Mrs. McKelvey’s 3rd Grade Classroom

As August begins and the fun and relaxation of summer comes to an end, I hope everyone is looking forward to the beginning of a new, exciting school year.  Many new adventures lie ahead as you enter a new grade, make friends with new classmates, and learn the expectations of those around you.

To my former students, best of luck with the new year!  Remember to stop in and visit me if you ever get the chance.  I will be anxious to hear how your new year is going.  And to my 07-08 students, I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed the recipes you all shared with me in the cookbook!  We have relished many tasty treats over the summer, and my family now has new favorites that they request often from tasty chicken wings to spinach-artichoke dip to marinated pork tenderloin–all have been a delight.  Best of all, I enjoy reminiscing about all of you as I look at the pictures included in the book.  You leave me with fond memories!

To my new third graders, welcome aboard!  I look forward to meeting you and your family members very soon.  This year there will be a student teacher in our room for the beginning of the school year.  Her name is Miss DiFiore, and she is currently attending Ursuline College.  She will be with us until Winter Break.  She is very excited about meeting all of you and working with you during her time at Chippewa!

Enjoy these last few weeks before the new year begins, and we will see you on Meet the Teacher Night!

Your child will be taking the state’s Reading Achievement Test on April 28 and the Math Achievement Test on April 30.  As a way of preparation, you should have seen coming home “Ace Reading” packets, where we are striving to be like Snoopy soaring high to beat the Red Barron.  Our students are soaring high to improve their level of reading understanding.  These activities are not being graded; the third grade teachers are using these as teaching tools to review skills we have learned this year and to clarify fine points between what is a good answer and what is a great answer.  The packets do not need to be returned to school.  You can use them as well to review with your child when we get closer to the testing dates.

Likewise in math we have been holding Problem Solving Fridays.  Students work on not only understanding and resolving a given problem, but being able to write about their math solution in words.  This problem solving packet will be coming home sometime in the next few weeks!

Spring always brings with it a flurry of activities, and this year is no exception.  Over the next month or so we will have a visit from Central School principal, Mrs. Beverly Chambers, and her guidance staff.  We will go to see Central School ourselves, and we will also have an afternoon of fun with people from the Natural History Museum who will show us force and motion in action!  We will take a trip on Lolly the Trolley and even tour Progressive Field!  How’s that for a lot of excitement!

 As always, if there are any questions or concerns please contact me at mckelveyc@bbhcsd.org.  Until later….

Hello Everyone!  I hope this writing finds you all tucked inside on this bitter cold Monday.  Please keep in mind that the weather will be bitter for most of the week.  Of course, if it is too bad the kiddos will not go outside, but if it is a bit warmer, then they will.  Please make sure your child has a coat that they can easily zip up themselves, and have the appropriate boots, gloves, hat, etc. 

 This Friday we will have a science quiz on what we have learned to date on force and motion.  The main concepts on the quiz will be force (a push or a pull), motion (change in position), distance, and speed.  This is not a unit test, but a quiz to help me see that the students are staying with me on the concepts we have been discussing/investigating for the past three weeks. 

We finished our geometry unit on Friday with a culminating test covering polygons, turns, shapes (both 2-D and 3-D), and angles.  We will be returning to multiplication/division.  It will be important for your child to remember that the multiplication facts passed so far for their banana split should not be forgotten.  They will need a strong understanding of basic multiplication facts in order to build on higher level problems, which our new unit will cover.

We continue to develop strategies for being better comprehenders of the written word, and students are using personal experiences to develop more complete writing skills.  This week they drew pictures of themselves and then needed to strategically place a bandage on where they sustained an “owie”.  Once they had the picture drawn, they proceeded to chart out and tell the story of how the accident occurred.  Watch for this and other writing experiences to come home in the upcoming weeks.

When we come back after President’s Day, students will be taking the Stanford and Otis-Lenon standardized tests.  We will be doing some testing each day that week, so please make sure your child is well-rested, has a good breakfast, and has enough #2 pencils to help them get through the testing!  Please note that there will be no homework during the week as our focus will be on rest and preparedness for the test. 

As always, if there are any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call or email me!  Until later…

All students should be practicing their math facts every night!  Currently we are doing addition and subtraction timed tests every other week, and have begun doing banana split tests (multiplication) every day.  Please help your child improve their fact knowledge by using flash cards, giving them problems to solve, going online at mathplus.com or multiplication.com.  Any of these ways will help your child!  Practice doesn’t always make perfect, but does make us BETTER!

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a joyous holiday season, pleasant and relaxing winter break, and are now ready for the challenges of the New Year!

A few changes will be coming for my students this month.  For the beginning of the third quarter, we will be switching to cursive writing on our spelling tests.  We have completed reviewing all of the lower case letters, so the children are ready for this.  One thing I will do for the first three weeks of this transition is to let them write their word in print underneath the cursive word.  That way I can see that they know how to spell the word, but are still developing as cursive writers.

As you are all aware, we are working on multiplication facts daily in class with our “banana split” as inspiration.  Students will be taking a timed test daily, so they should be practicing their facts every night.  I will talk about this with all of the kids, and even if it is not written in their planners, have them practice!!  We are wrapping up our unit on place value, including tenths and hundredths, and will have our unit test on Monday, January 7.

One more thing!  As we head into the second half of the school year, please remind your child of his/her responsibilities as a student–talking at appropriate times, getting things back and forth from home to school and vice versa as needed, and dressing appropriately for the weather!  These gentle reminders can go a long way toward developing responsible behaviors in your child!

I wish you all a bright beginning to the New Year!  Please let me know if there are any questions or concerns.  Remember I am only an email away!  Until later…

This Friday will be our math test on Chapter Three.  The test will include problems on measurement in inches and centimeters, area, and perimeter.  The students can prepare for the test by reviewing their home links and completing the math review, which will come home Wednesday night for homework.  We will go over the review together in class on Thursday. 

Thanks for all of your support in helping your child prepare for this test!

The third grade hallway was alive with ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night as we celebrated the festivities of the day!  Students were delighted with the great tricks and treats planned by our wonderfully supportive parents during our class party.  Thank you so much to all of our treat makers and parents who helped run the activities at the party!  We wouldn’t have near as much fun at school without you!  Thank you, too, to all of my students for the adorable pumpkin mug and hand lotion.  It is a “spooktacular” gift that I will treasure!  For an inside peak at the festivities, go to our “Gallery” and click on the “Halloween Fun” link.  Enjoy!

This Friday, October 19 will be the Chapter Two math test covering the addition and subtraction strategies that we have been working on for the past three weeks.  Please help your child prepare for the test by reviewing the home links a little each night.  On Thursday we will be reviewing tested skills by practicing each strategy that will appear on the test.  Additionally, we will continue to review/practice doing “ball park” estimates.  You should see a growing confidence in your child handling these problems as we review each day. 

habitat-project-letter-and-rubric.doc This week your child brought home a sheet telling you about a home project they will be working on related to our current science unit on animals. Your child will be choosing an animal and creating it in its habitat inside a shoebox or other similar sized box.  The project is due on October 30th.  Please remind your child that if they have not already done so, they need to let me know what animal/habitat they are choosing for their project.   I have attached the rubric that your child will be graded on.  This should have come home to you in the mail as well. Happy creating!  

Periodically throughout the year I like to give parents a little glimpse inside the classroom!  This gives you a chance to “see” your kids in action throughout their school day.  One of our opening activities was to work with a new friend from Miss Janko’s room to get to know them better.  These pictures can be found under “Sharing Time” in our gallery.  To see them simply click on the “Gallery” button on the side, then click on “Sharing Time”. 

 Another activity that the students love doing when they have free time at math is creating patterns with our pattern blocks.  These blocks are a precursor to geometry, fractions, and many other math concepts.  These pictures can be found under “Pattern Block Fun!”.  Enjoy!!