Have a Great Year

This is the original home of the digital version of Hubbard's Headlines, my classroom newsletter. I have created a new classroom website using Google Sites. You can view it by clicking here! 

Any continued communication with parents, the district, and the community will be housed at my new site. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Thank You

Thank you for a great year in third-grade. 

Summer Meet-Up

If you haven't signed up your child for our three scheduled summer meet-ups, it's not too late. If you'd like to have your child participate online only, please email me directly, and I will make sure you get the materials and information! 

The dates are June 12, July 17, and August 7 from 9-10:00 a.m.

Click here to go to the registration form.

Your child brought home a final Little Eagle from the office with information as well as the Tuesday library incentive through the summer. This was sent home on Thursday. 

Have a wonderful summer!

What to Expect this Week

Rough Outline of the Week’s Activities

We will do a few special things this week. There is always a chance things will change but I know kids usually like to know what to expect. Parents do not need to attend any of these activities. I do not have set times at this point. The last week of school is always a little more on the flexible side as far as schedules.

Tuesday: Book Giveaway!

Students can bring a grocery sack or small bag and choose 2-3 books from a book giveaway.

Skit Rehearsals

Wednesday: Poetry Chalkabration

Locker Clean-out (Please send an extra bag or two with your child).

Skit Recordings

Thursday: Game Day Students can bring their favorite board game, dice game, or card game to share with the class.

Memory Book Completion

Friday: Classroom Awards Day, Book Challenge Celebration, and Skits 

Summer Meet-Up!

There will be a summer camp just for our third-grade students going to fourth grade next year. Free books and materials will be supplied to each student who signs up! The dates are June 12, July 17, and August 7 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Take a look at the registration form to find further information as well as a video to get your child excited about summer reading and writing! 

I (Mrs. Hubbard) will be organizing the three meet-ups as an opportunity to share some reading and writing through the summer! This gives students a little push to keep up with what they've learned in a fun and creative way from June through August. I hope you can join me and lots of other third graders heading to OMS! Even if your child cannot attend all three meet-ups there will be an online element to the sharing process through the summer so students can interact and participate beyond just the three days. 

Click here to go to the registration form.

Below is a video of what to expect. 

Field Day Pics and Math Review

It was a hot day but we had fun on Field Day!

Remember, to check in, you can check Twitter @FPE_Olivet and/or #EagleNationPride

MATH

We are reviewing for our fractions unit test this week. We will do the first half on Thursday morning and the second half on Friday morning/afternoon.


READING AND WRITING

We will finish out the year with poetry as our focus in both reading and writing.

GAME DAY

Students earned a game day for doing such a great job in the hallways during our testing weeks as well as demonstrating effort and perseverance during their own Mstep and NWEA tests. Students can bring a board game, dice game, or fun non-electronic/screen game from home on Thursday. We will have a little celebration that afternoon.

**We did a little desk clean-out today in preparation for the end of the year and to clear out some clutter.

HOME STRETCH! Keep a Look Out

Lots of information is coming home today. Please keep an eye out for THE THIRD GRADE CROSSOVER information letter to parents. This one is on bright yellow paper. Also, more information on the upcoming field trip to the Symphony and Museum is also coming home today. This is on pinkish salmon paper!

We are having a pencil and eraser sale next week! Look for the flyer coming home today!

If you have not turned in your child's time capsule letter, there is still time. If you need another copy of the note, let me know! I am collecting the letters as well as Mrs. Shrontz for this special project. The students are very excited and have been working for weeks to get things ready!

We finished testing for MStep. A few students are still working and will get extra time next week to complete the test. I was very impressed with how hard students worked on each test. They put in a great amount of effort and deserve an extra hug (or a treat)! :)

NWEA testing will begin next Thursday. We will take one test on Thursday morning. The remaining two tests will be the following week on Monday and Tuesday.

Dates to remember:
FUN-RUN is May 14th (for our class) @ 9:40 a.m.
Third Grade Crossover is on May 18th
Symphony and Museum is May 23rd
Sheepshank Sam is May 25th
Mileage Club ends on May 25th
Memorial Day, no school, May 28th
Track and Field is May 29th @ 11:10-12:10 at Cutler Field
Last day of school is June 8

This Week!

This week we will be taking the M-Step. To prepare and keep calm during the week, we each made our own calm down sensory kits. I find giving students tools to respond to nervousness or apprehension usually helps. Sometimes just knowing you have something or get to take a break to breathe calms you down enough before the anxiousness hits!

Students will enjoy some extra breakfast on two of the testing days thanks to the PTO and we will be sure to build in some extra recess time and downtime (ie., coloring, drawing, relaxation) to help balance out the intensity of the test. Your attitude toward the test can help or hurt their attitude this week. Keep in mind your child might be a little more tired, extra rest could help. Keep in mind they might need a little more time outside and away from screens, the test is on a computer. I appreciate you giving them an extra hug on their way out the door to give them a little boost of confidence!

READING AND WRITING
Did your child tell you all about their research project? Students have been reading, researching, taking notes, and writing about new learning on a topic of their choice! Here are three students locked into their projects!

MATH

Students are brought home their UNIT 5 test today or Friday of last week! We are still going strong with fractions. Students have learned what a unit fraction is, what equivalent fractions are, how to identify fractions that represent the same named amount or equal amounts. We also learned how to represent fractions on a number line, with number models, pictures or objects.

TIME CAPSULE

In the last two weeks, several things have come home about upcoming events. One of the exciting activities students are participating in is a time capsule. Each parent was asked to write their child a letter for the time capsule. If you need more information please ask! 

Here is a look at the wind measuring instruments students finished in science last week.

 These three ladies made some paper chains out of old magazines in our MakerSpace area last week!

Fractions OH MY!

MATH

We started fractions this week!
The class has been working with lots of hands-on materials to really see, feel, and represent parts and wholes.


We used a digital tool to show fractions using Cuisenaire Rods (which we have used at school as well).
Check out the website below by clicking on the image!

We did a few of these together. If students visit the site they can try a few on their own!

We also used the rods to show how parts and wholes can be equal to each other. This helps to build the understanding as we begin to move from concrete objects to more abstract numbers and models (pictures) of fractions.

If you have some graham crackers at home, see if your child can determine the fraction of pieces. What is the unit fraction?

The same can be done with sets of coins or groups of objects. The whole is the "set" and the individual pieces, are the "parts of the whole." See if your child can explain to you what they have learned about wholes, parts, numerator, and denominator!

Save the Date:

May 14th--The spring FUN RUN is scheduled for our class on May 14th at 9:40! Forms came home last Friday.

May 23rd--Students will attend the Lansing Symphony and take part in a great music experience! At this time, no chaperones are needed for this trip. More information will come home with details. If there is a change I will let you know as soon as I can.

May 25th--We are working to determine all the details but it looks like Lumberjack Day with Sheepshank Sam (a third-grade tradition) will take place on May 25th all day at Old Indian Creek Farm. Chaperones will be needed for this trip and more information will come home soon.

READING AND WRITING NEWS

Students finished personal expertise writing and we finished reviewing the components of nonfiction pieces. The writers are ready to embark on research! Each student has chosen a topic and we have begun practicing notetaking strategies as well as keeping track of resources for our information. Students will learn to read and synthesize information (blend it with their own understanding) with their selected topics. Ask your child what topic they have chosen!
_______________________________________________________________

I will be gone Friday afternoon. The students will have already received their Friday Folder information from me before I leave. Be sure to look for a special note from Mrs. Shrontz about a time capsule project, as well as a family bowling event.

Unit Test and Blogging!

BLOGGING

Students began blogging last week when we returned from spring break. They are now able to access the site, log in, create a blog post, and comment on our classroom writing community. Our first focus with blogging was to explore, learn to navigate the pages, and get some content published so we could practice commenting. Now that the students have grasped these concepts, I will be approving posts and comments that match their conventional writing ability. What is "conventional writing ability?"
Conventions are the little pieces of writing that make it readable to an audience. Spelling, punctuation, the spacing of paragraphs, capitalization of proper nouns and the beginning word in a sentence, as well as other aspects of grammar and sentence structure all play a role in how a message or piece of writing is interpreted and understood.
Students will be working to utilize their understandings and demonstrate them with increased accuracy to acquire publication status on their blog posts and comments to other students. Keep in mind this does not mean perfection. Children's writing should look like children's writing and match their developmental stage.

To check out your child's blog and our classroom site click the Technology Tab, scroll down to Writing Links, and select the first link in the list.

MATH

Students brought home sections of problems we have worked on in class as part of their multiplication/division math unit review. The most difficult task students are working through are multi-step word problems. We hope to begin portions of the test on Thursday and finish the test on Friday. Keep in mind the test is covering the following topics: Relationships Between Multiplication and Division, Solving Multiplication and Division Problems, and Multiplying by Multiples of 10. These three areas of focus match the information and work students have brought home over the past month.

Michigan eLibrary!

Students have been navigating and reading articles on the Michigan eLibrary site this week to practice listening to reading as well as reading articles on a screen. They have experience with these two skills, however, the Michigan eLibrary offers some fresh information and a whole database of resources! Check it out at home.

NO RED INK!

Ask your child about No Red Ink!

Happy Spring!

Today students are bringing home the following:

• April-June Snack Calendars (Please let me know if you see a mistake or missed birthday)
• You can view the calendars online by clicking here!
• Greg Tang Spring Math Challenge, Directions are on the paper!
• Work from Unit 5 (Some students have work to finish).

I also assigned two new games on Pearson Realize. Remember, student usernames are their last name, first initial, and 20173

For example, my name, Betsy Hubbard would look like this: hubbardb20173
Students should remember their passwords. They are the same for their student login accounts.

We had a fun dance party yesterday in celebration of March is Reading Month!

Have a wonderful spring break. See you April 9!

Correction and update on Reading Month Celebrations!

WEDNESDAY DRESS 80’S STYLE

The whole school read well over 2,000 books this month and has earned a dance party. Many teachers are offering the option of “dressing 80’s style” as part of our dance party celebration on Wednesday afternoon.

THURSDAY PJ’S AND BOARD GAMES

As a class, we have met our goal to read 100 BOOKS! Therefore, students may wear pajamas and bring a board game on Thursday for an afternoon board game hour! I am very proud of their hard work and they are very excited to share their games with the class.

If you have any questions, please let me know! 

Reading Month

Reading Celebration

Week 4 Reading Tickets are coming home today. Our classroom book total for the month is 83 books! We are going to try to reach 100 books (chapter books) read by our class for the month of March by next week. If we reach our goal, students will earn a board game day on Thursday.
We are also going to vote on either a Pajama Day or 80's Day for our outfits that day.

A panoramic shot of all the reading today!

Concert

The class is excited to share what they've been learning in music class! Their concert is next Tuesday, March 27. Please have your child at OHS auditorium by 6:50. The concert begins at 7:00 p.m.

Math

We began multiplication and division, for our second round this year. Students took home their array cards and multiplication flash cards back in February. If by chance they lost their cards, I did show them how to make their own today. Students are also bringing home their geometry math test from unit four (we have had three unit tests this year--multiplication/division, addition/subtraction, geometry). There is a note attached to your child's test. Please read the note before reviewing the test with your child.
Our current unit is Unit Five and won't be finished for two-three weeks.

Gearing up for March!

March is READING MONTH! 

We've been gearing up for March with lots of new books and getting our reading lives in shape. Here is some information to keep in mind:

Reading tickets--Students are bringing home reading tickets for each week in March. Please sign and have your child return the ticket if they have read for 100 minutes or more for the first week (4 days) in March. Tickets will be due on Monday morning, March 5. Then I will send a new ticket for the new week due the following Monday, etc.

FPE Bookfair Family Nights are March 5 and March 13.

March 7 is Black Out Day (wear black)

March 20 is Hat Day!

Reading Tickets are due on--

• March 5th (wk 1)
• 12th (wk 2)
• 19 (wk 3)
• 27 (wk 4)

CONFERENCES

I am in the process of scheduling conferences. A note went home to families this evening Friday, February 23.

MATH

We've been applying all we've learned about the area, perimeter, and polygons this week with lesson involving specific vocabulary like angles, vertices, quadrilaterals, and more!

NEW BOOKS and other Updates

READING

We are immersing ourselves in nonfiction for the next several weeks. We are starting with text features and text structures (sequence, compare/contrast, description, cause/effect, and problem/solution). This week we talked about description and its relationship to headings as well as sequencential nonfiction and its relationship to a cycle (diagram) or timeline.

We also got a whole bunch of new books for our classroom! Many of the books were purchased using Scholastic Book Club points.
Several of the books are favorites series books to update or series books the students have been asking for more of. The other half of the purchase was made on multiple copies of nonfiction books so we can start some nonfiction book clubs next week. The students are pumped and signed their names next to any of the books that looked interesting or that they might want to try.

While students were signing up for book club books and series books Max and I sat down so he could "booktalk" his current independent book. He demosntrates how to retel important parts of a story, he makes comparisons to a different book within this series, and describes events and characters with details and examples. Take a listen.

WRITING 

We are wrapping up our realistic fiction unit of study next week! The students have been working hard to try different points of view as well as different perspectives of narrators--whether it was a character within the story narrating (first person point of view) or a narrator on the outside of the story (third person point of view). Our chapter book read-aloud is Wishtree by Katherine Applegate and is a first person narrated story told from the perspective of a tree (a character within the story).

MATH

Our current math unit is all about measurement and allows us to apply multiplication/division as well as addition/subtraction understandings. A couple weeks ago we began experimenting with permimeter and this past week focused more on area. We tried out lots of different shapes with multiple areas and perimeters and discovered that sometimes shapes can have the SAME area but DIFFERENT perimeters or the SAME  perimeter while having DIFFERENT area measurements.

GRAMMAR AND WORD WORK

Throughout our reading and writing we are always finding ways to apply what we know about grammar rules and spelling rules we are learning. Through our realistic fiction unit we have been able to review and apply everything we know about action verbs, adverbs, adjectives, proper nouns, common nouns, and especially pronouns. When decoding vocabulary words or unfamiliar words within our reading (especially vocabulary within nofiction) students are able to apply their understandings of vowel chunks and patterns. We are going to begin working on suffixes and prefixes next week.

Reminders and Valentine's Day!

Book Orders!

Book orders can be added anytime using the online Scholastic Store. I will submit on the 28th day of each month. I check pretty regularly, but sending a quick email is helpful.

There are several search options online and this makes all books available! Some of the top trending books can be found when you click here. 

Our classroom code is: H4G6X

CLICK HERE TO GO TO SCHOLASTIC'S PAGE AND ENTER OUR CODE TO START ORDERING!

Mileage Club

Feelin' Good Mileage Club is here! Don't forget to sign up your child for Mileage Club. The deadline to register is March 5, 2018.

Valentine's Day is Wednesday!

We will be exchanging valentines next Wednesday and doing some fun activities in the afternoon. I will be providing a little treat and ask that you please refrain from sending in any candy (unless you provide the ingredients list--required). Also, please do not send in cupcakes, cookies or treats. As I have mentioned in the past, all the students in our classroom have special needs of one sort or the other and some of those include allergies. Please respect my request to not send in additional treats. You have all been amazing parents to work with on this so far this year and I appreciate your continuous support.

In case you need the names of the 25 students in our class, here is a list below:

                                   

Shaun	Matt	Braylon	Katie
Quentin	Kendra	Lyla	Easton
Bailey	Annabelle	Samantha	Emily
Abbie	Sasha	Chloe	Blake
Brian	Cayden	James	Natalee
Max	Caleb	Graysen	Autumn
Josh	Exchange will be on Wed. 2/14

Activities on Wednesday will include:

• Root Beer Floats
• Decorating a gift bag for card collecting
• Games
• Crafts

Be More Kind!

We had a special guest, Don Tassie, talk to the class about the ripple of kindness that can occur when we just share a little more with the world. Everyone can "Be More Kind."

Thanks to Emily Chard (Caleb's Grandmother) for purchasing shirts for the entire class! We will be wearing them with pride!

Student's brought home information about our new math unit as well as login information for Sumdog.com a website that helps reinforce and build math understandings.

Mileage club info came home on Friday as well. 

The deadline to register is March 5th!

Students experimenting with polygons, perimeter, and different units of measurement. 

Website Survey!

Please take a moment to fill out a classroom website survey. Your responses are greatly appreciated.

Change Makers

We had a great week in third grade. Students listened to books about Martin Luther King Jr. and thought about ways they might be able to bring about small changes each day to help others and speak up when needed. Even kids can have a voice and be a change maker!

On January 23rd (RESCHEDULED FOR JANUARY 24) students will get to be a part of a special presentation given by Don Tassie a former teacher, principal, and superintendent who lives the life of a change maker. He will be educating the class on how to BE MORE KIND, the mantra of his grassroots movement to bring kindness everywhere across all barriers. Keep a lookout for special pics and celebrations from next Tuesday as we challenge ourselves to be kinder to all. 

Reading:

As we begin to dig into theme within our texts students analyzed quotes from famous dreamers and thinkers from history and present day. Students then created a quote to inspire others to think about what matters most to each of them and turned themselves into a comic. Below are some examples of students' Comic Quotes!

Theme is a difficult concept for students to understand and relates to connections sometimes outside of our own experiences. As students begin to read books that have universal lessons and ideas they are challenged to think deeply about how an author weaves evidence throughout a text that supports conclusions about possible themes in a story.

Writing:

This week we organized our writing binders and straightened up our previous stories and essays. Some students brought home some older drafts that they didn't feel they needed at school. Right now we are immersed in our Realistic Fiction Unit of Study. It can be tough for students to create a character as well as a believable situation for the character to encounter. So far students have planned and drafted with bits of revision here and there. We are preparing to publish stories of our choice before February 8th in preparation for the special Brainstormers Team that will be back in March!

Spelling:

We did a spelling development check-in this week. Students did not need to study for this assessment. We discussed at conferences that I would be giving this spelling test three times per year. This will give me some insight on how students are doing with spelling patterns. I will give this assessment a final time at the end of May.

Math:

Students brought home an addition strategies assessment as well as a quiz we took from our current unit. We will be taking our first unit test covering addition and subtraction at the end of the month.
We also started playing a game called, What Time is It, with our math partners. We will be learning time to the minute as well as solving for elapsed time within word problems.

Social Studies:

Students are bringing home part one of our unit two social studies test. We have discussed the first people and will be transitioning to settlers and pioneer time in Michigan's history in the coming weeks. On January 26th we will be celebrating Michigan's Birthday! Stay tuned to the website and STAR Binder for information regarding this special day.

New Snack Calendars January-March

Here are the new snack calendars. These, of course, can be accessed anytime using the tab above labeled, Snack Information. Please remember to review the guidelines for snack in our classroom in case you need a refresher!

I will send paper copies home today as well. 

Click the images below to enlarge. 

Welcome Back!

Snack Calendars will hopefully (crossing my fingers) be up by this evening. I will update this post with the images if I get them finished. I plan on providing a snack for the remainder of this week.

We will be reviewing what a growth mindset is all about this week. Some of our activities will include the video below as well as filling in a Venn Diagram with a friend we don't know as well from our class. Having a growth mindset doesn't just apply to how we learn, but how we think. The way we think about our friends can evolve and change too! Making new friends and giving others a fresh start helps everyone grow in a positive way.

We also started reading Save Me a Seat, our new read-aloud chapter book for the next two weeks. Watch the book trailer below. 

I hope you all had a wonderful break and were able to relax and enjoy your families. We are getting back into the swing of things here at school!