Letters to Cuba

In science we learned so much about weather. We learned the names of the clouds, what they looked like and what kind of weather they bring.  We choose a city from each continent and we keep track of the weather each Wednesday.  We use the iPod Touches to find the temperature and then record on a class graph and on our individual graphs.  We wrote weather broadcast scripts for our city of choice and pretended there was a natural disaster in that city.  The broadcast will be recorded as soon as Mrs. White’s dad gets back from Africa with her camera.  We are now learning about the environment and how we can save it.  We recycle in our classroom and think we should recycle at home too. At recess we are really good about picking up trash.  We have so much more to learn about the environment…we have just begun. 
On September 10th our class remembered the tragedy of 9/11 by reading about PEACE and discussing ways we can make peace.  We wrote peace letters to children in Cuba, who do not experience as much freedom as we do.  Mrs. White delivered the letters to a Cuban pastor who was visiting her church.  Pastor Corita will take the letters back to the children of Cuba and will also display some of them at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, where she works in Cuba.  Mrs. White wants to know if it is okay to add a picture of the class to Pastor Corita’s Facebook page.  She forgot to give her a picture of us.  Please let Mrs. White know if it is not okay, and she will be sure your child is not in the picture. 
We decided that it is important that we treat people equally because WE ARE ALL THE SAME!
We should all love each other even when we don’t always like each other. 
Peace is being friends with EVERYBODY!
Peace is keeping our community clean.
Peace is feeding the hungry.
Peace is treating everyone the same no matter how tall or small.
WE ARE GOING TO BE A PEACEFUL CLASS!
From your Kids,
Mrs. White’s Class

BOX TOPS

We have collected SO MANY BOX TOPS!  We need 307 more to get to 1000.  We do math problems with box tops all the time, trying to figure out how many more we need to get to a certain number.  We figured out if we each bring in 15, and Mrs. White brings in 7, we will get to 1000.  In math we have learned some great strategies for addition and subtraction.  We are learning from each other.  We have played a money game and have learned about coins and their value.  We are also learning about place value and how to write a number in expanded notation.  

Writer's Workshop

In writing we decorated our writer’s notebook with personal pictures that will help us when we are out of ideas for writing.  We are writing Personal Narratives which are true stories about us.  We made lists of people who are special to us, places that are special to us and objects that remind us of special times.   During our writing time Mrs. White models writing Small Moments about her time in Africa.  Then we go and give it a try, writing about our lives.   In October we are having an Open House where you can come and check out all our great writing!  Hope you can come.  

Reading is Thinking!

                                                                                       

School is awesome, fun and entertaining.  We are learning lots of new things every hour like multiplication, addition and subtraction strategies, types of clouds and how to write a friendly letter.  We are working together as a class, to write this friendly letter to all of you, so we hope you enjoy finding out about all our learning so far this year.  
We found out that reading is THINKING about what you are reading.   We don’t always do it though.  Mrs. White shared that she sometimes reads a paragraph and then realizes that she has no idea what she just read!  That happens to us too!  What do we do when that happen?  We read it again and think about what we are reading.
We are also leaning how to pick out JUST RIGHT BOOKS.  If we read just right books we will become BETTER READERS.  If we read challenging books all the time, it will take longer for us to become better readers.  It’s the same thing with easy books.  If we read easy books all the time, it takes longer to get into the challenging books.  We must read our just right books! 
We have also talked about why we abandon books, how we choose books, the difference between fiction and non-fiction, as well as the different genres in fiction.  We are really smart readers!

Parent Night

Please come to our classroom on Thursday, August 19, 2010 for 3rd grade parent night. We will discuss curriculum, classroom procedures, class wiki and I will answer any question you have. Hope to see you there!

Welcome to 3rd Grade!

I look forward to teaching your child this 2010-2011 school year!