You're Invited!

Our class will be memorizing and performing holiday poetry for you on Wednesday, December the 15th from 10:30 to about 11:00. This will be a very informal time just to be together and celebrate the season! If you cannot attend please make sure someone comes to watch your child. It can be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a neighbor. Let me know if you cannot find anyone to attend and I should be able to help. The children will be acting out winter poetry and will need to dress up/bring props to “show” their poem. Poems need to be memorized by December 10th.

December

It's already December and what a busy month we have planned!

First of all a big welcome to our 2 new students, Shaniyah Hunt and William Bridges! We are so happy they have joined our class.

Here is what's is going on in class:
 Reading-We are beginning a new reading log to summarize what we are reading, we have been practicing summarizing in class and discussed how it is different from beginning, middle and end. A summary is usually a little longer and discusses main ideas of what has happened, please help with this until your child has the hang of it. Continue to make sure your child is "sticking with a book" and reading on his/her just right level, and of course understanding.
 Writing-We are still working on personal narratives, please continue to send in 4x6 pictures of memories.

 Math-We are beginning to work on speed and fluency with the multiplication tables. We are also beginning division. I will assign tables each week. The tables I assign need to be answered in 3 seconds or less by Friday of that same week. The kids can make flashcards at home or there are many sites on our favorites where they can practice their multiplication tables. I will show them how to use a few of them today.

Content-This week we are studying about different types of weather and how to prepare for them. Also how types of weather can have positive AND negative effects.
 Technology-We are continuing to work on our web site. If you are not following us on twitter, please do and see the Monstermashups we made...and remember to keep talking about online safety!

 *Mark your calendars for:
Our poetry presentation for parents-December 15th at 10 o'clock-more info to come home.
Holiday class Party-December 16th time will be posted on our calendar soon
Pj day-December 17th
Check our calendar for other important dates.

Site of the month:
Follow us on Twitter
Sites to pracitce multiplication and division.

November

What a busy few months we have had. I'm very proud of what our kids are doing in class, they are really working hard and doing such a good job!

Believe it or not, the holidays are just around the corner! Check our class calendar (link below) for important things going on in our classroom. I will continue to add dates as events get scheduled.

Our school will be hosting the Crane Book Fair next week. Look for information to come home in the next few days.

Just a little bit about what is going on in class:

Reading-We have been practicing making mental images as we read in order to help us understand what we're reading. Talk to your kids about your mental images, even if you are not great at making them! We have also learned what inferring in reading means, and how to infer to help us understand. Right now we are switching gears from studying about strategies, to learning about the non-fiction genre. Continue to make sure your child is "sticking with a book", understanding and enjoying the book and reading on his/her just right level.

Writing-We have collecting ideas for writing in our binders and adding detail to our writing pieces. Sticking to a topic will continue to be a focus. Next week we will begin collecting memories to put into a memory book. We will explore different ways to write about these memories. Please help the kids send in memories as often as possible starting next week. They will be glued into a book so if you do not want to part with original pictures, just print a copy and send that in. No bigger than about a 4x6.

Math-We have begun our study of the concept of multiplication. The kids have compiled lists of things that come in groups and made multiplication riddles with them. We have made our skip counting charts from 2-12 and studied the patterns that we see in multiplication. We are now working with arrays and investigating how they can help us with multiplication: For example the array 4x6 can be cut in half to make 2, 2x6's, or as we remember it: the distributive property of multiplication, 4x6=(2x6) + (2x6). Arrays give children a mental model to help them understand difficult concepts. Another example below shows: 7x9=(7x4) + (7x5)


Have fun using arrays with your children and keep the conversation about multiplication going as they play the array games.

Content-We have finished up our study of plants The last few weeks we have been learning about the muscular system and skeletal system of the the human body in science. The kids are having fun learning the names of the bones this week and using online programs to "put Annie back together" and "make no bones about it". The kids are ending their study by creating a Power Point presentation on the human body.


 Thanks to everyone who commented on our write board during our study of Maps and Globes. If you have not read all of our responses the password is constantine, go check it out! And it's not too late to add to our board if you haven't yet! We had a great time talking about our family and friends and learning about where they live.

Technology-We have been very busy in technology! The kids are using Spelling City to practice their spelling words, they have started their very own web pages, saved files,  used online editing software to work with photos, built their "wild selves", blogged and yes, doing the old fasioned keyboarding practice on Dance Mat Typing, and that's just the beginning of what we will be doing in technology this year! Designing slide shows and embeding html code to their web sites is next on the agenda.  If you have not seen all of this, have your child show you around our web site and remember to keep talking about online safety!

My web site has gotten rather large and difficult to keep up with, so please do not hesitate to let me know when you see a link that no longer works, or anything I need to change.

*Check our calendar for important dates.

I will be out tomorrow and since school is closed on Thursday, signed papers will not come home until next Wednesday.

Site of the month:

 United Streaming(username-tanyaconstantine, password-united): http://www.unitedstreaming.com/ - A great site to learn more about just about anything that your child wants to study. You can go to our “content folder” for things that I have saved specifically for my third graders. Or, your child can search other topics. Just be careful that they stay with grade level videos if they search on their own. If you type in Magic School Bus in the search area, your child can watch ANY Magic School Bus video that he/she wants to.

Parent Night

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to attend parent night, if you could not get away, click here for the Parent Night notes and video. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks so much to Lori Kes, Rene Lee, and Shelly Close for volunteering to be our room moms! We are so fortunate to have moms that have the time and desire to do this for our class!

First of all, let me apologize for this long newsletter. My first one is aways VERY long because I think of what I left out or ran out of time for at Parent Night!

Here are just a few of the things that are already going on in our classroom:

Spelling: You will notice on some of the spelling tests there are two grades. Periodically I will give the kids a dictation sentence and grade them on conventions of writing, spelling, periods, etc. This also helps them to listen carefully and remember the sentence. I say the sentence twice so I tell them to remember as much as they can and wait for me to repeat it to get the rest.

Reading: In reading we have learned about where readers read, reviewed how to figure out words, strategies to understand, what we can do when we’re finished with a book, and how to log and respond in class. I’m asking the children to stick to a book so help me with this at home by making sure they are bringing the book they are reading in class home, or the book they are reading at home to school. I know I get confused when I have too many books going at once. If it is too difficult keeping up with the book going back and forth, they are welcome to keep one at home until done, or check one our from the library.
How would you like to know that your child understood a book without having to read it yourself? The kids have just learned how to use the Book Adventure website in class. This is a quick check that will help you see if your child understood the book he/she is reading. I’m asking those who are reading too quickly, or not “thinking” about their stories to re-read and make sure they know what is going on in the story. Here are the details about that program and how our class will benefit from it, and how you can use it to check your child’s comprehension:
Book Adventure
Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for our class. Children take multiple choice quizzes on the books they've read offline, (in other words the books that they will use for this are the books they are reading in class and at home.) and earn points and prizes for their literary successes. This book can be their read and log book, book report book, or any other book they’re reading at home or at school. Just log on, after the book is read, type in the name of the book, and take the short quiz. It should be a just right book, not too hard or too easy.
Once your child has read a book he/she signs on tohttp://www.bookadventure.com/ and logs in, (their username is the same as their password and will be in their BEE books behind "important tab".) clicks on quiz finder, searches for the title he/she read, then takes the quiz. If your child scores low, you may want to have him/her re-read and try the quiz again, or choose an easier book. If you and your child need ideas for titles, you can search for thousands of titles by grade level and/or areas of interest on this site. We will take our quizzes for the first month of school in our classroom.
Our goal is to take 2 Book Adventure quizzes a month at home. (They can take more if they want to) They can do this instead of reading twice a month, just let them log that they took a quiz on BA. I can check progress online as long as they sign in with their user code and password.

Math: We are almost finished with our beginning of the year math assessments and will soon begin our recently adopted TERC Investigations. We are reviewing addition and subtraction and it will continue to be practiced and assessed throughout the school year. Today I'm sending home the Student Math Handbook and a sheet for the kids to do for homework. You may keep the book at home for the rest of the year. When you see this kind of sheet come home, if you look in the top right corner, it will say SMH and give a page number. You can go to that page in the book and it will give you ideas for how to help your child.

Math-Addition Strategies
Some things in school these days look a little different than they did when we were in school. Click here and scroll down to math to see the main ways that children come up with on their own to do addition problems. I ask that the children be able to use 2 strategies with ease (being able to use two is comparable to the old way of subtracting one of the addends from the sum to check your answer), and be familiar with the others for the sake of efficiency (You can always get the answer using any strategy, but many times, another strategy gets you there much faster. The best example of this is a subtraction problem, 10,000 -999, if we use the traditional borrowing and carrying it would take longer than adding 1 to 999 to get 1,000, then skip counting by 1,000’s to 10,000 which would make 9,001. You can also look at the links explaining strategies children use when subtracting and multiplying. The following are ways you can help your child when he/she is doing a math problem in any of the above areas:
1. Read over the addition strategies sheet. Come up with a different addition problem and practice solving it in each of the ways shown. Simply reading over the sheet once is usually not enough to understand these strategies if you are not familiar with them.
2. Watch your child solve an addition problem, ask your child to explain his/her thinking as the problem is being solved and determine which strategy is being used. Asking your child what he/she is thinking in any subject is so important in developing your child’s metacognitive thinking skills as well as his/her problem solving skills.
3. If a mistake has been made, ask your child to go over with you how the problem was solved, usually they can catch their own errors.
Help your child with organization: In the # 1 example, partial sums, there are two ways of showing this thinking. The first way connects the numbers with lines. This is fine for small numbers, however, as the numbers get bigger, the second illustration is a more organized way of showing the problem, children will start making mistakes when they try to draw lines or “string” larger numbers. Other forms of organization for math problems are numbering the problems, circling the answers, writing on the lines, skip lines between problems.
4. Ask your child to solve the problem in another way and go through the above steps. Stress that if a different answer is obtained, the child needs to go back and see where the mistake was made. Some children think that if they write a problem in 2 different ways, like example number 1 (attaching with strings and writing the problem in columns) then they are using 2 different strategies when in reality these two illustrations are using partial sums. It is important that your child be able to use 2 different strategies, if not then a mistake will usually not be “caught”.
I also believe that there is nothing wrong with the traditional algorithm UNLESS the child has no idea what the borrowing and carrying means and does not have a strong concept of number. If your child struggles with math, the traditional algorithm will not help your child’s understanding of what addition is. If your child seems to be confused, I suggest working with partial sums. It’s in columns, the only difference with the traditional is that sums of columns are written on different rows keeping place value in tact. And the columns are added from left to right which is what kids do and understand naturally. If you are new to our system, or just want to know more about how we teach math, please visit these links:
http://tconstantine.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/Info+%26+Tips+for+Curriculum+areas
http://tconstantine.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/Math+Casts

Social Studies-We are learning about maps and globes and geography. The kids are publishing their Me on the Map book, and we are about to begin learning about the continents. Last we will study how to use maps and globes. The projects the kids will be working on is class are: an internet scavenger hunt, writeboard to find out where our friends and family live, then scribblemaps to pin point these locations on our website.

Writing Next week we will finish setting up our writing binder, adding to our “ideas we can write about section”, and discussing what good writers do. Our second parent letter will come home Friday. We have discussed how to write a friendly letter and what we are shooting for (it may take a while for us to get there) is a 3 paragraph letter. The 1st paragraph will be a response to your letter, the second paragraph should be a “meaty” one with lots of details about ONE topic, and the last paragraph is a closing. Try to format yours in the same way, so that the children will have a good model to go by each week. When theirs comes home, have conversations with them about what you liked about their letter and things they can do to improve (indent, check for spelling and punctuation errors, write neater, write straight down the red line, etc.) We will be discussing all of these things in class, it will just help if they hear it coming from you too! Soon I will take a writing grade on their letter and you will get a scoring rubric with signed papers. We will be reading Dear Mr. Blueberry next week and discussing how the letters back and forth should flow like a good conversation and hopefully be a memorable keepsake.

Grades - All quizzes and tests are graded using a point scale. On many papers, you will see a point value or a raw score (ex.: 43/46) and then a grade (93/ A). The point value on tests is determined by the number of points given for each item on the test. For example the DOL sentence{she gave chris some candy} might be worth 6 (raw score) points, 3 points to put the 3 editing marks in the right place, and 3 points for writing the sentence with the corrections appropriately on the line below. So, if there were 6 sentences worth 6 points, the entire test would be worth 36 points. If your child missed 3 points, he/she would have a raw score of 33/36 and a grade of 92/A. Signed papers will begin coming home the 1st of September. I take some grades at school that I do not send home, but most of these grades are participation grades and I’ll let you know about them only if they are below good or excellent. So do not worry about an occasional low grade that comes home, remember I will have many grades in my grade book that will bring it up.

The kids have really done a wonderful job getting back into the swing of the school routine. They are following directions and helping others when they don't understand. I am really proud of them. This first few days we had a wonderful time getting to know the friends we will be spending the next 9 months with. We interviewed a classmate, played "get to know you" games, and even went on a scavenger hunt in our classroom to get familiar with where to find things we need. We talked a lot about classroom procedures and rules and how in order to have a productive year we all need to work together and follow the rules and know the procedures. If you would also like to review this with your child, You can find it in the notebook of our home page.

The first few weeks in all subject areas will be spent reviewing concepts from the end of last year. I will also be assessing your children so that we can chart progress. We will continue building community by getting to know each other, our classroom and our school. Have a great weekend and I know the kids are worn out so give them some extra hugs and let them sleep in this weekend!

It was great to see everyone at Parent Night, I'm looking forward to an awesome year working together with you and your children!

Welcome to 3rd Grade!

Dear Parents, I hope this post finds you enjoying every minute of your summer and getting excited about the upcoming school year. I want to take this opportunity to welcome you and your child to the third grade at South Shades Crest Elementary. Check out our class calendar for important upcoming meetings and events and also take some time to get familiar with our class web site, we will be using it lots this year! I'm looking forward to meeting you and the children on "Meet the Teacher" day!

End of a Great Year

Dear Parents,

The kids and I brainstormed all of the things we did in technology this year, let us know if we left something out that you remember!! We wanted to share it with you. As far as I know we have lots of space on our web site, so as long as we do, these things will stay. Some may be archived on links close by. So, come back and visit often to remember how cute we were in third grade, and how much fun we had learning with technology!!!
http://constantinelablessons.blogspot.com/2010/03/2009-2010-technology-projects.html
Thank you for helping make this such a great year for our third graders! Don't forget about our summer page for your child! Let's keep those little minds busy! I added the Summer Survival list to it.
If your child will not be attending the last day of school, please send in a self addressed, stamped envelope so that I can mail reportcards home.
If you have not had a chance to take the End Year Survey, please click here.
Our class party is tomorrow, thanks so much to everyone who helped make it great!
Wednesday, the kids can bring one board game that they know how to play.
Thanks again for a wonderful year and keep in touch next year! And now... Dear Parents....

I give you back your child, the same child you confidently entrusted to my care last fall. I give him back pounds heavier, inches taller, months wiser, more responsible, and more mature than he was then.
Although he would have attained this growth in spite of me, it has been my pleasure and privilege to watch his personality unfold day by day and marvel at this splendid miracle of development.
I give him back reluctantly, for having spent many months together in the narrow confines of a crowded classroom, we have grown close, have become a part of each other, and we will always retain a little of each other.
We have lived, loved, laughed, played, studied, learned, and enriched our lives together this year.
Give him back I must, but his teacher I iwill always be!

~Author Unknown
Love,

Mrs. C.

Musical Link

Here is the link for our Chemistry Musical. It will be broadcast live Tuesday, May 18th from 9:00-9:30. Feel free to forward to loved ones everywhere who would like to see our program, but cannot make it to the school! Don't forget to have your child wear orange next Tuesday and Wednesday. Have a great weekend!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chemistry-musical-2010

3rd Grade Chemistry Musical

Our chemistry musical will be Tuesday, May 18th and Wednesday, May 19th from 9:00-9:30 a.m. You are welcome to attend either performance or watch a live streaming from your computer, we will send out the link soon. Please have your child wear an ORANGE short sleeved T-Shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. If your child does not have this color shirt at home, please purchase one before the 17th. Michael’s usually has some of this color in stock and they get shipments in about once or twice a week. Target or Wal-Mart are other good places to look. You might want to call and make sure the store you are going to has this color in stock and will hold it for you before driving around.

Please have your child come to school dressed for the musical on May 18th, and again May 19th.

Thanks for your help!

Ralph Fletcher

In class we have just finished reading a book called Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher for read aloud. It was a new one for me and I normally do not choose realistic fiction, but I'm glad it was suggested, because the class and I really enjoyed it! The best part is, next Wednesday, as a favor to Toni Shay, our class is going to get to video conference with Ralph Fletcher. Thanks Toni For setting this up, what a wonderful opportunity for our class! I'm letting you know in case you would like to have some discussions with your child before our conference, you can do this by: checking out Mr. Fletcher's web site and reading his biography, re-reading Fig Pudding, reading another one of his books, or just discussing what Fig Pudding was about with your child, we all laughed hysterically as we read parts of this book, and a few of us cried, and no, not just me!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Blogs and Polls and Trips, Oh My!

I am enjoying the feedback on the polls, please vote on our new one! ----------------------->
Not that I have any control over it, I was just interested in your thoughts. If you have an idea for a poll, just let me know.

We are so glad testing is over, you all can be very proud of your little ones! Each and every one of them worked hard until the very end! We were all happy to get back to our regular schedule! Thanks to everyone who sent in goodies, they REALLY helped after our long days of testing!

What we are working on in class:
Reading-Questioning and wondering using expository texts.
Writing-Memory writing, memoirs, about to start poetry.
Math-Investigating geometry, continuing to practice all operations.
Science-a short unit on simple machines then we will begin chemistry.


We started our personal class blogs about 2 months ago, each child has their own blog, and up until now I have let the kids be free. For the rest of the year I will ask them to blog about specific things, stick to their topic, use more detail, and edit!! :) I would love for the parents to participate when you have time. I have made one username/password that all parents can use, just type for example, "Josh's Mom" before your comment. I will email you the username and password. You can comment on our posts, make them positive and encouraging to keep the kids excited! You can also take the opportunity to have continuing conversations with your children about internet safety (digital citizenship), possible post ideas and editing before they post (our rule of thumb is to re-read 3 times: once to make sure it makes sense, then for capitals and periods, and last for spelling). Your child is more than welcome to post from home using the post ideas page.

We will be making up the Vulcan field trip that we missed. Here are the details of our upcoming trip to DeSoto:

FIELD TRIP TIPS

· Our field trip to DeSoto is this Friday.
· We will be outside for most of the day. Please dress appropriately for the weather.
· Be sure that your child wears comfortable tennis shoes.
· If your child did not order a lunch from the lunchroom make sure he/she brings one. Make sure the bag and drink are labeled with your child’s name and everything is disposable.
· Chaperones, our departure time is 8:30. You can meet us at 8:10 in the lobby by the front office. You are welcome to ride the bus with us. We will return around two. Also, send in $13.50 for your discounted entrance fee so you do not have to pay full price at the door. Our chaperones are Ms. Southworth, Ms. Davidson, Ms. Williams and Ms. McConnell.
· Wear your South Shades Crest T-Shirt if you have one.
· Click here for more information about DeSoto Caverns and our field trip.

I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather we are getting! Check our calendar for other important dates.

Our Wiki Project

During our study of Native Americans, we broke into groups and studied animals that live in the different regions of the United States: Plains, NorthWest, etc. Each group created a wiki page on our web site with their findings. They had to use lots of their tech skills like creating a wiki page, searching for information on the internet, saving pictures to the network, uploading files to the wiki, embedding html code, just to name a few. I'm proud of what our 8 year olds can do with a computer!! They rock. Some still have a few things to do but we wanted to go ahead and share them with you!! They can put finishing touches if they need to and practice presenting at home over the weekend!

http://constantinekids.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/Our+Research

Getting Ready for Tests!

Please vote on our new poll on the right side of our blog!!

Testing is in the air! Tonight we will be practicing for the ARMT Math assessments, please make sure and read the note inside the booklet that your child will bring home, I appreciate your help with getting our kids ready for the "big week". I'm attaching some test strategies that you can be discussing with your children over the next few weeks. If anyone would be interested in sending in snacks that week, please send me an email and I will send back a schedule of when to send the snacks to school. The testing dates are on our website. For extra practice visit our favorites page.

The next few weeks will look a little different as far as homework is concerned. There will be no spelling homework, we will do "word studies" in class. Instead, we will be doing math skills the old fashioned way, from our Hoover City Schools Companion Textbook that will begin coming home next week. We will continue to read and log.

We have learned all about North West and South West Native Americans, and why "where" they lived affected "how" they lived. Next week we will begin the Plains. Please send in a brown grocery bag for our buffalo skin.

We are almost finished with our read aloud The Lightning Thief. Our class would like to go and see the movie together on Saturday, February the 13th. I’m not sure of times yet, but, I just wanted you to try to keep that date open. If you are unable to bring your child, maybe he/she could buddy up and ride with a classmate to the theatre. Parents and siblings are welcome to stay, or if you have errands to run, that’s fine too, just let me know. If you will not be staying, please help your child get their ticket and any snacks they want before we enter the movie. Also, let’s get to the theatre at least 20 minutes before it starts to make sure that we get to sit together.

Happy New Year

Please listen to recording. :)