September 15-18

We had another wonderful week in Room 18!

Hunter was the Star of the Week! He kicked off the year in Oregon Duck style with his awesome helmet! We saw so many cool pictures of him with his family. Nice job, Hunter!

In math, we continue to work on multiplication and division. I am amazed at how much our class has learned so quickly! We have some pretty stellar mathematicians in our class!

In reading, we worked on drawing conclusions and practicing fluency by reading with someone. Remember to read every night for 15 minutes! Our class could earn the Golden Book award if we all work together to read, read, read!

We practiced revising our written work in writing. We will continue with this until we have perfected our paragraphs about our favorite places.

Reminders:
Book reports are due September 30. Once you finish a book, I provide you with a poster board. Your job is to fill the board with the title, author, and an illustration of your favorite part. Be prepared to present these to the class on the due date!

OBOB will be starting shortly! Start thinking of who you would like to be on your team, if you plan to participate.

October 3 is our annual jog-a-thon! Envelopes have already been sent home for students to use to collect donations!

October 7 is our first field trip to Wood Works in Corvallis. Space is very limited so I will not be needing parent volunteers for this one. Don't worry though, we have many fun activities and trips planned throughout the year where parents are needed and welcomed!

Looking forward to many awesome weeks in Room 18!

Welcome

Welcome to Room 18!

We've had a wonderful first two weeks in the third grade! I'm so impressed with all 23 students and I'm enjoying getting to know them.

I'll do my best to keep the blog updated weekly with pictures of students and projects. I'll also post reminders and information about field trips and other events.

Looking forward to a great year!!

Hello! from my son, Hudson

Aurora

We had such an incredible time on our field trip today!

We spent the day living as the pioneers did in the 1800's. We chopped wood, made candles, and baked our own bread! Pioneer children worked hard! 

Here are some pictures from our day. (I'll add more when I receive them from our amazing chaperones)!

I'm Sorry

I am SO sorry that I have neglected the blog for the past MONTH! Things get a little hectic once spring starts and we focus on OAKS testing and getting everybody ready to move up to fifth grade. I promise to get back to our weekly routine!

I have missed two STAR OF THE WEEK students. I feel awful! So here they are in all their shining glory!

Lizzie shared some fabulous family photos (do you see the alliteration there?)! She is so sweet and did a great job presenting about herself.

Celeste also did a nice job presenting her STAR OF THE WEEK pictures and items! We learned all about her love for horses and her family. Great job, Celeste!

Reading
We continue to work on comprehension strategies. Right now we are focusing on finding the cause and effect in the texts we read. We finished all of our OAKS testing and I'm really proud of our class and the effort they put in. Testing is strenuous and stressful for some students and they all really did a good job.

Math
We just finished our first round of OAKS for math. Be on the lookout for letters coming home about round two. In the mean time we are moving forward with learning new strategies for division.

Coming Soon
AURORA FIELD TRIP ON MAY 6! Please remember to have your student at school no later than 7:30 on Tuesday, May 6. Also you will need to arrange transportation for them after school because we will not return until 3:20. Thank you!

May 21 State capital field trip.

May 28 Elijah Bristow Field trip 

Classroom News March 14

Hi everyone! I've combined the last two weeks into one. Spring break is quickly approaching and things are, as usual, busy in Room 15!

Last week Cesca was our STAR OF THE WEEK. She brought in the sweetest baby goat and shared some pretty cool things she's collected from all over the world! Great job, Cesca! 

This week Lilah was our STAR OF THE WEEK. She brought in her grandpa's parrot. We learned about parrots and even got to hold him! Lilah shared some great family pictures and we learned a lot about her. Well done! 

Reading

We have been doing a novel study that we will continue with until Spring Break. We are reading The BFG by Roald Dahl. It's a great novel! Our spelling and vocabulary words come right from this book. I've been encouraging the students to practice the spelling words every night as they are pretty tough. 

We did the first round of OAKS testing this week. I am proud of everyone for trying their best. We'll do the second round after spring break so be on the lookout for more information about that. 

Math

We started learning about decimals this week. We are working on the basics and relating them to fractions. We even learned how to go from fractions to decimals using the calculator! 

We had a great week! There's only one more week until spring break! 

Reminders

Spring break is March 24-28

May 6 Aurora field trip

May 21 Capitol field trip 

Classroom News 2/28

We had a great week in Room 15!

Last week Ronnie was our STAR OF THE WEEK! We learned he has a passion for Mine Craft and other video games. 

This week Donny was our STAR OF THE WEEK! She had a great Q&A session with the class about her family and hobbies! We really enjoyed learning about her!

On Tuesday, we had some special visitors talk to us about fire safety. Cesca even got to model all the gear that fire fighters wear!

Reading

We read all about coral reefs this week. I think it made us all wish it was warmer out! We spent some time every day using homophones correctly. Hopefully now all of us know when to use to, two, too, their, there, they're, your, you're, its, and it's appropriately! 

Math

We are still going strong in our fractions unit. Next Friday we will take our topic 10 test before moving on to adding and subtracting fractions. Fractions are difficult at times, but the students are really working hard to understand them! 

Technology

At times I think the students would trade me in for Mr. Bova because of how much they love technology! They've shown me some pretty videos they've been working on! They will continue with technology until Spring Break!

Classroom News 2/14

Whew, we had a great week!

First off, I missed a week. Sorry! It was an important week too, because we won THE GOLDEN APPLE and THE OSCAR! We were so excited to get these awards. I'm just one proud teacher!

Lauren was our STAR OF THE WEEK this week! She brought in an eight-legged little friend and shared some great family photos! Great job, Lauren!

Reading

This week we focused on recognizing persuasion in non-fiction pieces. We also started writing biographies about presidents to celebrate President's Day. The students are researching information for their chosen president via Mr. Grassman's blog. 

Math

Fractions, fractions, fractions! This week the focus was finding equivalent fractions using tape diagrams, number lines, and multiplication and division. We will continue with this next week also. We started doing math with partners in class. Ask your student how they feel it's going with their partner! This is still new and we are still practicing how to be good math partners. 

We ended the week with a BANG! Thank you to our awesome room parents for organizing and executing our Valentine shindig. Shout out to Deborah, Heidi, Rosetta, and Michelle for helping to reign in the chaos all afternoon! Here are some photos from our V-day photo booth! (We had some special visitors during the party too)!

Reminders

OBOB mini assembly will be Wednesday 1-2 in the community center. 

Classroom News 1/30

Hello!

Billy was our STAR OF THE WEEK this week! Who knew we had our very own ventriloquist among us?! It was so exciting to learn of his hidden talent! We also got to see some cool pictures and trophies he brought in!

Math
We have officially entered the world of fractions! So far we've reviewed vocabulary, practiced naming fractions of sets and regions, and started adding fractions with like denominators. We will be working on fractions for a few weeks!

Reading
We finished our read-a-loud, Gregor the Overlander. The students LOVED it! You may have noticed an order form that came home to purchase one or all of the Underland Chronicles. If you have or would like to order one, I will be putting the order in next Thursday.
We practiced drawing our own conclusions based on clues from the text we were reading, as a comprehension strategy. We read a great story about a silly dog, Ike!

Special Request: 
I really need a few parents to come organize my class library. It needs some sort of labeling system and order that would be easy for the kids to follow when they choose and return books. If I have anyone willing to do this, please email me and let me know!

Reminders:
Gregor the Overlander orders due Thursday (2/6)

Classroom News 1/18 & 1/25

Eek! I'm behind! We've had a great two weeks here in room 15!

Our STAR OF THE WEEK for 1/18 was Mirka! We learned that she ice skates and has a wonderful family!

Our STAR OF THE WEEK for last week was Alice! We got to meet her kitty, Lucky, and see some great pictures of her family adventures!

Math

We just wrapped up our geometry unit on lines, angles, and shapes. We will be moving on to FRACTIONS! Fractions take a lot of practice so we will be learning about these for a while. Be prepared to see a lot of fraction homework!

Reading

We worked on verbs and irregular verbs for several weeks in grammar. These can be tricky and take practice! We are now moving on to nouns and pronouns. 

We are also working on summarizing and drawing conclusions while we read. It's important to pay attention to specific details and events when we read!

Social Studies

We completed our big projects and those were all sent home. The class worked so hard on these and they turned out great! Now our class is finished with Social Studies and learning about Technology with Mr. Bova. So far they've created some pretty awesome wordles!

Reminders

Wednesday (1/29) Early Release

Friday (1/31) No School--grading day for teachers

Classroom News 1/10

We had a wonderful week in Room 15. It was great to have everyone back AND to win the Golden Apple to start our year off right!

Our STAR OF THE WEEK was Hunter! He shared some lovely photo collages to give us a peek into his life! Great job, Hunter!

We had a visit from Author, Robert Young this week! He talked to us about how we get ideas for writing our own stories, and why we write. We learned that we all have something important to say! It was a great assembly. Room 15 showed off their Billie Spirit by being a great audience!

Social Studies
We have been working hard all week on our Native American projects. They look great! Thank you to all the parents who sent in great materials and/or helped us out in the classroom this week. I really appreciate it!

Math
We started a new math unit on geometry. We kicked off this week by reviewing and learning the names of different lines and angles. We will continue with this unit for the next couple weeks.

Reading
We practiced recognizing helping verbs and their tense. We know it's important to pay attention to tense when we write our own stories. The students did a nice job memorizing the past, present, and future tense helping verbs.

Safety Week
We had our safety week this week, where we practice many drills. We practiced an earthquake drill, lock down drill, room clear drill, and bus safety. I am very proud of how diligent and respectful Room 15 is during these practices. I have full confidence that they would respond appropriately in any case of emergency!

Reminders
Tuesday, January 14th, Parent Teacher Organization meeting in the Community Center at 2:30
Wednesday, January 15th Early Release at 1:15

Billie Spirit

I am BEYOND proud of Room 15 today!

We had our monthly Billie Spirit Award Assembly this afternoon. Up until today, we hadn't won any of the golden awards. We started keeping track of our behavior every day, after our November assembly, to analyze if our behavior was Billie Spirit worthy.

Today, it all paid off! We won the GOLDEN APPLE!! The Golden Apple goes to the class that has the best all around Billie Spirit and it's shown through being safe, respectful and responsible!

The reaction was priceless when Mrs. Stoneberg called our name.

"My eyes started to tear up!" -Kayanna

"How did we win this award?!!!!" -Blake A.

"I never, in a million years, thought our first award would be the Golden Apple!" -Garrett

Robert Young Challenge

Here is the link to author, Robert Young's challenge! Click the link below, read the challenge, fill in the correct information and leave your comment!

Robert Young's Blog

If you do not have your own email, copy and paste mine into the email spot: jwolpe@pleasanthill.k12.or.us

Make sure to include ROOM 15 with your name.