is a short week, as we have no school, but we still have a lot of curriculum packed in.  We are going to complete a performance task in writing, transition into polygons and quadrilaterals while we close up area and perimeter with a performance task, and depending on time, we may finish our novel this week.

Next week is kindness week at school!  This is what we have on tap academically for the next week:

• We are going to spread kindness and mindfulness throughout our academic content.
• Students will:
  • Understand the function of adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences.
  • Understand how geography influences community location and development.
  • Understanding that shapes in different categories (e.g., rhombuses, rectangles, and others) may share attributes, and that the shared attributes can define a larger category.
  • Complete a writing an opinion writing performance task.
  • Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season.

We are continuing our pennies for patients drive.  Students can use this link for donations as well:  https://events.lls.org/pages/snv/Evelyn-Stuckey-Elementary-School-2019.

Nevada Reading Week starts February 25.  I am putting together our calendar now.  We will have a lot of guest readers!

I hope you have a great week!

Homework for the week:  2018-02-20 Homework

 

 

Thanks for everything you’ve sent in so far! Tomorrow, we will start setting up around noon. If it is raining, we will move inside. We will rotate between classes and do our best to keep moving. After all students have visited the stations, we will dig into some healthy snacks. Students can pass out any Valentine’s Day cards/treats at the end of the day. I am looking forward to a lot of fun with your students tomorrow!

If your students prefer electronic homework, they can use https://www.commonlit.org/en/user/login to sign in. They login with their google account. If you prefer paper, it is in their packet for the week. Tonight, they must do the paper homework for math, Engage Lesson 13. Thanks!

Upcoming Events:

• 2/10 – Pennies for Patients Begins
• 2/13 – Sweetheart Pasta Dinner
• 2/14 – Heart Healthy Friendship Party
• 2/15 – Red Day – Free Dress Day
• 2/16 – Progress Reports Go Home (school wide – you’ve probably seen one from my classroom already)

Parents,

Skype a scientist has been postponed until next week. She is going to leave for the field the day we were to Skype, and we have a lot going on this week, so we decided to move it to next week.  As soon as we have a solid date, I’ll let you know.  It will be in the morning.

We need alllll the volunteers for 2/14.  If you plan on being in the classroom, please let me know.  Also, there’s a signup on the signup genius page just for volunteering.

Signup – https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0944a4ad2babfb6-heart

The volunteers section is at the bottom.  🙂

This week, we will bring quite a few units to a close.  We will finish our crayfish investigations, opinion writing, social studies unit on communities, and reading units on point of view and how stories and poems build successively upon one another.  We will continue to investigate the scientific method and adaptations in science.  In math, we will close area and perimeter with real world applications for using the distributive property with area and perimeter.

Students can complete their homework this week on commonlit.org for reading, or finish the paper version of the same thing in their GO Folders. They log in with their google account on their card.  All assigned readings are available in the packet below.  Know they are for different reading levels, so what you see for your student may be different.

2018-02-11 HW

I want to thank each of you for raising such amazing kids. They are a community, family, and the best of friends. They often think of others first. This weekend, if you go see a movie, go out to dinner, or stop for ice cream, please get them a little extra. They deserve it.  Know they are amazing young citizens and examples of why our world is a great place. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Parents,

I signed up for the Skype a Scientist program.  We were matched with a scientist!

Next Tuesday, our class will Skype with an evolutionary biologist from UC Berkley.  We will prepare questions ahead of time about how her field relates to what we are doing right now, including studying crayfish.

What I’d like you to do:

• Talk to your students about questions they may want to ask our scientist.
• Have all students at school about 5 minutes early on Tuesday, February 12.  We will go up before announcements start, as we have a Skype appointment with our scientist at 9:10 a.m.

This is an excellent learning opportunity, and I am so glad we were matched.  Here are some more details on the program:

https://www.skypeascientist.com/

 

We are joining two other third grade classes for an afternoon of fun on Thursday, February 14, from 1:05-3:15, for our Heart Healthy Friendship Party.  We need MANY volunteers to make this party a success.  If you have a badge, please consider joining us for our party.  We need volunteers to run the games, help set up and tear down the buffet, set up and tear down games, etc.  The day is going to be filled with different activities that will keep us moving and we will try many different heart healthy foods.

To make our party a success, I am asking for you to sign up for something on our Sign Up Genius link. (The link is listed below) It’s a sign up for all three classes, which is why there are so many donations listed.  If you are donating something and want to give it more of a Valentine or Friendship feel (i.e. cutting the fruit into hearts, etc.) the kids would love it!  Please have all non-perishable donations to school on Wednesday, February 13th so we can plan accordingly.  If you sign up for a food item that requires refrigeration, please bring that to school on Thursday, February 14th.

We will be creating bags to collect our Valentines/Friendship Cards from the others in our class.  There is no need to create a box.  We have 24 students in the class and if your child brings cards or treats, they must bring one for every student.  There is a list of student names in their GO Book.

I look forward to celebrating this special day with all of my friends.  If you have any questions please let me know.  Thanks again for all of your support this year.  It means the world to me!

https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/70a0944a4ad2babfb6-heart