THE JAMESTOWN ONLINE ADVENTURE

As we study Jamestown, you can be in charge of your own Jamestown adventure by visiting the link here. YOU are the Captain of the Jamestown Colony. Can you do better than the real colonists? Where will you decide to live, what will you live in, and what will you plant? These decisions and more are entirely up to YOU! Enjoy your adventure!

MORE JAMESTOWN FUN

I have included another link for even more Jamestown fun! Enjoy On the Trail With Captain John Smith. Be sure to let us know which one you liked the best!

SPELLING WORDS WEEK OF APRIL 27 - MAY 2

WORDS FROM SCIENCE

gas
coal
save
globe
solar
fuels
planet
millions
lumber
climate
recycle
fossil
natural
sunlight
windmills

CHALLENGE
energy
future
model
entire
pollution

RECYCLING VIDEO

We have been talking about the importance of recycling to help save our natural resources. Watch this recycling video to see just what happens to paper, plastic, glass, and metal when it gets to the recycling center!

WHAT'S NEW?

Third grade will present its "Salute to America" program for family and friends, on Wednesday, May 6th at 2:30 P.M. If you cannot make it to the afternoon performance, there will be a dress rehearsal that morning at 9:30. HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Just a note: Your child is to wear red, white, and blue that day, if at all possible.

CHECK THIS OUT!

Get a rare look inside a bald eagle nest in the wild! This is a LIVE LINK to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens in Virginia, where three eaglets have hatched (on 3/21, 3/22, & 3/25). The camera is on 24/7 and we can witness the parents taking care of their young, and the eaglets just hanging out! This is the sixth year this pair has nested there, and they have successfully raised nine young eagles in that time. The eaglets sure have grown from the tiny, gray, fluffy "puffs" they started out as. INTERESTING & AMAZING SIGHTS!

SPELLING WORDS WEEK OF APRIL 20 - 24

EARTH DAY WORDS

reduce
reuse
recycle
nature
protect
earth
plants
animals
world
ecology

CHALLENGE
habitat
environment
resources
pollution
endangered

ACADEMICS (April 20 - 24)

READING

To begin the week, we will be finishing up our Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs activities, with our Wacky Weather Reports. We will then read the book's sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh, where Kate and Henry eagerly await Grandpa's return from a vacation that he says has been one of his best and most unusual ever. We'll close the week with our Unit 5 test.

ENGLISH

We have wrapped up our verb chapter, and ended last week with our chapter test. Pronouns (subject and object) will be our first topic of study in our new chapter.

MATH

We are moving on to chapter 8, and learning about lines, line segments, and angles, after a quick review of solid shapes.

Please be sure that your child continues to practice his/her multiplication flashcards on a daily basis.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are just beginning our chapter on Jamestown, the first English colony in America. We'll be learning about the Powhatan, John Smith, John Rolfe, and Pocahontas.

MOST WANTED

Your help is needed in collecting gallon milk jug lids, or gatorade lids, for our classroom. They will be used to make additional multiplication matching games for the class to practice their facts. We have a basket of games from the 2's -9's, but my supply of lids is running low to make new sets. Any that you could contribute would be greatly appreciated; just send them in to school with your son or daughter. Thank you so much!

WEBSITE FOR PARENTS

Thanks to Mrs. Witkowski for locating this website.

Education.com is an education and child development site. It is a wonderful website for parents, with lots of educational resources. Just click on the link for your child's grade, and you'll find many informational topics for you to check out. Education.com also has free reproducible worksheets, designed for preschool through fifth grade students, that can be searched by grade level or topic.

Become a WebRanger

Hey all of you Social Studies students... you can become a member of a growing group of young people who are interested in the world around them and get involved in our nation's history. Now you can become a Junior Park Ranger, without leaving the comfort of your home!

If you love your National Parks, monuments, and historic sites, this site is for you! You can play more than 50 games and learn about our National Parks. Just click on this link and you're on your way to becoming a Junior Park Ranger!

HOMEWORK AWARD WINNERS

CONGRATULATIONS to Emily and Rachel for completing EVERY homework assignment for the third grading period! They received a FREE No Homework Pass and a certificate for their tremendous effort!

A job well done, ladies!

SPELLING WORDS WEEK OF APRIL 13 - 17

CONTRACTIONS ***The test will be on Friday, April 17th.

didn't
don't
won't
doesn't
shouldn't
I'll
you'll
she'll
he's
it's
we've
they've
you're
we're
I'm

ACADEMICS (April 10 - 13)

READING

Our story this week is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. It is about the town of Chewandswallow, where the weather comes three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but in the form of food and beverages! The students will create some wacky weather forecasts after reading this story.

The skills we'll be working on are: reading and identifying signs that inform or persuade, as well as recognizing propaganda, summarizing, judgments and decisions, and root words.

The test for the story will be on Tuesday, April 21st.

ENGLISH

We are wrapping up Unit 4 this week with combining sentences/verbs, and writing descriptions using sensory words. The unit test will be on Friday, April 17th.

MATH

We will be finishing up line graphs, and reviewing calendar skills. We hope to take the chapter test on Friday, the 17th.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our Anasazi unit of study is coming to an end with the students designing a piece of Anasazi "pottery", using the well-known black and white Anasazi patterns as a guide. We will then focus our attention on the first English colony at Jamestown.

SCIENCE

We are continuing with our Energy Unit, and doing some experiments involving friction, and how it produces heat.

SPELLING FUN

This web site, Spelling City, can help your child with spelling in a fun and varied way. You can plug your child’s spelling words onto the site and it will teach the words, give games to play that will help your child learn the words, and finally it will give your child a test on the words. Very cool! Check it out... just click on Spelling Games under my favorite links or the references here!

ACADEMICS (April 6 - 9)

READING

We are continuing our story, The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin, until Tuesday, April 7th. Last week, during centers with Mr. Zerbe's class, the students were paired up and each pair wrote about a different accomplishment of his, and then illustrated it. Look for this display near the third grade quad.

ENGLISH

We have finished up irregular verbs, and are moving on to contractions, commas, and suffixes to close out the week. Student partners each made a colorful poster of one of the 12 irregular verbs we studied, to remind us of the correct way to use them, when speaking or writing.

MATH

Last week we focused on coordinate grids and graphing ordered pairs. This week we will study line graphs; how to read them and make them.

Our Multiplication Challenge is going full speed ahead! Many of the children are on their 6's or 7's! I can tell that these students have been working very hard at home!

Just a reminder that your son/daughter should be bringing home their multiplication flashcards daily and practicing them.

SOCIAL STUDIES

This week we will conclude our study of the Anasazi with a look at Mesa Verde National Park. Wouldn't that be a great field trip? The students will view lots of photos of the park, along with a power point presentation.

Makenzie went there a few summers ago, and she is sharing her family photos of that trip with us! We actually got to see her sitting right in the middle of the Four Corners! How cool is that?

SCIENCE

We have been busy working on our energy unit. This past week we had fun doing an experiment where the students created static electricity. This tied in with our reading story about Ben Franklin, since we discussed how he discovered that lightning was electricity.