Bye Bye Buddy

On Monday morning we saw this on Mrs. Borman's desk.  Sadly, on Tuesday, Buddy had to go back and report to the big guy.  He took Brody's diary with him.  We will all miss Buddy, even though he was quite naughty. 

Oh Buddy!

The little stinker was at it again...

How-To Speeches

Yesterday the students started giving their how-to speeches.  It was amazing!  Here are some pictures of the kids.

Not Again Buddy!

Buddy had a rough day on Wednesday.  He couldn't sit still.  Hmmmm.  He was pretty rude to the kids too. 

Lost and Found

Check out this graph made by two of our students.  Last week they went and counted all the items in our lost and found bin in the gym.  Make sure you go look in the bin if you are missing something...especially a coat!

Curiosity on Mars

Today we attended a live NASA event and were able to hear about the rover Curiosity.  Students were able to hear an engineer and an astronaut talk about their experiences and how they use math and science in their jobs.  Maybe we will see one of our students living on Mars one day!

Buddy....!

Someone was a naughty elf and took Mr. Potato Head's glasses...not to mention climbing up on our projector!  He had to apologize to Mr. Potato Head!

Special Delivery

Today Buddy the Elf was dropped off in our classroom.  He was sent by the big guy to keep an eye on all the boys and girls in class.  Each morning students are going to help Buddy by writing in a journal (from his point of view) about what he did that night while we were all at home. 

Special Guest for Hanukkah

Today Mrs. Soloway came to our class to read a story and talk to us about the Jewish holiday called Hanukkah.  We are looking forward to playing the dreidel game!

Sugar Cone Christmas Trees

Today we read a how-to paper and followed the directions and made super cute Sugar Cone Christmas Trees! Thank you to all the families that brought in supplies for us to create these trees. Everyone followed the directions and they turned out great!

Rotary Club Brings New Dictionaries!

Today all the third graders in Parkrose received their very own copy of a Dictionary. This book will be coming home today with your child. They were surprised to see that our vocabulary words were in the book. I mentioned they were ALL in the book and that would be a good activity to do at home. Please keep the books at home and enjoy!

Ebooks Online!

This is a link to some great ebooks for your child to listen to and read along with! Check it out! TUMBLEBOOKS

Post It Notes Needed

Dear Families, We need your help! As part of our reading strategy instruction, we use sticky notes. Lots of them! If possible, please send a pack of the sticky notes to school at your convenience. Your help is greatly appreciated! These are the notes that we need...you can find them at Office Max (maybe even Target and Staples). They MUST be the pack of Ultra Colors. Thank you so much for your help!

Oregon Road Trip 2008

These are some pictures of places that we stopped on our vacation around the beautiful state of Oregon.  Some of these are the cities and rivers and mountain ranges that we are studying about on our Oregon map!

This digital scrapbooking design customized with Smilebox

Shadow Puppet Theater

Let's try this again!  The students worked really hard to write the script and create the puppets.  Enjoy!

Diversity

Our new reading theme is called Times Have Changed.  We learned about the word diversity.  Below is a great example of the amazing diversity we have in our classroom.  Your child also read a story about Female Firsts.  Be sure to ask your child about some amazing women in our history that worked hard to make equal rights for all!

Multiplication Math Game

We have begun learning about multiplication!  This is a large part of the student learning in 3rd grade.  Your child is expected to master the multiplication and division facts by the end of the year.  Below is a game that you can play to help your child understand the concept of multiplication...just adding in a faster way!  You can make your own recording sheet by simply folding a piece of paper.  Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1spUlT0Zhlxe-hq6ImhdDnripNAjew29fdSCKWYG2ZuU/edit

Guest Teacher

Guess who is a guest teacher this week?  You got it.  Me.  Mr. Ampersand (my third grade teaching partner) very recently lost his mother in a unexpected way.  The day after she passed away, he was in urgent care for his own health.  Since then, he's been back a second time!  He's very sick and has had several guest teachers in his room.  To make things a bit easier for him when he (hopefully) returns next week, I will be working in his room as his guest teacher.  Ann Good will be the guest teacher in our room.  Please speak with your child about behavior while I'm "away".  I will also have your child bring home the purple Standards and Practice Book that goes with our Go Math program.  Please be on the lookout in our weekly newsletter as well as the calendar on the blog for matching pages your child can do at home.  We have finished the first two chapters and are just starting chapter 3 on multiplication.  So anything in those two chapters would be great review!  Thank you all for your patience during this time! 

Pumpkin Seed Graph

On Tuesday we cleaned out some pumpkins in our groups and counted all the seeds.  We discovered that the estimates on the amount of seeds inside a pumpkin were way off!  We also learned that pumpkins float because they are hollow inside and have a lot of air.  After we counted the seeds, we gathered our class data and created a graph.  Our goal in math this past week has been to represent and interpret data. 

October Birthday Indeed!

For the entire month of October I have been publishing that we have no birthdays.  Well, was I ever wrong!  Elijah's birthday was just yesterday!  Happy Birthday (a day late)!

Portland Japanese Gardens

Our field trip was wonderful!  We were lucky enough to avoid the rain and didn't get wet at all.  The fall colors are amazing...not quite peaking yet though.  Today you will find a family pass attached to your child's newsletter.  The pass has a value of up to $46.00!  I would suggest going sometime soon to see the gorgeous fall colors. 

Field Trip Tomorrow!

I am looking forward to our field trip tomorrow.  I sure do hope that the weather is kind to us and not raining!  Here is a picture I took last year when I went with my class.  Please make sure you dress your child in WARM clothes...and don't forget to pack a lunch!  We will eat when we get back to Russell, but it will be past our regularly scheduled lunch.  Let's have a great trip!

Bar Graphs

Today we surveyed the students to find out what the favorite kind of fruit was for our class.  We used our shrinky dinks to make a bar graph.  This week we are learning how to represent and interpret data.  We have talked about picture graphs and bar graphs.  Tomorrow students will be making a bar graph of their own!

Inferring

Click HERE to go to a cool website and be an inferring detective!  Try to figure out what the word is by using the clues and what you already know!  Have fun!

Cool!

This was created using a free website called Tagxedo.  All you have to do is type in words and you can choose from a bunch of different shapes.  You could write some neat things using this!  Check it out!

Buddy Reading

Every Wednesday our students get to work with their kindergarten buddy from Ms. Cadieux's classroom.   Each week your child will be reading to his or her buddy.  If you have any easy books at home that you no longer use, we would love to have them to read to our buddies!  The kids started last week by interviewing their buddy to find out what he or she is interested in.  We had so much fun!

Friday Success

Every Friday the students who have turned in all their homework and have had excellent behavior get to participate in Success.  It is a time at the end of the day for students to just relax and have fun.  Each week your child has math homework.  In addition, sometimes your child might bring home an extra paper for practice, or something that needs to be signed by parents.  Please make sure you check your child's planner each day.  That also means your child must be prepared every day by bringing the planner to school!  Please make sure your child has his or her planner every day!

Short Vowel Shake It!

Learning short vowels can be fun!  Click here to see the chant we use in class.  Feel free to practice it at home too!

After

The boxes are empty and we are into our third week of school.  It's been a rough start this year!  We are still experiencing problems with our technology and waiting for some things to get finished from the construction this past summer.  Speaking of summer, it' super HOT in our classroom!  Even though we got new windows, they don't keep out the sun or the heat.  They installed new pipes for the heating systems, but we do NOT have air conditioning and it is in the upper 80s in our classroom all day.  Feel free to send a bottle of water (with a tight cover) to school with your child. 

Before...

This is what I came back to on Monday.  This summer Russell Academy was thrilled to get new floors and windows, along with some other improvements to the building.  At the end of the school year last year, movers came in and packed up the entire building.  They moved everything back in and the unpacking began.  It took me all week to unpack and try to get the classroom looking good.  I'm excited for you to all see it.  My husband came in every day to help and I had a friend or two help at times.  I'm looking forward to meeting all my students and having a great year together!

Special Performance

Today two of our students did a performance for our class.  They have been working hard practicing their parts and getting ready for this day.  Good job Frida and Zoe!

Science Fun

This week the students have been going through the steps of the scientific process.  This experiment they had to decide which would drop first, a roll of heavy tape, or a paperclip.  Gravity is amazing!

Portland Japanese Gardens Field Trip

Today we were treated with a special field trip to the Portland Japanese Gardens.  Students were able to walk around the gardens and capture words on clipboards to create some amazing haiku poems.  They were also able to use a camera to capture some moments to remember that will inspire haiku poetry.  Next week Miss Joan will come back to our classroom with some pictures that the students have taken and write some haiku poetry.  Thanks again to the adult volunteers that came with us today and captured their own haiku moments!

Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery

Yesterday we went to the Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery for our first field trip together.  Students were able to see the power of the river and how we get our power here in Portland.  Students also got to see some salmon in the fry stage at the fish hatchery.  We had beautiful weather and a great time!  Thanks for being so flexible with the date and thank you to all the adult volunteers that attended!

Salmon Life Cycle

Tomorrow we are planning on taking a field trip to the Bonneville Dam and Hatchery.  Today we watched this video to show the life cycle of a salmon.  Jordi particularly loves the  music and wanted to watch it again.  So here it is!

Spelling and Vocabulary Help

Franklin makes a great tool for students to use at home and at school.  This is a picture of Jordi using it in our classroom.  I taught the students how to look up words they don't know how to spell.  There are fun games they can play too.

Earth Day

Our class got some brown paper bags from Winco and decorated them.  We will be taking the bags back to Winco to put back into the shelves for customers to use.  Hopefully our good messages will reach lots of people!  We had a good time decorating the bags.

Run for the Arts

Last week on Friday the students went to the Portland Christian High School and ran around the track to raise money for Russell Academy.  One our our students was able to get around the track 12 times!  Please turn in your pledge money by Friday, April 27th.

Trailblazer Visit!

Several students from our class were able to attend a very special assembly today.  One of the players from the Portland Trailblazers was here to honor the students who tracked and read over Spring Break.  The students all received a free t-shirt, ruler, and pencil.  Three of our students were even able to get their t-shirt autographed!  What a neat opportunity for our students! Read, read, read!

Portland Japanese Garden Special Guests

Today we had two special guests come to our classroom to talk to us about the beauty of Haiku Poetry.  The students used all 5 senses to think of adjectives to describe rain and then pictures of seasons from the Portland Japanese Gardens.  A field trip to the Gardens is planned for April 24th.  More information will be coming.  Ask your child about Haiku poetry!

What is light?

The students are learning all about light.  There are 5 new vocabulary words that we learned this week.  Today we read a expository story about Shadow Puppets.  This is a video I showed to the class that has some amazing shadow work!

SmartBoard

Yay!  Mrs. Borman was able to get her SmartBoard from her old classroom at Shaver and bring it to our new class.  Today she whupped us in a game of Cover Up (she really only won by 3 points).  It was so much fun getting up and using the interactive whiteboard!

Dance Party!

Yesterday Russell Rockets celebrated earning enough Russell Rockets at recess time at a dance party in the gym.  We had a blast!  We are hoping to have another party again before the end of the year.

New iPad

We recently received a new iPad for our classroom.  Today I downloaded a free app from Scholastic called Storia.  We got 5 free books for our iPad!  The students were really excited.  You can download the app for free if you have an iPad or even for your PC.  The books can be purchased on the Scholastic book order website.  March book orders went home today.  They are due next Wednesday, March 21st.  Don't forget you can order on-line and earn our class a free book.  Use the code:  KDKP2

Conferences are Here!

I am really looking forward to meeting all of my new families this week!  Please bring your child with you so we can talk about progress in school.

Classbook

Today we started our own "Classbook".  It is a way for us to have our own Facebook in the classroom.  Students will be updating their statuses.  Feel free to send a picture from home if your child would like to put it in their status and write about it.  We are very excited!

Valentine's Day Guest

On Monday this week we had a special guest come to our room to teach us how to make a mail jeep to hold our Valentine's.  Mrs. Borman's friend, Mrs. Phelps, was a guest teacher.  Valentine's Day was wonderful.  We all had a lunch date in the classroom together and then later passed out our Valentine's.  Thank you all for the amazing treats and gifts!  I felt very loved!

Daily Graph

Today we created our first graph using our shrinky dink selves.  Students in third grade need to be able to read a graph and interpret the data.

Alphabet Songs

We are learning about the short vowel sounds this week.  These are some fun songs that might help!

Success!

Every week I am saving some time on Friday for students to celebrate being successful.  I am looking for good behavior choices all week (less than 3 behavior reminders) and homework turned in on Friday.  Here are some of the  students who enjoyed playing together today!