Week of November 23-December 4

Important Dates:

11/23-11/25 - Days off for Thanksgiving

12/17 - 3rd grade bowling trip

12/18 - Last day before holiday break!

Welcome to Trimester 2!!   This blog will cover the 2 days next week and also the following full week.  

Happy Thanksgiving a little early!  May this time with your family and friends be joyful and filling :)

Coming up this week:

Reading & Language Arts:  Monday, students will need to bring in their artifacts for their "Biography Person Pouch" presentation. The presentations will be on Monday, November 30.
The week of 11/30 we're on to our new unit, What is Culture? We'll introduce the unit with a close read of the song "Circle of Life" from the Lion King.

Keep reading for 20 minutes a night! Reading logs are due on Monday 11/30.

Social Studies: We will be starting the Modern day Downers Grove unit next week. We are excited to learn more about it! Thank you parents who volunteered on our trip! I hope you had a great time and learned lots!

Science:   We’re on hiatus!

Math Class:  We continue Unit 3 this week, focusing on 3 digit subtraction story problems.  There will be a short checkpoint quiz on Monday, 11/23.  A study guide (with practice problems) is going home today.  We’ll then continue the unit the week of 11/30 with expanded notation and algorithm addition and subtraction.  

Have a great weekend!

Week of November 16-20

Hello Everyone! It is great to be back in the classroom! It has been great getting to know all of your little ones! Here is an updated picture of my little pumpkin! Alyssa Marie Mandru

Important Dates:

Tuesday, November 17-History of DG quiz

Thursday, November 19-DG field trip

Social Science- We will be finishing up our History of DG packet and testing on it. We will start learning about Modern day Downers Grove. We are super excited to go on our field trip and see all the things we were learning about!

Reading & Language Arts:  This week we will work on our biographies unit. Students have been using a planning packet to eventually create a trading card.  Explicit directions are in your child’s homework pocket.  They will be presenting as their “biography person” the week after Thanksgiving.  This does not have to be memorized, simply read from their final product, the trading card.  However, a costume and/or artifacts are necessary.  Most of this work will be done at school, but practice will be necessary at home.

Next week we will also be working on a very quick writing project pertaining to Thanksgiving.  Yesterday you should have seen a bare turkey coming home.  Students need to “disguise” him so the farmer leaves him alone!!!   These is due on Monday.  Students will then write a short persuasive writing piece convincing the farmer that they are not really turkeys!! It’s not necessary to buy any crafty items, just use what you have at home.  I’ve seen feathers, beads, googly eyes, cloth, construction paper, and just plain old crayons used.  

Reading Menus are sue on Monday!

Keep reading for 20 minutes a night!

Spelling:   The pink “Words Their Way” spelling menu/spelling work is due on or before Friday 11/20.  Student work should be written on a sheet of notebook paper and everything stapled to the pink “menu.”  The students will also be tested on 15 of the words in their “sorts.”  Next trimester we will be using a new menu of tasks.

Math: We will start Unit 3 this week, focusing on 3 digit subtraction story problems.

Hello 3M families!

Mrs. Mandru is back!  Yeah!  The kids got to spend time with Mrs. Mandru on Thursday, and she will be in the classroom full time starting tomorrow.

Here is a quick update on things going on in 3M ...

-  Math tests were passed back last week, and Number Corner Checkpoints will be passed back on Tuesday.  If your student got less than a 70%, they are able to fix the mistakes and bring back the assessment the next day for extra points.  These were hard assessments, and the kids showed a lot of improvement and understanding through this last unit.  The new unit will focus on fractions, rounding, and area.
-  Veterans Day is Wednesday, November 11.  If you know of a veteran that would like to participate in the school assembly, please let Mrs. Mandru know!
-  We have a field trip coming up on Thursday, November 19th to downtown Downers Grove.  Mrs. Mandru will be asking for chaperons soon.  This field trip will go along with the Social Studies curriculum we are studying - the history of Downers Grove.
-  We are starting new spelling sorts on Tuesday.  The kids will start working on their new spelling activities for the next two weeks.
-  In reading, we are continuing our work on myths.  With these myths, we are practicing finding evidence in the text to support ideas.
-  In writing, the students are working on their super power stories and adding more details.

It's been such a pleasure to work with your students for the beginning of this year.  I will miss being at Prairieview, but I also know that the kids are in great hands with Mrs. Forsman and Mrs. Mandru.

Have a great day,
Jen Ikens