Ninja Pig News
Mrs. Caldwell's Classroom
Sept. 19-23, 2016
Weekly Hellos
It's "Fill the Boot" season around Sommer. That means the third grade contest for which class can raise the most money is on! I've got a pair of old cowboy boots that my mom wore when she rode horses in high school. I always put them out for kids to put money into as a visual encouragement. Feel free to send in those checks, that cash, or use the PTA link to donate to our school. As a parent, I love that we collect money that stays at Sommer and goes 100% towards Sommer improvements. (And we don't have to sell a thing!) Anyone can donate: parents, grandparents, cousins, kids, neighbors, aunts, uncles, and close family friends. **I'm going to ask my mom if she wants to help us out.
The grade level winner gets to have a giant stuffed zebra hang out in their classroom, gets extra recess, and pajama day of choice! The teacher gets a Starbucks or Sonic drink. SCORE for all!!!
Class Events
Writing Workshop- Students are busy writing small moment stories that have a beginning, middle and end. The types of stories we are writing are referred to as personal narratives. We call these narratives our "seed" or "snapshot" stories. We talked about how you can have a photo album of pictures from a trip, a weekend, or a birthday party. Each one of those photos is a snapshot of a moment. Those moments are what we refer to as "seed" stories. They are more manageable and detailed.
Spelling- We have taken longer with our first sort but I am pleased that everyone is working on formulating a rule for the words we are studying. We will finish this sort and move on to doubling the final consonant when adding an ending.
Grammar- I weave grammar into reading and writing because that's where it belongs. We will use mentor sentences to guide us into looking closer at writer's writings and our own language when we compose during writing workshop. Simple & complex sentences, pronouns, subject/predicate are the buzz words surrounding our work this month.
Math- We will be working on problem solving with RUMOURS and rounding this week. At the end of the week we'll review the first two units to prepare for our first DCA next Tuesday. This first assessment will be prepped for at school. This common assessment is simply a way to see where each child is in his/her understandings of the math concepts taught while giving an opportunity for everyone to handle scantrons and testing in a given amount of time. There will be a separate area about DCA's in this newsletter. The following unit is multiplication strategies for x5 and x10!!
Science- We just had our first district common assessment (DCA) over our first science unit. Everyone was surprised to find that everything on the test had been part of experiments we've been exploring. We will take a break from science and move into social studies for a few weeks.
Social Studies- We are studying about our country's Constitution and why it's an important document to us.
Handwriting- cursive is coming! We are waiting on our books to arrive.
PTA News
PTA Volunteers
Parents, we’d love your help this year to make our PTA great. Any time you can give us is greatly appreciated, and we can find a spot for everyone! The Volunteer Opportunities flyers came home in last week’s Thursday folders. You can also find these descriptions on the PTA website (http://somerpta.my-pta.org ), under the Volunteer SignUp tab.
Please join PTA!
School spirit t-shirts are on sale now!
You can order your t-shirt online only by visiting the Sommer PTA website. There are red dri-fit and black cotton t-shirts available for adults and students. Show your school spirit by following the steps below to order today! The deadline for ordering -t-shirts for the 2016-2017 school year is Sept. 23rd. Please contact Spirit Wear Chairs, Jessica Blanchard or Carmen Padua for any questions at this email:sommerspiritwear@gmail.com.
The Class Would Like...
*more sticker choices (THANK YOU ANA for the Seuss stickers!!)
*staplers for team groups (ours are broken or ornery)
(THANK YOU EMERY for our tape and new scents for our room!)
ALL ABOUT the DCA's
These tests are quick snapshots to see how students are progressing on material being taught AND an easy way to expose students to testing situations like STAAR.
Since these DCA's are created by the district, they are not allowed to go home. You are welcome to come in and look over the test at any time but you can't snap pictures of anything.
We try to review in class and we will sometimes send home reviews that you can do with your child to prepare him/her for the test that is coming.
The scores from these tests are put in the grade book under "Benchmark" grades. That means you can see the score from the test but it doesn't count as part of your child's average.
You are sometimes going to see some low scores on these tests. We see that every year because your children have to learn how to use test taking strategies and read critically. (Test taking is a genre just like poetry and biographies. It takes a set of skills to understand what to do and lots of practice to get better at it!)
IF I am ever concerned about your child's score or work in class, I will be contacting you immediately. We need to work swiftly and sure to support your child in all developing areas of third grade!
If you are worried, contact me. I will talk you down out of the trees. I have had two personal children be third graders at Sommer and I've been doing this a while.
I'll help you sleep better at night!