Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate! My family and I enjoyed a wonderful time together, spending time catching up and eating great food together.  Have a safe and relaxing vacation and I hope you continue to read everyday!

 

See you next year!

firstinmath.com

Please encourage the student to play on firstinmath.com.  This is a great game sight that the school has adopted to help students have fun and learn at the same time.

Thank you!

Thank you parents for sending in the wonderful and generous treats, and the lovely gifts! The students had an abundance of snacks while enjoying the movie, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. They behaved wonderfully today and have done a great job all school year so far.  Thank you again!

PBIS REWARD CELBRATION

Dear Parents,                                                                 December 17, 2013

I am happy to write that your children have earned 129 Bumble Bucks for being kind, responsible and respectful, especially in the hallway. For their reward, they will be watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as it ties into our Reading Street lesson on the Literary Elements—narrator, character, plot and setting. We will watch the movie on Thursday December 19^th at 2:00PM. 

I’m sorry for the short notice, I would like the students to enjoy a little refreshments—I will bake brownies in the size of bite-sized cupcakes.  If you would like to donate anything such as water, juice, cups, plates, napkins, chips, other snacks, please do, so that the students will have a good variety to enjoy during the movie.

This has been a great group of students to teach. I am proud of their progress and am very proud that we have received so many compliments that they earned over 100 Bumble Bucks on compliments alone!

I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season. Please remind your children to read everyday so that they can improve their fluency and comprehension skills.

Thank You,

Ms. Chuk

PBIS REWARD CELEBRATION

Dear Parents,                                                                 December 17, 2013

I am happy to write that your children have earned 129 Bumble Bucks for being kind, responsible and respectful, especially in the hallway. For their reward, they will be watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as it ties into our Reading Street lesson on the Literary Elements—narrator, character, plot and setting. We will watch the movie on Thursday December 19^th at 2:00PM. 

I’m sorry for the short notice, I would like the students to enjoy a little refreshments—I will bake brownies in the size of bite-sized cupcakes.  If you would like to donate anything such as water, juice, cups, plates, napkins, chips, other snacks, please do, so that the students will have a good variety to enjoy during the movie.

This has been a great group of students to teach. I am proud of their progress and am very proud that we have received so many compliments that they earned over 100 Bumble Bucks on compliments alone!

I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season. Please remind your children to read everyday so that they can improve their fluency and comprehension skills.

Thank You,

Ms. Chuk

Last week before vacation!

Good evening!

We have rearranged the classroom seats/tables/desks again and this time the students are in love with the new arrangement! Students are able to work well together in this set up as there is a heterogeneous type of grouping in which there is at least one very responsible student in each group.  Also, for Walk to Read, there will be less movement and the students are seated closer to their small group materials.

If any parent needs the names of all the students for Christmas gifts or a holiday treat, please email me at Thay.Chuk@ppsd.org. Also, there are 17 girls and 9 boys in our classroom of third graders.

Students are very excited about Santa Claus; please keep the dream alive because it is so sweet to see their faces and hear their discussions about Santa Claus.  One of the girls shared her letter from Santa and it was a very loving letter.  The students were in awe.  They are asking to write or email to Santa and hoping to get a response back from him, if you can do that at home.

Have a wonderful week and drive safely on the icy roads.

International Night/Book Fair/Open House

Happy Friday Everyone!

Room 205 Parents, please note that there are a few students who have NOT brought in their signed report card envelopes.  Please sign and send them in as soon as possible so that I may use them for the next quarter.

On Wednesday, December 11th is International Night/Book Fair/Open House from 5-7 PM.  Please join us in a night of cultural deliciousness.  If you would like to make a dish to bring to share, please fill in the lime green form I sent home on Thursday and send it in with your child as soon as possible.  There will also be a Scholastic Book Fair all week starting Monday through Friday.  Students will have a chance to go to the book fair during library time.  On Wednesday, parents may come in to the school to buy books and other Scholastic items with their child.

Please replenish supplies: 

Many students do not have any notebooks for Reading, Writing, Math or Science.  The students need 4 notebooks and at least a homework folder.  I gave each student a red homework folder at the beginning of the year and they no longer have them to use.

Also, please send in tissues and hand sanitizer.  Many students are in need of several tissues daily and because there are 26 students, one box of tissues does not last us more than 3 days.  I would appreciate any donations of tissues, hand sanitizer and table wipes so that I can keep not only the students, but also the room clean and sanitized.

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend!

December is here!

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving with family and friends.
We are learning lots of stuff in Room 205!

In Math, we are working on finding Perimeter and Area.
To find Perimeter, the students understand it best to ADD ALL SIDES.  They need to remember to label the units before after they solve for  Perimeter.
To find Area, students are multiplying two sides, A=length x width. They can also use the grid lines on the rectangles and squares as arrays to help them count the square units if they are having trouble multiplying. They need to remember to label the product in square units.

In Science, we worked on the thermometer and the students' hypotheses were that the water would "expand" instead of "contract" when placed in the hot water.  It was interesting to see and hear the excitement of watching the green water expand in the glass flask and move up the straw, and eventually overflow onto the tray.  They were oohing and aahing as the green water moved up the straw while they were watching relentlessly. We will be comparing how water evaporates in different areas of the room and determining if the temperature of the space is a factor in how much water evaporates.

In Reading Street, we have begun Unit 3, People and Nature.  The students have so much background knowledge about how people interact with nature; the discussions are fascinating. We are also discussing homophones and they truly know so many.  We discussed hair and hare and I had to explain why a rabbit is called a hare.  So I drew a picture of a lady with big hair and a big rabbit to represent the hare. But they gave me a long list of homophones and they made me proud.

In Writing, we are learning about contractions and how to keep contractions just in conversations rather than using them in writing so that our writing can sound more fancy and formal. The students enjoy speaking in complete sentences.  They are really having a hard time understanding why the contractions are spelled certain ways.  Truly, some of them have no rhyme or reason, so I told them to try to remember the spelling and understand which two words they mean when spoken formally. 
We are also distinguishing between action verbs and linking verbs.  One student asked, "Why don't they just call them verbs?!!"  My thoughts exactly.  I did have to explain to her that action verbs show what someone or something is doing and linking verbs are just "to be" verbs.  It was still hard to understand as it is not easy to explain.

Hoping we have more amazing learning days!