National Lutheran Schools Week

Happy Lutheran Schools Week!
Here are the basic things you will need to know for the week:

Spirit Dress Days

• Monday - Comfy Day (please bring tennis shoes)
• Tuesday - Crazy Hair/Hat Day
• Wednesday - Dress Up for Jesus Day (wear your nicest clothes)
• Thursday - Favorite Team Day

• Friday - Make a 100th day shirt to wear on Friday Jan. 27th.  Attach or draw 100 things to a shirt to show off at our 100th day parade.   

Oatmeal Challenge
Our school will be collecting boxes of instant oatmeal with single serve packets to help hungry children in our area. This is part of Operation Food Search, where they send a backpack full of food home each weekend to needy children. The children return the backpack to be filled again. Please send boxes of instant oatmeal any day next week. The class that brings in the most, will get a little Emoji to clip on their backpacks. Thanks for helping!!

Math: 
We are beginning multiplication this week!  Starting Wednesday we will begin doing time tests for multiplication facts just like we did for addition during 1st semester.  The goal is that each child will MEMORIZE their facts 0-12 by the end of the year.  They will need to be able to finish 21 facts in 1:30 minutes.  Please help them practice these at home!  

Religion: 
Meet our Seminary student, Mr. Bartok.  Mr. Bartok is from Michigan and moved his family here so he can attend the Seminary.  Part of his course week includes spending 3 weeks in a classroom to learn some good teaching strategies.  He will be spending the next 3 weeks with us teaching the kids every morning for religion.  Please welcome him if you see him in our classroom in the mornings!

January 9th

Hello parents,
I pray that you are all staying healthy and warm this week.  I want to say a big thank you to all the parents that came for our Christmas party.  It is so nice that you all take the time to plan things for the kids!  Here's what is coming up this week:

Religion/Memory:
We will begin working our way through the Apostle's Creed.  I have put up the rest of the memory work for the year.

Math:
We are doing a unit on Fractions right now that will take us through the middle to end of next week.  I plan to stray from the book for a lot of the assignments and the end test as well.  Next week we will begin working on multiplication as well.  This will be something that we work on for the rest of the school year.  The goal is that your child develops fluency and speed with their multiplication facts 0-12.

Reading/Language Arts:
Currently we are looking at non fiction texts about space.  We will be working very hard on finding the main idea of paragraphs and articles that we read.  I am also having the kids do several writing assignments which will require them to use a main idea and detail correctly.  Most of this writing will be worked on in class so that I can conference and work through the difficult parts with them.  However, depending on the speed of their writing, some of it may need to be finished at home.

Social Studies:
We are joining Mr. Fishburn's class in learning about our country's government.

Science:
We have begun a new unit on Force and Motion that will take us most of the way to Spring Break.  A letter describing the unit in more detail will be sent home tomorrow.

1st Week of December

Hello parents,
December is here and let me tell you...it goes fast!  Thank you so much for helping to make our Thanksgiving Feast wonderful this year!  The food was delicious and we are so appreciative for all of your help! Here's what we have going on in 3rd grade for the next couple of weeks.

Religion: We are looking at the Christmas story and awaiting Jesus' birth from several different points of view.  Using the book Voices of Christmas we will learn the reason that Jesus was born so many years ago!

Reading: Our 1st book club session is underway.  I will be teaching the kids reading strategies such as predicting, visualizing, making connections, find problems and solutions, and others as we read through The Boxcar Children together.  Then they will be breaking off into smaller book club groups and applying these skills independently to their respective books.  For this session of book clubs all the kids are reading a book from The Bailey School Kids series.  As the year goes on, we will break into different levels and genres of books.

Science: We are done with our unit on Life Cycles and will be starting to look at Force and Motion beginning next week.

Seesaw I plan to have your kids use Seesaw more and more.  Thanks for all of your comments so far.  The kids love seeing your feedback during the school day!

Important Dates:
Thursday December 8th: Santa's Workshop (we are right away in the morning)

Wednesday December 14th: Last day that I will accept missing/late work for 2nd quarter.

Friday December 16th: Service project field trip to Bethesda Nursing home on Big Bend.  We will be singing Christmas carols and playing games with the residents.  (Leave at 8:45 am and return at 11:45 am)

Monday December 19th: CCLS Advent Service at Concordia Campus - 7 pm (This is a formal and mandatory event)

Tuesday December 20th: Christmas Party @ 2 pm (Last Day of School before Christmas)

December 21st - January 3rd: NO SCHOOL

Week of Nov. 7th

Dear Parents,
Our Thanksgiving project is in full swing.  Your kids are working hard in class to do research before they begin creating things.  Here are a few points to remember:

• Daily homework will still include memory, math, and spelling.  Outside of those subjects, we won't have much time to assign other things since we are working on our projects.  
• Check the calendar that got sent home on Friday for due dates of things.  The kids also have a copy of that calendar in their binder. 
• This week we are doing mostly research and teaching the kids how to cite and organize the information they find.  They are responsible for staying on task and being a productive group member during this.  I will be sending home half sheets of paper with grades for behavior/participation this week.  
• The Traditions Essay is due on Monday Nov. 14th.  We spent a LONG time in class explaining this and taking questions.  This assignment needs to be completed at home.  However, your child is welcome to bring it in and ask for feedback and clarification if needed.  
• ART - Please send a recycled mason jar (spaghetti sauce etc.) so that we can use it for an art project this Friday.  

Reading

We are reading Thanksgiving on Thursday from the Magic Treehouse series.  We are separating facts from pieces of fiction as we read each chapter.  

Religion: 

Our character formation curriculum is currently taking us through the story of Moses and showing us integrity, self-sacrifice, responsibility, and self-sacrifice.  We are also talking about contentment and service connected to our Thanksgiving unit.  

Important Dates:

Wednesday Nov. 16th  - Operation Christmas Child Boxes due

Monday Nov. 21st - 1:00 pm Pie making Day (We could use volunteers to help us make the pies as well as $$ donations to buy the supplies.  These pies will be served at our Thanksgiving Feast.) 

Tuesday Nov. 22nd - 11am - 1pm  - Thanksgiving Feast  (Please see the sign up sheet and invitation to RSVP.) 

Wednesday Nov. 23 - Friday Nov. 25th - No School/Thanksgiving Break

December 8/9 - Santa's Workshop 

Monday Dec. 19th - CCLS Advent Service at Concordia campus

Dec. 21st - Jan. 3rd - No School/Christmas Break

Week of Oct. 17th

Hello parents,
I hope that are all enjoying the lovely fall weather.  I had a great week with your kids last week.  They really are a sweet group!  Please take a minute to look at what is coming up in 3rd grade...

Religion: We will be covering the 9th commandment this week, which talks about coveting.

Math: We are talking about money, especially making money exchanges which leads to adding and subtracting it.  This is a great time to start having your kids pay attention in the checkout line at the store!

Reading: We are going to be combining our Reading and Social Studies for the next 2 weeks.  The story Boomtown is a great tie in to the topic of "Change over time" in Social Studies.  I began teaching the kids a new way to do vocabulary cards using the app "Pic Collage".  This will be something that your kids do at least a little bit of most weeks.  They will need time to work on an ipad to complete this, which I will give them plenty of in class.  However, if your kiddos really want to do some of this at home I am attaching the directions sheet HERE.

Science: Our class is now studying life cycles by observing live crayfish.  We have 10 little crayfish that the kids are working with for the next several weeks.

Important Dates:

Friday 21st - Fall party at 2pm
Tuesday 25th - Candy Corn Festival
October 24 - 26th Book Fair
Thursday 27th  - Early Dismissal P/T conferences
Friday 28th - No School
Monday 31st (Halloween) - Daniel Boone Home Field Trip

Book Fair!

The CCLS Book Fair is coming up in the next couple of weeks.  This is always a great way to get Christmas shopping done and support the school at the same time.  There is a great selection of books this year so please take advantage of this opportunity!  

If you cannot attend, check out the online catalog with this link:  

http://www.scholastic.com/bf/ccls2016

There are still open slots to help out with the Book Fair.  You can sign up HERE

Book Fair Hours & Special Events:

Monday, Oct. 24^th:     8:15am – 10:15am ~ Fair set-up in the gym!  All are welcome!

Tuesday, Oct. 25^th:    8:00am–3:30pm ~ Fair is open.  K-4 students will visit with their class.

6:00pm–7:30pm ~ Fair is open during the preschool Candy Corn Festival!

Wednesday, Oct. 26^th:          7:30am–3:30pm ~ Fair is open.

7:30am–8:15am ~ Breakfast With A Buddy!  Students may invite a relative or

special friend for a light breakfast and book fair shopping!

Thursday, Oct. 27^th:  8:00am–7:00pm ~ Fair is open during school and Parent-Teacher Conferences!

Week of Oct. 10th

Hello parents,
We are slowly but surely getting used to each other and having a great time doing it.  Here's an overview of the next few days as well as some slight changes in routines that you should be aware of.

Religion: We are talking about the 8th commandment this week as well as "Integrity".

Math:  I will be sending home a Practice Test on Wednesday and we will  take Test 3 on Thursday.
I am going to start working with the kids on the speed of their addition and subtraction facts.  This will be tested in class each day (not for a grade).  They need to be able to complete 50 facts in 2:30 minutes.  Once they get a hundred percent on a set, I will have them move on to the next set.  Each child will move at their own pace, but if they are taking more than a couple days to pass these tests it would be beneficial to practice some at home.  

Reading: This week we are reading a Time for Kids article about how things will be changing in the future.

Grammar: We are focusing on irregular plural nouns this week.  We have done a lot of work in class with them and I will give them a short little quiz on Friday to wrap up the quarter.

Social Studies: We are looking at maps and landmarks right now.  The map project was sent home last Friday and is due this Friday.  A good portion of this grade will be based on neatness and effort.  If they take their time and read the instructions they should do just fine!

New Routine:

• I have noticed that some of the kids are working on their homework that they didn't complete when they get to school in the morning.  I understand that Mrs. Headrick allowed this so I have been letting them do it.  However, I generally have meaningful work for them to do when they arrive and they also have to prepare for the day and get themselves organized.  Therefore, I am not going to allow them to complete unfinished homework in the mornings from now on.  I give them lots of time the day before to work in class, as well as a low stress environment to pack up in the afternoon so they can remember what needs to be taken home.  Thanks for your understanding!  

I am really enjoying getting to know your kiddos!  They are all so polite and fun to work with.  Thanks for helping us make a smooth transition.  

Have a great week!