Week of Jan. 13th

We have a lot going on in our classroom the next few weeks.  Please take a few minutes to read about all the exciting happenings in 3rd grade.

Author Visit
  Cynthia Willenbrock, author of Marshall the Miracle Dog will be visiting our school at the end of January.  In preparation for this 3rd and 4th grade are studying character traits that Marshall teaches us in his story. Our class will be looking at the word "acceptance" and posting what we find in the upstairs hallway next week.  It would be great if you could have some discussions at home about examples of "acceptance".

Field Trip
Missouri History Museum - Monday February 3rd, 2014
      We will leave school at 8:20 and return around 12pm.  Please email me to let me know if you would like to join us. Museum admission is free but we will need $8 for the bus for each child.  If you plan on joining us please plan to meet us at the museum as we will not have much extra room on the bus.

Social Studies
Mr. Fishburn and I will be working on a lot of map skills with the kids for the next week or 2.  It would be great if you could talk about directions and maps while you're driving in the car.  Extra real life practice really helps this skill make more sense.

Art
It is also my plan to connect art with our map unit this week and next week.
After we finish our maps, I would love to do a project with the kids, but it will require some items to be collected.  If you could save the following and bring them in at any time it would help a lot

•  toilet paper/paper towel tubes
• egg cartons
• SHOEBOX LIDS (need these first)

Stability Balls

If any of you were still willing to donate to our "chairless classroom" I lost one of the stability balls today.  Unfortunately I think it rolled over something sharp.  I could use a couple extra balls or a patching kit to try and repair the one I have.  

Multiplication Contest

We are competing with Mr. Fishburn's class to see who can learn their times tables first.  The goal is for each 3rd grader to know them 0-12 by the end of 3rd quarter. We are starting at 0 and working our way up each day.  If they can say the set of times tables they are working on in less than a minute they will get a spot filled in on the grid.  If not, they can try again the next day.  The class that gets everyone to 12 first will get a reward.  Practice saying these while in the car, cleaning up dinner, waiting in line at the store, or other random times that might need some short entertainment.