Week of January 19-22

We are finished with our second round of MAP testing.  We’ll test one more time in the spring.  

We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday on Monday.  We talked about this great, peaceful man today.  Enjoy your 3-day weekend in his honor!

Coming up next week:

Spelling:   Students will receive a new list of words on Tuesday. The three activities are die on Friday. The test will be the following week.

Reading & Language Arts:  We’re continuing our culture and traditions unit.  We’re finishing up The Keeping Quilt. by Patricia Polacco and introducing  When Lightning Comes in a Jar, also by Polacco.  

Students should continue working on Menus. They will be due on January 29th.

Tuesday will be our practice spelling bee and Wednesday we’ll compete for a winner and a runner up who will then compete with the other 3rd grade winners.  There is no studying involved with this Bee!!   We truly want our Bee to reflect what our students already know.

Social Studies:  We are on hiatus!!

Science:   We’re continuing the study of matter.  We will begin lesson 2 this week.  If your child still owes $7.50 for the in-school field trip, please send it in as soon as possible.

Mrs. Mandru's Math Class:  We’re continuing Unit 4, focusing this week on fractions and measurement.

Week of January 11-15

MAP testing is next week; Tuesday is reading and Wednesday is math.  Please make sure your child gets a good breakfast and brings a healthy snack to school.  Also, a good night’s sleep is a must!!

Coming up next week:

Spelling:   The Spelling test will be Friday, January15. The students will use the same words and have 3 more activities due on Friday as well.

Reading & Language Arts:  We’re continuing our culture and traditions unit.  We’re finishing up The Keeping Quilt. by Patricia Polacco.  A vocabulary quiz will take place on Monday.  Please make sure your child reads through their vocabulary slides on Classroom (chromebooks.)  

Social Studies:  We are on hiatus!!

Science:   We’re beginning the study of matter.  We’ll be reading and taking notes this week.  We will also have an IN-SCHOOL field trip about Matter. Matter Matters people will come to our rooms and be doing experiments with us on matter. A permission slip will go home today and students will need to bring it back with $7.50 in order to participate.

Mrs. Mandru’s Math Class:  We’re continuing Unit 4, focusing this week on multi-step problems, unit fractions, and comparing and ordering fractions.  There will be a measurement checkpoint on Tuesday.

Important Dates:

1/12 - Reading MAP test

1/13 - Math MAP test

1/15 - Early Dismissal (11:35)

1/18 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Bday - day off!

Week of December 14-18

We will be going to Brunswick zone for bowling this week!  If your child would like to buy a snack that is great, however, please make sure your child only brings about $5 since they are truly there to bowl, not just eat!  

On Friday, we’ll take another field trip to see E.T. at the Ogden 6 theaters.  There will be no food provided at the movie.  We’ll eat lunch in the classroom before we leave.  It should be fun!  

Coming up this week:

Spelling:  We are taking a break from spelling this week!

Reading & Language Arts:  We’re continuing our culture and traditions unit.  We’re close reading The Night Before Christmas and doing a little Christmas around the world project.   Students are making a poster on the country they’ve been assigned and presenting to the class in the coming week.  Don’t worry, this is totally done at school.

Keep reading for 20 minutes a night!

December reading logs are due January 5^th.

Also starting in January, we will be focusing on non-fiction menus.

Social Studies: Our Modern Day DG quiz will be Wednesday, December 16th. Students have a study guide stapled to their packet and should be studying for that. 

Science:   We’re on hiatus!

Mrs. Mandru's Math Class:  We’re continuing Unit 4, focusing this week on time and measurement.  There will only be 3 days of math this week: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  

Important Dates:

12/15 - Early Dismissal (11:35 PV)

12/17 - 3rd grade bowling trip

12/18 - Ogden 6 to see E.T.

Jan. 4 - Back to School!  2016

1/15 - Early Dismissal (11:35)

1/18 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Bday - day off!

Week of December 7-11

Important Dates:

12/17 - 3rd grade bowling trip

12/18 - Last day before holiday break!

Coming up this week:

Reading & Language Arts:   We will keep work with traditions and culture during this week by listening and reading the song "Circle of Life" from the Lion King. We will also be doing stations to practice our reading, writing, and words.

The Spelling test will be Friday, December 11^th. The students will use the same words and have 3 more activities due on Friday as well.

Keep reading for 20 minutes a night! Reading logs are due on January 5^th.

Social Studies: We have started Modern Day Downers Grove and will continue learning more this coming week!

Science:   We’re on hiatus!

Math Class:  We are having our unit 3 test on Wednesday, December 9. The student guide is going home today and the answer key will go home on Monday. Please review with your child. We have covered a lot of material.

Have a great weekend!

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