What’s Happening in Room 8

Check out our class on Friday for Hat Day!  Click on the picture to see it larger.

I hope you’ve heard lots about our caterpillar experiment! If you want to keep track of what’s happening, go to the website where our class and Mrs. Rich’s class are posting the information to keep you up to date.

We met with Mrs. Rich’s class on Friday for the start of an exciting science project! We received a package in the mail that contained 6 Monarch caterpillars, and food for them to eat while they are growing into a caterpillar big enough to change into a chrysalis, and then a butterfly. While we are watching this happen in our classrooms, we will be watching to see what happens to similar caterpillars who are living in the International Space Station! We are learning about how scientists ask questions, come up with a hypothesis about what might happen, and then carefully conduct the experiment. We’re learning about how to think like scientists and how to understand the scientific process. This will be helpful to us as we go through school, learning about science and watching the world around us. Check back often to see what’s happening to our caterpillars and to the caterpillars orbiting the earth, living and growing in microgravity.

There will be much more information coming on this subject, but for now, you can go to the Monarch Watch website to read more. Thanks to Mrs. Rich for signing us up for this fantastic project!

On Friday we met with our 1st grade writing buddies to share writing that we had both taken through the writing process. We had fun listening to the first graders share their stories, and also reading ours to them. They did a great job making their writing pieces longer and more detailed than the first time they shared, and we told them lots of things we enjoyed about their writing. We know that writing is hard work, and it’s important to know that people appreciate what you did to make your writing better. We are almost ready to read our personal narratives on the computer so you can hear us read the stories we’ve been working so hard to perfect.We think you’ll be impressed at what third graders can do!

Some of the kids have been talking about reading books from their home libraries, but being disappointed that they are not AR titles. I have explained to the kids that many of their books at home may be AR titles and that Mrs. Steffes is the person that adds the pink stickers to our books, only for the organization of our library. So, please visit the Hudsonville Public Schools webpage if you are wondering if a book has a corresponding AR test. From the main page, select ‘Elementary Schools’ from the menu on the left. Then, choose ‘Bauer’. ‘A.R. Booklist’ appears as the fourth item in the Bauer list.
Hudsonville Public Schools Website

Also, your child will be bringing home a list of their AR tests and accumulated points tomorrow. Please take some time to look over their scores, and let me know if you have questions. Also, they should be at 75% of their goal by this Friday, the 13th. I listed the percent toward their goal that they have as of today.

We finally have all the students back in their desks, ready to learn! Last week only about half the kids were here for a few days. We have our fingers crossed that everyone stays healthy, and we’re also covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze, and washing our hands A LOT!

You have probably noticed from the math homework that there is a new unit in math-geometry. Today the students had a quiz on some of the concepts they’ve learned so far. There were charts on the board to remind them, and we had a quick review before they started. The quiz came home in the daily mail today, so you should have gotten a peek at how your child is doing on these concepts so far.

In writing, we are working on finishing up a personal narrative that the students have taken through the writing process. When they finish revising and editing, they copy it over. Next, they create an illustration to go with it. When all this hard work is finished, they practice reading it aloud without any mistakes so when they share it, their reading will sound fluent and interesting. You’ll be able to hear their reading and see the illustrations soon, when we’ve finished using a website called “Voicethread.” I’ll link them here as soon as we’re done, and then we’d love to have your comments on all our hard work. You would be amazed at how much work it takes to write these stories.

In Social Studies we are learning about Michigan’s natural resources, and how humans use them. Sometimes there are positive effects, and sometimes there are negative effects. Hopefully all our thinking and talking about human environment interaction will inspire us all to be more careful with our resources. Tomorrow we’ll be learning about Lake Erie, and a hard lesson that was learned about taking care of water. I hope you are hearing some interesting stories about our state at your house-we’re learning many amazing things!

Aren’t we busy?!

Thanks so much for coming in to chat at conferences. It was great to see everyone, and I appreciate you taking the time to work with me to make this the best year ever for your child. It’s a team effort, and we are all off to a great start! Please feel free to come in at any time if you have questions or concerns, or just want to say hi. You can also call, send a note, or email. (jmyrmel@hpseagles.net)

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the weather.

Alexa’s mom took some pictures at our Halloween party, so you can have another look at the fun!

Thanks so much to Emma’s mom for organizing the Halloween party-under tough circumstances! At the last minute, new helpers had to be lined up because of all the sickness that’s been going around. So another big thanks, also, to the people who came in to help–they all worked hard and the kids had a great time. We started by watching the lower el kids parade in the gym, then got our own costumes on and started our party. Just look to see all the fun we had:

Last week we received a nice surprise-a big box of dictionaries! The members of the local Grange bought a dictionary for each third grade student. You wouldn’t believe how much fun the kids had with these books! They learned about Presidents, how to do the alphabet in sign language, what the longest word in the English language is, and lots more fun information. Today we worked on writing thank you notes so we can let the Grange members know how much we appreciated them thinking of us. Learning is fun!