Class Update:

Hello! I'd say it's about time for me to update the class news. I will update this monthly to let you know what your children are learning and any upcoming events.

First of all, I'd like to thank the parents and SUU students who volunteered for Third Grade Thrills. It seemed as though the students had a great time and enjoyed each rotation. A special thanks to Hollie Jewkes for being our storyteller.

Next, on the day of Halloween, we will have an activity before the parade in the afternoon starting at 1:00. We will be playing bingo that will include little prizes. I already have the prizes, so we won't need anything sent in. The parade will start at 2:45 p.m. and will be taking place around the perimeter of the upper grassy area. The students will be walking on the inside of the fence, while parents can watch from outside of the fence.

Right now the students are enjoying Red Ribbon Week. The PTA always does such a great job with this event. We are spending our days this week speaking about the dangers of drug and alcohol use.

Curriculum Update:

Reading/Language Arts: We have completed our second unit in CKLA which focused on classifying animals. The students completed two informative reports and have greatly improved their writing skills. The unit we have just started is called, "How Does My Body Work?" We are in our second week of spelling words and I'm pleased with how our students performed on the first test. I have explained to the students that the spelling test is also considered a learning opportunity. If students miss a word, they are allowed to write it correctly and regain 2 out of their 3 points.

In CKLA skills we are working on sentence structure. I am supplementing our sentence structure lessons with a program called "Framing Your Thoughts". We are talking about making great sentences by using predicate enhancers and predicate mobility. If you ask your child about "bare bone sentences", hopefully they can tell you what that is and how to fix it. Along with sentence writing skills, we are also learning about prefixes added to base words.

-Science and Social studies are incorporated into our CKLA units, but are also supplemented by additional activities and lessons. In our animals unit, Mrs. Almond and I did some team teaching to fully cover the science concepts that are included in the Utah Core for 3rd grade. They also had lessons and activities dealing with force and motion and are ready to attend grade level rotations. Starting next week, my class will be joining Mr. Shirley for art lessons every Friday. During quarter students will go with Mrs. Wittwer to learn more about animals and with Mrs. Almond 4th quarter for a weather unit.

Math- We just ended our unit on graphing and are moving onto multiplication concepts in the next 2 chapters. Since we have already been working on multiplication for awhile now, the next 2 chapters should move along quickly. We are currently working on 11 and 12 times table pass-offs. After that, we'll move to 9's.

P.E., Art and Science lab are attended as usual.