Our First Mystery Reader - Olivia's Mom

Olivia's mom surprised us last Friday in Library as our very first Mystery Reader of school year! She read us Olivia goes to Venice and some funny Halloween poems. Thank you to Olivia and her family for donating the Olivia the pig book to our classroom library!

Our First Word in Cursive -- What is "It"?

Learning curisve is a hallmark of the third grade experience. The first word that the children learn to write in curisive is the word "it"! Each child designed their own "it" using their imagination and geometry pattern templates from math class. Checkout the symmetry in this "it" original masterpiece.

Techsploration

"Super Kate" uses a lever to lift Miss Bagley

Thank you to the HPTA for bringing Techsploration to Elmwood School. Tom Wahle makes simple machines larger than life with his captivating contraptions that entrall the boys and girls. His zany (but effective!) one hour presentation reviews and extends the concepts that the boys and girls are learning in our simple machines unit in science class.

The Main Idea about Penguins

This week in our story, Penguin Chick by Betty Tatham, the boys and girls are learning to identify the main idea and supporting details about various aspects of the penguin's life. Did you know that not all penguins live in Antarctica? Ask your child where else in the world you could find these adorable animals -- you may be surprised! Thank you again for the book donations from the book fair. Many of our new books are companions to this Arctic theme.

Everyday Math Family Letters

Dialogue and discussion are at the heart of Everyday Mathematics. Family Letters from the Math Masters are provided at the beginning of the year, at the end of every unit, and with selected Home Links to establish a partnership between home and school, while explaining upcoming content and activities. You may find it helpful to stay abreast of the concepts your child is studying in math class by referring to the Family Letters for each unit. Math is taught quite differently than it was when most of us were young, and the Family Letters are very effective at communicating the goals for the unit as well key vocabulary.

Jared "The Subway Guy" Fogle Visits Elmwood

Elmwood School was delighted to welcome Jared Fogle to a special assembly presented by the American Heart Association. Elmwood was chosen by the local office of the American Heart Association for this special assembly because of our school's consistent support of the Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser. As most of you may know, Jared lost about 235 pounds in about one year by eating low fat sub sandwiches from Subway.

Who was the lucky class that had a picture taken with Jared? That would be the marvelous class of Room 29 ! -- photo complements of Kathleen Culler.

The Perfect Pet

This week our class read The Perfect Pet by Margie Palatini. The main character, Elizabeth, desperately wants a real pet and she tries various crazy strategies to convince her parents to agree. Her parents, however, think that her prickly cactus plant, Carolyn, is just fine as a "pet". As we read this story we talked about how difficult it would be to cuddle a cactus as compared to a typical pet such as dog, bunny or cat ... until Lexie told us about her petting cactus! She brought it into school the next day to show us, and we all took turns feeling how soft this cactus truly is! In the story, Elizabeth does finally convince her parents to let her have a new pet ...which one? Ask your third grader! :)