Welcome!

We had a great first week in 3rd grade.  The boys and girls are already feeling comfortable at Pine Ridge and everyone is transitioning well.  The classroom routines are coming along nicely and we are picking up our learning pace.  Today was P.O.D. Olympics!  Be sure to ask your child about this fun event.

Upcoming Dates/Reminders:

• I have almost everyone's HC baton.  If you still need to get your child's in, please do so soon.
• Bookmark order forms (Mark-my-time) are due September 2.
• We DO have school on Friday, September 2.  However there is NO SCHOOL on Monday, Sept. 5 for Labor Day.
• We will be decorating our Writer's notebooks next week Wednesday.  Please have your child bring in pictures, stickers, special paper, or other items that they would like to use for this.  
• September 7- Convocation at the High School
• September 12- Reading minutes, Spelling word sorts, Bible memory, and Math homework will begin.  Look for your child to start carrying a purple homework folder to/from school each day.
• September 14-Walkathon
• September 15-Picture day at Pine Ridge
• Do you have a rock tumbler I could use for Science and Bible? (Science with our rock study; Bible with God polishing us into something beautiful!)   I have the grit and polish but if you would let me borrow your tumbler for a couple of weeks I would greatly appreciate it.
• There is a red "Class Photos" link at the top of this blog.  Click on it and it will take you to the pictures that I managed to take this week of us settling into 3rd grade!

Curriculum Highlights:
Reading:  We have begun diving into Reader's Workshop.  This week we learned how to shop for "good fit" books from our classroom library and we stocked our book boxes.  We have also had our first few lessons following the Reading Workshop format.  The kids are getting used to the routine!

Writing: We spent part of this week focusing on how to write complete sentences, cleaning up our penmanship, and brainstorming what we love and find difficult about writing.  We then began to brainstorm possible seed stories for creating our first personal narrative.

Math:  We have begun our first math unit: Multiplication.  This week the students learned how to multiply by 5's.  We are learning the importance of drawing a math picture to help us understand math concepts.  We also started writing math equations dealing with multiplication when given a story problem.  We will move slowly as this material is brand new.  We also took a day to play Math games with Mrs. DeZwaan's class.  Everyone really enjoyed this!

Science:  Our first unit is called Earth and Me.  This week we began by reading a book called Everybody Needs a Rock.  Students had fun sharing their own special rocks as well as doing a descriptive writing about a rock.  We have begun to talk about minerals as well.

Bible:  We have begun this year in the book of Ephesians.  We read about God's salvation plan and made hearts to remind us of His goodness and love to us.  We also talked about how God desires for his people to live in unity.  The students worked on puzzles and discussed how to complete the task in unity.  These lessons tie in beautifully with our "All In" theme this year and our class had great discussions on the importance of this.

It was a busy, full, and wonderful week!
Blessings!
Lynae