Ms. O's Third Grade
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn"
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
As you know from the weekly updates, we have been busy in our class! The Native American projects turned out great and I was so proud of the kids and their hard work. Throughout the rest of the year we will be focusing on cultures and geography in social studies. We began this by doing a short unit on Russia. We discussed where Russia was located on the map and globe and we talked about Russian culture. I showed them clips from The Nutcracker and the students learned about the Russian artist, Kadinsky. The students then examined one of his famous paintings, Winter Landscape. They recreated their own version of the painting using two different mediums. They had a wonderful time doing this art project and they turned out wonderful! Finally, I had the students write a quick narrative piece about why the like winter. You can see their wonderful creations on my bulletin board. They will be there through January. I love doing lessons like this and I had a lot of fun doing this with the kids. I can't wait for the next one! Below I have pictures from the Native American presentations and my new wintry bulletin board :) Stay Warm! Ms. O Alistair was our Character Ed. recipient for November!! I can't believe that November is almost coming to a close. We have had a great month. We focused a lot on opinion writing. I have enjoyed reading their writings and sharing ideas with them. In math, we are still focusing on multiplication and division. We are getting ready to start writing multiplication and division story problems. This can be tricky, but I have all of the confidence that they will do well with this unit. The new headphones are a hit!! We use them every day and the kids are happy that they now have headphones to use during our Chromebook time. This has really helped with the noise level in the classroom. Our Fun Fridays are turning out to be a great motivator for the students. They enjoy the time playing educational games and doing more enrichment activities. I plan on keeping this going for the majority of Fridays throughout the year. We have started our unit on Native American culture. Don't forget that their Native American projects are due on December 5th! Also, throughout the rest of the year, we will learning about different cultures and geography. The next few weeks should be busy!!! Ms. O Below are some great photos of the headphones in action!! Olivia was our Character Ed. recipient for October! October was a busy month and the kids accomplished a lot. At the beginning of the month, the students were rewarded with a bubble party. They loved going outside and playing in all of the bubbles. We have also had some very special Mystery Readers come into our classroom and share some of their favorite books with us. The students love when we have a Mystery Reader on Fridays. I have a lot of open spots available, so if you are interested please let me know. One of my favorite projects we do all year is the Pumpkin Project. The student's pumpkins were wonderful! I loved seeing their creativity. I was also impressed with how well they read their stories out loud. The first grade students that came into our class had a great time hearing all of their stories and seeing the fantastic pumpkins. I started doing "Fun Fridays" a couple of weeks ago and so far it has been successful. This has encouraged the kids to get their skill-based work completed. I also hope that this acts as an incentive to complete all homework. Halloween is always a fun day at school. I love seeing all of the kids dressed up! We had some great costumes in our class this year. I am so grateful for the wonderful parents who came in and helped with the party. The kids had a fun time. Thank you for making the day so special. Parties wouldn't be successful without parent volunteers, so please let me know if you would like to help out in the classroom. Thank you again to everyone who has donated to my Donor's Choose project. I am halfway to my goal. Headphones will be an important tool in the classroom. I hope to get a set for the kids! https://www.donorschoose.org/project/can-you-hear-me-now/2819411/ Below are some pictures from the last month! Thanks!! Ms. O Bubble Party: October's Mystery Readers: Busy students working on their Practice Buddies: Pumpkin Projects: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! There has been a lot going on at Sunrise! The students had a wonderful time on our field trip to This is the Place Heritage Park last Thursday. I want to give a BIG thank you to Mrs. Young and Mrs. Drechsel for being our chaperones. I really appreciated your help. Don't forget that this week is Parent/Teacher conferences. I look forward to meeting with all of you to discuss the students and our goals for the year. Since we have conferences this week, we do not have school on Friday! I hope you all enjoy your long break. I am still looking for someone to be our room parent. Please let me know if you are interested and I can get you connected with the PTA. I am always grateful for help in the classroom! This week is also the Book Fair! Don't forget to stop by and get some new books for your 3rd grader so that they can complete their 30 Book Challenge. Here are some pictures of what we have been doing in class and at school. Enjoy! Ms. O We were working in groups to help with our multiplication facts: We reached one of our RadKids goals, which was a bubble blowing contest. Marlie won and represented our class in the whole school contest! We had a great time on our field trip. We can't wait for the next one!! The first few weeks of school have flown by. I have enjoyed getting to know all of the kids and I appreciate all of your support. I am grateful for all of the donations for the classroom. The kids are looking forward to our field trip on the 21st. We also started keyboarding and the students are having fun working in the computer lab. Brain Boosters have also started and the kids have the opportunity to go to the library, creativity lab, Playworks and have music. They get really excited to go to Brain Boosters. In math we have been working on multiplication and division. The students have been doing well and have enjoyed their Practice Buddies. As you know, they practice their facts using Reflex, but we are also going to start using Prodigy. The students who are familiar with this program can't wait to get started. In ELA, we are currently reading the story Kumak's Fish. We are also discussing ways we can achieve goals. The students will be writing a short narrative on a goal that they have reached or hope to reach. In third grade the students will be doing a lot of writing. By the end of the year they will be able to write a short narrative, opinion and informative piece. I look forward to seeing their writing! Below are a few pictures from the past few weeks: Ava was our Character Ed award recipient for this month!! We had a great Storytelling assembly last week! In my class, I love to have the kids work together! I can't believe that summer is over and it is time to go back to school. I hope that you all had a wonderful summer! I have been eagerly awaiting the new year and meeting my new students. Third grade is an exciting year and the kids will learn a lot. I have many fun activities and lessons planned throughout the year.
Tomorrow, August 22, Sunrise will hold our yearly meet and greet. The meet and greet begins at 3:00. This will give you and the students an opportunity to meet me and see the classroom. The kids will be able to see where they will be sitting and get a better feel for the third grade hall. I hope to see many of you tomorrow! Back to School Night will be held on Tuesday, August 29th. You will receive a copy of my disclosure statement at that time, which will give you a better idea about rules, procedures, homework and the upcoming year. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. I look forward to getting to know all of you!! Ms. O I had no idea that third grade kickball was so competitive!! I decided that this summer I would join an adult kickball league. I don't really know anything about the game, so I went to the experts, your kids :) They take the game pretty seriously. It has been so much fun playing and learning from them. The students have become the teachers ;) I think that everyone can agree that we are glad that SAGE testing is over! I was really proud of the kids and how hard they worked. I know testing can be stressful, but they handled it like champs! I love doing art projects with the kids and I think that our Mother's Day art project was especially special. The tiles turned out so well and the kids were excited to make them for the special moms in their lives. They are a creative group of kids and I have loved being able to do fun and interesting projects with them. Our Ruff Patch Rescue community drive was a huge success!! Our class collected the most of any other third grade class!! I was so proud of them. The owner of Ruff Patch was grateful and excited for all of the donations. It was wonderful to see the kids engaged in a service project. The third grade program yesterday was a success!! I was so proud of our kids. They worked hard to learn the songs and their dance. I know that they were excited to perform in front their families. I loved seeing you all there to support our wonderful third graders. Thank you again to the parents who helped with all of the program preparation. This Friday will be our last spelling, vocabulary and comprehension test for the year. Also, I will not be sending home any homework (except reading out loud and Reflex) for the remainder of the year. Looking ahead: We do not have school this upcoming Monday (5/29) for Memorial Day. Our final field trip is on Tuesday (5/30) and we are going to the Planetarium. The students do not come to school on Friday (6/2). The last day of school is June 7th and the kids will be dismissed at 12:15. The school will not be serving lunch that day. I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!! Ms. O Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks :) I can't believe that tomorrow is May and we only have a few short weeks left in this year. Please remember that SAGE testing begins on May 8th. Please make sure that your child gets a full night of sleep and a good breakfast. Please also do everything you can to have your student present and on time on the testing days. Our tests will be first thing in the morning, so being on time is crucial. Also starting on May 8th, the third grade will start their community drive for Ruff Patch Rescue. We will be collecting items to help our animal friends and this fantastic local organization. The students are looking forward to this project. May 24th at 2:00pm is the third grade program for parents. We have been working hard to learn all of our songs. I think it is going to be a great program and I hope to see all of you there! May 30th is our final class field trip. The kids are excited to go to the Planetarium. I think it will be a wonderful day. Finally, I loved seeing the student's culture reports. I could tell that they worked hard and put in a lot of effort. It has been amazing to see the growth and progress they have made since their first reports. Here are some pictures of their presentations. I hope you enjoy them!! I hope that everyone enjoyed spring break!! We are entering the home stretch and it is going to be busy. In math, we are still working on fractions. The students have enjoyed learning fractions and we have had some fun activities that have gone along with the fractions unit. In literacy, we are concluding our unit on cultures. The students have their culture reports that are due on April 18th. Parents are invited to watch the kids present their reports. The kids have enjoyed learning about other cultures and communities from around the world. Our upcoming unit in literacy is about civic responsibility and giving back to one's community. I am really excited because our class is in charge of the third grade community drive for Ruff Patch Animal Rescue. I have invited the rest of the third grade classes to participate, but our class will be making flyers and posters for the drive. I think the kids will love this!! There are a lot of animal lovers in the class! This is going to happen the second week in May. We have also been practicing for our program that will take place May 24th at 2:00pm. The kids have been practicing the songs and soon we will work on our dance. Our class will also be making animal masks for our dance and making instruments that will be played during some of the songs. Lastly, SAGE testing will be taking place in May. Please make sure that your student is present and on time for school on the days we are testing. I know that this can be a little stressful, especially since this is their first year taking the test, but I plan to have them ready and feel confident about taking the tests. I am excited about these last few weeks of school!! Ms. O I am so sorry for the long delay. We have had a lot going on in our classroom and at Sunrise! The kids are excited that winter is on its way out and that spring will soon be here. This past week we began our new unit on cultures. We will be reading stories from several different countries. The kids have been really engaged during our discussions. Last week they had a wonderful time on our field trip at Ririe-Woodbury. They saw several dances that were influenced by the different cultures that can be found in our country. We will also be starting a short unit on the phases of the moon and we will also be examining the work of artist Vincent Van Gogh. I am really excited about the art project that I am putting together to go along with this science and art unit. In math we have been focusing on multiplying multiples of 10. They will have their test on this on Monday! Next week we will start a new math unit on word problems(addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). We will also be practicing more for our program that will be on May 24 at 2:00pm. We have many exciting events coming up in the next few weeks! -College week will be March 27-March 31st -Tool Day is going to be on Thursday, March 30th: This is when parents, grandparents or special friends come in and talk to the kids about what they do for a living. I sent the kids home with some information regarding this special day. -Spring Break will be April 3-7. We will return to school on Monday, April 10th. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! Ms. O Here are some pictures from Valentine's Day, our field trip and the kids practicing their jump roping. Good times!! |
Ms. O I was born and raised in Utah. After I graduated from the University of Utah, I lived in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Hawaii. I am happy to be back in Utah. I enjoy paddle boarding, cooking, hiking, skiing and running. I have two adorable kids who keep me pretty busy. I love Mexican food and coffee. This is my third year at Sunrise and I am so happy to be a part of the Sunrise community. Third grade is my favorite grade! Archives
August 2019
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