The teachers of these exploratory classes are committed to inspire the creative genius in all students through art, technology, library media, music, counselor and physical education.

In our library classes this quarter students learned some new library vocabulary terms and their definitions while playing Library Lingo. We reviewed the sections of the library then students located books in the Everyone, Fiction, and Biography sections using call numbers. We talked about Melvil Dewey and his contribution to libraries everywhere through his creation of the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Students learned to associate each of the ten categories to a part of their body to make it a bit easier to remember the categories. We previewed some of the books that were coming to our Spring Scholastic Book Fair. We had fun reading Horton Hatches the Egg in celebration of Read Across Riverview Week and Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Students brainstormed two animals to combine to create a new animal in the style of Dr. Seuss’s “elephant-bird” from the book. Just a reminder for students who chose to participate in the William Allen White Reading Program this year -- the deadline to submit reading logs is April 7th. No reading logs will be accepted after that date. A copy can be found on the William Allen White Reading Program tab of my website at http://riverviewlibrary.weebly.com/ We will be voting for our favorite in April.

I was very excited for 3rd quarter with Riverview's 3rd graders! Since September, students have planned and created some fantastic projects around mythical creatures and musical instrument of the symphony in preparation for their field trip. The field trip was such a success that it's no wonder it has become a 3rd-grade tradition. While we were at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, students were introduced to mythical creatures in art around the world. Then students had the opportunity to create their own unique mythical creature. The paper collaged creatures are one of my favorite art projects of the year!

3rd quarter for 3rd grade has been so much fun! The highlight of 3rd quarter was when we traveled to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts to hear the Kansas City Symphony. This was great exposure for the students - they were able to see and hear the instruments that they had learned about in class, and learn how music reflects so much of our lives. Each year we spend a little time learning some folk dances and this year has been really fun with this group of 3rd graders! We will continue with more dancing into 4th quarter, but your student should be able to tell you about “Alabama Gal”, one of our favorites! We also started learning to play the recorder. Students are doing a fantastic job of getting a nice sound and learning to read music while they play! Instruments will begin to head home during the 4th quarter for some at-home practice and sharing! Thank you for encouraging your child by listening to him/her play! Playing an instrument is difficult as it combines so many different skills (reading rhythm & pitch, air control, articulation, fine motor control – all happening simultaneously!) As these students learn to read music, they are learning to speak a new language! Ask your child to share this new language with you!

The third graders enjoyed creating their Prezi conference presentations. They were pros after only a few sessions. I hope you enjoyed them as much as the kids enjoyed making them!

We got a chance to share our presidential PowerPoints with our classmates. It was interesting to hear what we all found out about our presidents as well as a good way to sharpen our speaking skills.

This quarter we are already diving into a little basic Excel. We will learn how to create a simple graph based upon a collection of data. Towards the end of the quarter, we will go over a little internet safety and try out our hand at coding the Ozobots the PTA bought for us.

We began third quarter learning some new warm-ups, such as “four corner fitness”, “rock paper scissors relay”, “rolling rocks”, and “timed run”. We spent some time learning and talking about how to live a healthy lifestyle by choosing the right foods to eat. We did an activity where students had to put the food items in the correct food group, and they did such an awesome job! Some foods can be tricky, but after learning more and discussing with others, they all did a great job working together to figure out what foods belong to what food groups. A big portion of the quarter was spent practicing jump rope. When we first began jump roping, I was very impressed with the amount of skill the students had! I have spoken with many adults that have said they wished they learned how to jump rope at a younger age. I am thankful that I am able to teach this age of kids and can help them learn skills that will help them all throughout their lives! Jump rope is a great cardiovascular skill, and you don’t need to do much before realizing that you are getting some great exercise. The most important thing was that the students did not give up. My favorite thing about the jump rope unit was seeing how motivated the students got. We tried jump roping for a full minute without stopping or making mistakes, and many students got to sign the “1 Minute Jump Rope Club”. Seeing how motivated students were to make it was so inspiring! Another unit was focused on kicking and soccer style skills. Once again, I was very impressed with their hard work! We did activities such as continuous kickball, sideline soccer, steal the ball, and soccer golf. Towards the end of the quarter, the students climbed the rock wall and cargo net. I was very proud of them for remembering the importance of safety and really taking it very seriously. They did an awesome job of keeping their bodies close to the rock wall and cargo net, which took a lot of strength. The words for each week were: potential, healthy lifestyle, challenge, mindset, perseverance, endurance, and flexibility. I am looking forward to fourth quarter and a strong finish to a great year!

Happy fourth quarter. Time has flown by. This quarter we will be finishing our Too Good for Drugs units. Their purple workbooks will be coming home with them so they can share what they have learned. The rest of the time we will be reading and learning the 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey. I would like to remind everyone that all community service hours need to be recorded, hours totaled, and turned into me no later than April 7th. If you are in need of addition logs please let me know. tthurmanmunsey@usd232.org. The window for community service hours is April 2016-April 2017. Again, please email me with any questions. I look forward to an exciting new quarter.