News from Grade Three

Have a Great Summer

What a fast end to the year. Where did the time go? The school year is over and the boys and girls have worked hard.  Great news-- We all passed the CRCT in reading and are going on to Fourth Grade.

We finished the year with a study of partial products in math and using the Distributive Property to solve larger multiplication problems.

In Social Studies we looked at natural resources in a rural setting.

Our favorite book this month was The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith. It was the story of the Loch Ness Monster. On the last day we watched the video and compared the stories.

We did not get to finish our read aloud story, Peter and the Shadowthieves by Dave Barry. It's a terrific story. Maybe your child could finish it over the summer. The Garrison Mill Library will be open several days in June. Check the GM website for specific times. There is also a third book in the series. This would be ideal reading for the summer.

Once again I would like to thank you for everything this year. Room moms, story parents, copy moms, and others. This job would be overwhelming without your help. I applaud you all.

Have a wonderful summer and a restful vacation. I have enjoyed teaching your children this year.

Important Date Change

We have changed the date of our Writer's Tea from May 13th to May 19th. It is still scheduled for 8:15 to 9:00 AM.

Garage Sale

If you need to schedule a large item pick-up to be donated to the Foundation Garage Sale,

Please call Patti Lavender:  770-552-1162

We are planning to schedule pick-ups for Sunday afternoon, April 27^th, but we may be able to make other arrangements.

April

    It's finally here. This is the week of the CRCT. The boys and girls have been working hard all year and are ready to show what they have learned. The test will start on Wednesday, April 23rd, and go through to Tuesday, April 29th. The testing will be in the mornings from 8:00 to about 11:00. Our lunchtime will stay the same, but our Specials will be in the afternoon, from 12:35 to 1:20 pm. Please send your child to school on time these days, well rested and fed with a good breakfast.

In Language Arts this month the boys and girls voted to read The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith as our next novel. It is the book version of the movie and we will do a comparison when we complete reading the book. We have taken a break from Shurley English to prepare for the CRCT. Our cursive writing is looking good!! In Spelling we have been reviewing several skills.

Our Math is moving along quickly. Since we used fractions and decimals in our Calendar Math the previous months, the students had a head start on these two topics. They have done very well on both their pretests and posttests. We will finish up decimals this week and move on to multiplication with larger numbers.

We have had a lot of fun studying Georgia. We have completed all of the small booklets about the regions of Georgia and will finish up with a poster and a test. This covers both Social Studies and Science.

Mrs. Britton did a Guidance lesson on the stress of testing. I will do my best to make this as painless as possible. Encourage your child to do his or her best. We should get the results back by the end of the school year. If there is a chance your child did not pass, we will be notified sooner.

The weather has finally turned to much more pleasant temperatures. Please remember that when the sir is on in our room, it may get chilly. Dress in layers to be ready for any type of temperature.

Our Writer's Tea is May 13, 2008 from 8:20 to 9:00. Please mark your calendar and plan to join us for a delightful time of perusing your child's writing for this year.

GME Foundation

Garrison Mill has recently established a Foundation whose purpose is to provide resources above and beyond what the County and the Garrison Mill PTA is able to provide.  Please visit their web page to find out more about who they are, what they do, and help support their first fundraising event.  You can visit them at:  GME Foundation.

March

As we go through the month of March we have many activities going on. So far we have had a wonderful Math Night where we played multiplication games and this week we had Chattahoochee Nature Center come again and discuss pollution of the river. This week is also Disabilities Awareness Week and next week Wellstar will come and talk to us about nutrition for Nutrition Week. CNC will come back for their last visit on March 25th.

In Language Arts we are back in groups this month for the reading of several books. Some are reading The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes while others are doing The Outside Dog by Charlotte Pomerantz.  Our read aloud is Peter and the Starcatchers by D.Barry and R. Pearson. We are enjoying all of these stories. We have been writing persuasive paragraphs and responding to literature in preparation for the Writing Assessment for third graders. Our cursive writing is looking good as we switch in a few subjects. Spelling has us reviewing prefixes and suffixes and multi-syllable words. We have begun to practice the format of the Language Arts portion of the CRCT for English.

Last week we finished up geometry in Math and moved on to Measurement. The boys and girls had a head start on this skill in Calendar math. We measured in feet and yards back in November and used mixed numbers when we calculated customary liquid measurement last month. March finds us using a lot of metric measurements. We are using centimeter and meters for linear measurement and milliliters and liters for capacity measurement. I have introduced decimals when we convert centimeters into meters (i.e. 110 cm = 1.1m or 1100mL = 1.1L) The children are catching on quickly. These measuring skills lend themselves to being used at home with cooking or finding lengths of objects. Any opportunity you can give your child to use them in practical applications would be appreciated.

In Science we finished up what High Touch High Tech started with magnets. We are also going back and completing Heat Energy. Somewhere we will fit in nutrition and discuss what makes us healthy.

Thank you to all of you who came for Curriculum Night math games. We had fun playing and creating geometric designs with pattern blocks. Another thank you is for your generous contributions to our Rely for LIfe basket of games. If you would like to bid on that, you will need to go to the Relay for Life Silent Auction on Thursday, March 27, from 6-8PM at the Roswell Street Baptist Church. Hopefully many will want a basket full of games to play with their family. Thank you also for all the baking you did to make the Friday bake sale a success. We raised $400.00 that week.

The holidays come early this year. I hope everyone has a pleasant day wherever you celebrate. As always I appreciate all of you and am grateful for your help and support.

Watch for report cards on March 20th.

February

February may be the shortest month, but it is full of activities for our class. We have already had a Wellstar visit and Chattahoochee Nature Center has come. Next week we have our last High Touch - High Tech. Valentine's Day is coming, then our 4 day weekend. Poof! February is over.

Thank you all for coming to conferences last month. It was a pleasure to meet with you and discuss your child's progress so far this year. Our plan of actions are in place and working to make the children have the best possible year. I appreciate all your time and input. Let's keep our lines of communication continuing as they have.

In Language Arts this month we are all doing a study of the life of Thomas Edison. We are reading different books and meeting to discuss our findings. Some children are doing an independent study to learn even more. We researched in Computer Lab for additional information. After we have finished our notes, we will gather it all together and summarize our findings in a report.

In Shurley English we are learning about prepositions. In Spelling we are reviewing vowel combinations along with our Sitton words. The stories in their homework notebooks are fun to read. They have grown in their ability to write. For Writing, on the 100th day of school we wrote about unselfish uses of $100.00 and then we voted on the best story. Congratulations to Branson White!

We have started our last chapter in division in Math. The boys and girls are doing very well because they have mastered their multiplication facts. We have even started time tests with division. In Calendar Math we are reviewing rounding, using Shopper's Card with a larger amount of money, and using Celsius temperatures. We are measuring liquids with Customary measurement and stretching our thinking  by converting cups, pints, quarts and gallons to mixed numbers. This will help us as we go into fractions, which is our next topic along with geometry.

The primary elections were timed perfectly to fit in with our study of government in Social Studies. We have looked at local, state and now the Federal government. Thank you to those of you who took your child with you to vote so they could see the process in action. They have had some interesting discussions on the topic.

In Health we have finished our unit on Drug Awareness. Mrs. Cremins from Wellstar showed us some good dental habits for Dental Health month. We will look further into caring for our teeth and our bodies. Mrs. Britton in Guidance discussed Bullying.

Our next visit from HTHT will be a program on magnets. We will start this topic when we finish government. Chattahoochee will come again to continue our study of Life Science. We enjoyed seeing a live opossum on their last visit.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and we are having a small celebration with our Book Buddies at the end of the day. They need some help reading their valentines. The boys and girls have done a great job reading to these kindergartners.

The weather is changing more than usual. Please try to dress your child in layers. Sometimes the room is hot, sometimes by recess the weather is warmer, sometimes colder. Isn't living in Georgia fun this time of year? I can't think of a better place to be.

Don't forget the Reading Logs for the Six Flags tickets are due on the 20th of this month. You will need to sign that your child has read for 6 hours. You still have time to read, those tickets are expensive!

Thanks again for all you do to make my job more pleasant. I appreciate you all.

January

Happy New Year Everyone!

We are off to a new start with a new year and a new nine week grading period. Your child will have a new folder next week. It's like a clean slate for all. Right now it doesn't feel much like winter, but I'm sure it's coming. Make sure your child knows what to do if we dismiss school early in the day.

In Language Arts this month we are reading Stone Fox by John Gardiner. The setting is winter in Wyoming. We are doing an art and writing project that will coordinate with the story. Shurley English is still fun to do. The boys and girls remembered almost all the parts of speech from before vacation. Spelling this month will be contractions, homophones, and root words and suffixes. Very soon we will switch to cursive writing, one subject at a time. We are almost finished with the capital letters.

This month in Math we will finish up multiplication and move on to division. We have already made a connection between these two operations with fact families during Calendar Math. Please help your student learn their multiplication facts. We are also looking at Celsius temperatures in Australia for January. They are having summer and the contrast is interesting.

In Health we are doing a unit for Drug Awareness. The children have a poster project to complete by the end of the unit. We will have another visit from High Touch the second week in January. They will present a program on the habitats of Georgia. Chattahoochee will also return this month for our lessons in Life Science. Our next unit in Social Studies will be about government.

I look forward to seeing you all at conferences at the end of this month, January 22 -28. If you need to reschedule your appointment, please send in your response with a new time suggested. I can also do an early morning conference if you need.

December

The year is rapidly coming to an end. I'm not sure I'm ready yet. There are three weeks left before the end of the semester, report card period, and three weeks left before winter break. Lots going on and lots to do.

The boys and girls are in the middle of an informational report. This is a standard for third grade. We have been researching in the media center with books, encyclopedias, and using the Internet for our sources. We have been collecting this information and putting it on a gathering grid. This helps us sort and catagorize what we have been reading. The students were paired with a classmate and they have been working very well helping each other. Their job was to become an 'expert' on the Native American tribe they were assigned. This week and next we will be writing a rough draft and then a final copy. I am looking forward to their finished projects.

In Math we have taken on multiplication with a fervor. The boys and girls are learning their facts and took the first time test of facts from 0 to 5.  Thirteen of them finished the test in less than 5 minutes. We will finish up Chapter 8 this week and begin Chapter 9 which will take us further with the facts of 6,7,and 8. Any help at home is always appreciated with learning these new facts.

We are studying the Cherokee and Creek Native Americans that lived in the Georgia region in Social Studies. This will tie in with our Native American reports.

In Science we finished up soil. The boys and girls have the option to do an extra credit project if they would like.  We had our first of 5 visits from the Chattahoochee Nature Center. The naturalists taught adaptations and brought a screech owl for the children to observe.. We have PTA to thank for this wonderful opportunity.

Wellstar will come the first week of December to discuss germs. They will do a hand washing demonstration and talk about how to not spread colds and coughs. Good time of year for this.

During the week of Thanksgiving, I remembered to give thanks for all my blessings. These included my students, who work hard every day. The parents who help them and also volunteer at school. There are many things to be thankful for and as we enter this  busy season let us keep in mind how lucky we are in many ways.

November

This will be a short month of school days, but not of content. We have a lot going on here these next few weeks. After this long weekend, we will be working hard every day.

In Language Arts reading some of us are reading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary. Ramona starts kindergarten in this book and gets herself into the funniest situations, most of which the children can relate to their kindergarten days. Others are reading The Paper Crane and a nonfiction book about mammals. All of us use a reading folder that has activities for us to complete while I meet with the guided reading groups. Our Shurley English program is progressing nicely. The children can find many parts of speech in sentences, including adjectives, adverbs and article adjectives. They can divide the sentences by complete subject and complete predicate and enjoy the jingles that help them remember. In spelling we finished our review of compound words and will take a break this short week and just review our "theres" ie there, their, they're. As the children do any writing, please help them with the correct usage of these homophones.

We are finishing up subtraction this week and will be moving into multiplication in Math. I'm excited that we are able to access the Harcourt website for our math series. This will enable students to see their math books and activities from home if you have Internet access. No more carrying that math book home or using the excuse that they left their book at school. I will be sending home their login names and passwords shortly. There are several activities to do with the next unit of multiplication. After I pretest everyone and see where we need to concentrate, we will use the eHarcourtschool.com link for some fun lessons to do.

The boys and girls did a wonderful job on their land form home projects. We have finished that unit and will now jump back into Science for soils. Mrs. Britton helped the students with Red Ribbon Week with a lesson on the dangers of using Drugs. It's never too early to tell your children of their harmful effects.

We are looking forward to our Grandparents and Friends Luncheon on November 15th of this month. Our time is from 11:15 to 11:45 in the cafeteria and I would like to invite you 10 minutes ahead of time for a short program of poetry reciting in our room.  Don't forget the Book Fair is also that week in the Media Center.

These days are whizzing by, thank you for helping your children in many ways. Assignment books, folders, projects, homework etc.. I could not do this without your support. Enjoy this beautiful weather, pray for rain and come have lunch with us on the fifteenth.