Update on Field Trip to the Zoo

I'm happy to report that all 28 of the students from our classroom were able to enjoy the most beautiful day at Roger Williams Park Zoo, along with the rest of the third grade team from our school.

The weather was amazing with sunshine and warmth, and the zoo was full of curious children from all over Rhode Island.  The students were able to learn interesting facts about the ecosystems and habitats of a variety of animals.

Along with learning facts, they were able to spend time socializing with their peers and enjoying lots of laughter and fun experiences together.

For some students in my class, this was the first time they went to a zoo.  It was amazing and heartwarming to see the curiosity and wonder that overtook their faces when they learned new facts.  The smiles and the giggles, and the out-right, loud laughter made my heart smile.

It was the best field trip ever! 

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. It is a day of remembrance for those who have died in the service of our nation.
Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, but it's difficult to prove the origins of the day. There is also evidence that a women's group in the South decorated graves before the end of the Civil War. In either case, Memorial Day has had numerous starts due to the human need to honor the dead. Though some people think it's a day to honor any and all dead, Memorial Day is intended to honor those who have given their all in service to our country.

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/memorial-day/about.html

Field Trip to the Zoo to learn about Ecosystems and Habitats

Our whole third grade class will be walking to Roger Williams Park Zoo on Wednesday May 21, 2014.  Parents please make sure you sign those permission slips and send them into school ASAP.  No student can go on the field trip without a signed permission slip and an emergency contact phone number.  Students, make sure you dress appropriately with comfortable sneakers.  It will be party cloudy and between 54 to 69 degrees.  We will be leaving the school at 9:15am, please be on time! We will have breakfast at school and lunch at the park. Do not bring any electronic devices.  We are not responsible for any lost, stolen or broken electronics.

Hope everyone gets to go enjoy the beautiful and adventurous day at the zoo from third grade.

 

 

 

Patterns 2 - Grade 3 Common Core Standards

Patterns - Grade 3 Common Core Standards

Creating Patterns

Create Patterns

http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/pattern-match-numbers.html

Math Review Games Online

Play these games to review math facts.

http://www.free-training-tutorial.com/place-value-games.html

End of the Year Testing

Last week was a fun-filled week, with Spelling Bees, Amazing Words Hat Parade and Favorite Concept Quilts! Reading is an amazing way to get children excited about learning.

Within the last couple of weeks, students have been tested in the areas of Math and Reading to demonstrate their knowledge of overall skills learned in third grade.  They made great improvements from the beginning of the school year until now. There will be a few more tests to demonstrate that understanding before the year is over.

Beyond testing, the students will be reviewing lots of already learned skills to help remind them of what they learned throughout the year to better prepare them for fourth grade.

This is a reminder that homework is based on lessons learned currently or previously learned.  The homework assignments are not online at this moment because I get them from various sources. In the future, I will try to post homework online.

Let's have a great week!

READING WEEK ACTIVITIES Start Monday April 28th! Welcome Back!

I hope you've had a restful and fun vacation! Please be ready to learn Monday morning! We still have lots to learn to prepare you for fourth grade.

 

Reading Week Activities: Reading week activities will take place this week from Monday, April 28th through Friday, May 2nd.

 

Monday, April 28th - Crazy Sock Day!!

Wear crazy socks to kick off a week of reading activities!

 

Tuesday, April 29th -Read a Shirt day!

Students, teachers and staff are encouraged to wear shirts with writing on them for everyone to read! As always, writing must be appropriate for school.

 

Wednesday, April 30th -Spelling BEEs!

Class spelling BEEs will take place using spelling words from across the year on Reading Street!

 

Thursday, May 1st -Amazing Word Parade!

Each classroom will be given a vocabulary word (The voc. word will come from the year’s Amazing Words at your grade level). Each student in the class will decorate a hat with an illustration of the word.  (The hat can be made any way you choose) The classrooms will parade through the school while wearing the hats.  (Each grade level will parade together so everyone will be able to see all hats!!)

Friday, May 2nd - Favorites Parade

Students review all of the Favorites of their peers in the long hallway on the way to the cafeteria.

Cambodian New Year

Here are some pictures I'd like to share from our Cambodian New Year 2558BC The Year of the Horse (2014CE) Celebrations.

Be sure to check out the link to review how to TELL TIME.

TELLING TIME

http://more2.starfall.com/m/math/measure-content/play.htm?f&d=demo&n=match-clocks&y=1&www=cschool

How to Make French Crepes

Here's a recipe for French Crepes for our Unit on Culture

Adverbs Song (Adverbs by Melissa)

Pictograph Introduction - 3rd grade

Adverb Song from Grammaropolis - "Do You Qualify?"

Bill Nye The Science Guy Phases of Matter

Bill Nye The Science Guy Energy

Types of energy - TeacherTube

Types of energy - TeacherTube

PARCC testing was a success. Students in Room 205 were very well behaved and tried their best to do well on the assessment. The test was completed on laptops in our computer lab and the students are extremely tech-savvy! There were very few glitches we had to resolve. They were also tested on STAR Math online on Monday and DIBEL tested individually throughout the week for progress in Reading. I hope you've all had a restful weekend after a week full of testing! Enjoy the evening.

I'm experiencing problems with my internet. I cannot open Blogger to create new posts. I guess I'll post updates in this manner.

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring to everyone! 
It has been a long, frigid winter. 
The students have been working hard at comparing fractions and demonstrating understanding of the different strategies of expressing the multiplication facts.
They are sharing great discussions in our new Reading Unit: Cultures.
We are also currently working very hard at character building (how to treat one another), and women's history.
We are also learning to interview one another in order to write biographies about our classmates.
Energy and matter is the current science kit. They will be working with batteries and discussing the different energy sources.

We have also piloted the PARCC assessment in our computer lab on laptops. Prior to their trial run, I showed the students sample questions and walked them through on how to maneuver the laptop touch pad as I projected it on the screen for them to see every step I took.  We also discussed different strategies to answer the questions.  Next week, our classroom, will take the "real" PARCC test.  Please do not feel worried about this test because, at this point, we are just piloting the test so that we can give feedback about our experience to the district.

Let's enjoy these beautiful spring days!

 

Follow by email

Good evening parents and boys and girls,

Please "Follow By Email" so that you can get up to date updates.

Times tables song 1-12

Schoolhouse Rock 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 Multiplication Rock / Math Rock

numerator and denominator song: fractions

Fractions 2nd / 3rd Grade - Down On the Farm

Fractions Music Video - Washington School - CUSD 200

This is so cute!

Fractions on Number Lines - v1

Fractions on Number Lines - v2

FOLDABLE Projects

The students have been working hard on many projects in class. They are demonstrating understanding of different ways to solve the same problem, in "Choose 3 Ways".  They are demonstrating understanding of all the components of PRONOUNS.  They are demonstrating understanding of FACT and OPINION and CAUSE and EFFECT by writing their own sentences.  The students also made foldables about equivalent fractions, we are still working on improving understanding of EQUIVALENT FRACTIONS.
Let's keep up the great work 205!!!

~Ms. Chuk

http://www.instagc.com/Thaylotus

http://www.instagc.com/Thaylotus

Equivalent fractions

Good afternoon!

We have been working hard to try to understand equivalent fractions! Please use the links I have created on the previous blogs to help you understand fractions more clearly.  In class, we have been using fraction bars to find equivalent fractions.  Some students are demonstrating understanding, while many others still struggle to show that they understand equivalent fractions.

Also, this is a reminder that we will have school on Friday March 7th to make up for a snow day.

I hope everyone has been enjoying this wonderful weekend.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone ready to learn Monday morning!

~Ms. Chuk
 

WebQuest on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/taverna/98/webquest.htm

WEBQUEST:

Learn about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Read the directions on the website and click on the link to find the answers.  This is a great way to learn about a great human being who helped shape our world today.  Have fun learning!


~Ms. Chuk

Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions--Lesson 5 of 5 (Commo...

Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions--Lesson 4 of 5 (Commo...

Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions--Lesson 3 of 5 (Commo...

Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions--Lesson 2 of 5 (Commo...

Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions--Lesson 1 of 5 (Commo...

Do You Want to Build a Snowman Kristen Bell, Agatha Lee Monn & Katie L...

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

Frozen "In Summer" Song - Sing-a-long with Olaf - Official | HD

This version is a sing-a-long with words!

Frozen "In Summer" song -- Official | HD

I thought I would share one of the funniest songs from Frozen.

VACATION is over...let's get ready to LEARN!

I hope that all my students have had a wonderful and restful vacation.  I hope that you have spent some fun time building snowmen, sledding, and spending quality time with your family.  Also, there is a Six Flags reward to be given to students who read a total of 6 hours over vacation, hopefully my students read lot over vacation.

I expect students to come to school prepared with notebooks and pencils so that they are ready to take notes and do their classwork with these necessary tools.  Having folders and tissues would be nice to have in the classroom as well.

As we finish out this beautiful unseasonably warm day, I hope you are eating well and resting as we will be starting back Monday straight away into our usual schedule.

Enjoy this beautiful Sunday!

 

 

Another snow day

Happy snow day everyone.  Unfortunately many parts of the country have been hit hard with an ice storm.  I'm happy that all the students are safe at home with their families.  Hopefully everyone did their homework before going outside to make snowmen or go sledding. :)

In Room 205, we have been working hard on learning the different strategies to solve multiplication problems: Using known facts, making arrays, drawing equal groups and having lots of fun explaining to each other how to solve for the products.  They are getting to understand the relationship between multiplication and division as well.  They have been demonstrating their knowledge by using the graphic organizer, "Choose 3 Ways" to show what they know.

In Reading this week, we have been discussing our unique interests and those interests can lead to our future careers.  These students have such kind hearts as many of them stated that they "want to help people".  So I gave them many suggestions as to which fields they may look forward to and they seemed very interested.  This has also been carried over into Social Studies in which we have been discussing their goals and how to achieve those goals.

In writing, we also made foldables demonstrating our knowledge of facts and opinions, and all the different types of pronouns--singular, plural, subject, object, and possessive.

The students are behaving quite well lately and they are working hard on earning computer time.  There are 17 students who are assigned to Imagine Learning and all students in the class have been given time to "play" and "learn" by solving math problems on firstinmath.com.  The students are enjoying this part of their day most.

Students can access firstinmath.com through this blog or go straight to the website by typing the web address in the address bar.

Have a safe snow day!
~Ms. Chuk

Equivalent Fractions

We are currently revisiting multiplication, with a focus on the relationship between multiplication and division.  The next lesson, we will be about equivalent fractions.  The following link is a great resource to help enhance student understanding of equivalent fractions.

Click on the following link to learn about equivalent fractions. 
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/fractions/fractions-04-equivalent-01.html

Signed Forms Need to be Returned to Ms. Chuk

Good evening!
I hope everyone had a great day off from school and is safe. 

There are many forms that I sent home with the students with their report cards as well as on Friday.

I am looking for these forms to be signed and returned:

• Report Card envelopes
• Star Math Parent Reports
• Emergency update forms, both lime green and salmon sheets
• Permission for picture to be taken for the thank you letters for our grant money
• Blog feedback form

Thank you!

 

Also, please send in more TISSUE boxes, many students are sick and we have no more tissues.

ACCESS FOR ELLs Speaking Test

Friday, January 31, 2014
Mr. Heywood and I will be administering the individual Speaking test to my classroom, Room 205. Please be advised.

I have been ill the last few days and was not in school Wednesday and Thursday.  I will try my best to be back at school Friday.

~Ms. Chuk

ACCESS for ELLs Assessment

ACCESS for ELLs Assessment

Friday, January 24th, we will continue our ACCESS for ELLs testing.  Please send your children to school.

FREE Hats, Mittens and Coats for Kids

FYI

FREE Hats, Mittens and Coats for Kids

Thursday,  January 30, 2014

10:00am-2:00pm

Olneyville Health Center

100 Curtis Street

Providence, RI

First Come, First Served

If child cannot be present, please bring proof of child's name and age.

ACCESS for ELLs Assessment

Good Evening Parents!

The students have completed their tests for the middle of the year assessments, including DIBELS Next in Reading and Star Math testing for the Math. I will be sending home the results with the second quarter report card.

Next week, students who are in the  English Language Learners program, or who are eligible for ELL services, will be taking the ACCESS for ELLs test to measure their English language proficiency. 

ACCESS for ELLs® stands for Assessing Comprehension and 

Communication in English State-to-State for English Language 

Learners and is designed to measure English language proficiency. 

It is a large-scale test that addresses the World-Class Instructional 

Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium’s English Language 

Proficiency Standards.

Please have your children get a good night's rest.

coolmath4kids.com

Hello guys! This is a fun website to help you understand fractions a little more! Enjoy.

http://www.coolmath4kids.com/fractions/index.htmlCool Math Lessons

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Room 205! 

It has a been a frigid first week back to school! Everyone is in good spirits and is behaving well and seems to be ready to learn!  We have had a good week thus far.

We are reading "A Symphony of Whales" in Reading Street which takes place in the Arctic.  We have discussed the challenges that the people face when living in inhospitable areas such as the Arctic compared to where we live. We are working on suffixes, generalization and past, present, and future tenses of verbs.

We will be having a math test on fractions this Friday.

We have begun our discussions about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the impact that he has on our society today.  The students are so knowledgeable in this subject area and are completely engaged in discussions during S.S.  If you have any books about him, please send them in so that I may borrow them share with the class.

Remember to dress in layers.  Since the temperature is very cold outside and our school is very old, there are different temperatures in different parts of the school.  In our classroom, it can get VERY warm.  However, in other areas of the school building, it can be very cold.  Please dress the students in many layers so that as it gets warmer in our room, they may take off the extra sweaters or sweatshirts.  However, they may also have the layers on so that when they do go into a room that may be colder, they can be prepared.

Students should continue to practice reading everyday!  I have started our Middle Of the Year (MOY) DIBELS (Reading) testing and have completed half the class so far.  Many of the students have shown a significant amount of improvement.  I am so proud of them!  Also, we will be testing for the MOY Star Math very soon as well.  In addition to all of this testing, the ACCESS test for ELLs, this class, will take place in a couple of weeks. This is a crucial time for assessment, so please send your children to school ready to learn everyday!

Students can continue to practice their math skills and compete with the school on firstinmath.com.  Students may also use the websites on this blog to help practice for any subject area in academics.  

Have fun and always keep learning!

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!