Just around the corner ...

August 15th! Yikes, where did summer go?

I am looking forward to getting back into the classroom with a wonderful new group of students. Soon, we will be learning, creating, and getting to know each other.

I'll see you all on the first day of school!  :)

Spelling Words and misc.

This is my last post of the school year. I have really enjoyed working with your children this year. They are a wonderful bunch of kids! I know they will continue to work hard with Mrs. Richter during second semester.

Did you know that 12, 171 minutes have been read and recorded on reading logs (Sept.-Dec.) since the beginning of the school year? Let's see if that total can be beat during the second half of the year! :)

The pictures below show the artwork created by the students after studying the artist Wassily Kandinsky.

Last week we had a guest speaker, Nancy Raymond, come in to tell us about the Pennies for Peace program. She will come for several weeks to talk with the students about helping others and teach them about famous people who have helped others in the past. Our penny jar level has been increasing every day.

Spelling Words for "Ramona Forever"

1. started

2. card

3. park

4. smart

5. star

6. shark

7. mark

8. barber

9. party

10. pardon

11. bark

12. tart

13. carpet

14. farther

15. barn

Yoga Poses - third grade style

I just realized I hadn't posted these photos yet. During the beginning of the year, we were fortunate to have Liz come into our classroom several times to teach us some of the fundamentals of yoga. The students did a great job and wanted me to take pictures of them demonstrating the poses. There are some duplicates in poses below because I had such willing models. Above the first of each pose, I have written the Sanskrit name of the pose and also the English name of the pose.

Adho Mukha Svanasana - downward dog

Urdhua Mukha Svanasana - upward dog

Sun Salutation (end)

Tadasana - mountain pose

Meditation

Bakasana - crow pose (This is an extremely difficult balance pose.)

Vrksasana - tree pose

Virabhadrasana 1 - Warrior 1

Virabhadrasana 2 - Warrior 2

Virabhadrasana 3 - Warrior 3

Savasana - corpse pose (You can see why this is a final relaxation pose.)

Happy New Year!

The students came back from vacation rested and full of stories of the fun things that kept them busy over break. They have been working very hard this week!

Spelling words for "The Talent Show"
1. song
2. law
3. because
4. soft
5. dawn
6. crawl
7. lost
8. taught
9. long
10. pause
11. frost
12. lawn
13. hawk
14. laundry
15. author

Experimenting with Sound / Spelling Words

We had three guest speakers this afternoon during science. Scott, Patrick, and Wesley are engineering students at ICC. They talked to the kids about what engineers do and how they work together to solve problems and create new things.

Our science topic this week is sound. We've been learning about how sound is made and how it moves. We've also talked about pitch and volume. Our guests started out the afternoon with a fun game of "Telephone" as a way to show how sound moves (in this case, from person to person).

The students then created a tambourine made out of paper plates and bells.

The final activity was making plastic cup telephones. There was a variety of strings to choose from. The students got to test out which strings worked better. It was fun to see the students' eyes light up the first time they heard their partner's voice over their phone line. I can only imagine that Alexander Graham Bell felt the same excitement. The students also experimented with criss-crossing two or three sets of phones to see if they could still hear each other.

Spelling Words - Journey, week 1

1. journey

2. meadow

3. camera

4. travel

5. lilacs

6. album

7. photograph

8. garden

9. glasses

10. mother

11. grandmother

12. father

13. grandfather

14. sister

15. brother

November 29, 2011

This week we are reading the story, Rosie, a Visiting Dog's Story. It is about a service dog who visits people who are sick or need cheering up. The students are enjoying this story and have told many tales about their own experiences with dogs.

Mrs. Ulseth is out of town this week, so I am enjoying getting to know the third graders even better. I am excited for January to come when I will be back everyday.

Mrs. Richter


Spelling List for
Rosie, a Visiting Dog's Story

1. crown
2. proud
3. however
4. count
5. crowded
6. around
7. south
8. loud
9. house
10. shouted
11. howl
12. growl
13. bounce
14. fountain
15. sound

Fruit and Veggie Derby update and Spelling Words

The students did a great job creating their Fruit and Vegetable Derby vehicles. Each team raced their vehicle and then made any adjustments they needed before racing their vehicles again. It was a pretty competitive event! The team names are under the photos.

"The Berries"

"The 'Tato-mobile"

"The Banana Racer"

Spelling Words for "Little Grunt and the Big Egg"

1. joyful

2. choice

3. voice

4. joint

5. moist

6. spoil

7. royal

8. annoy

9. noise

10. employ

11. soil

12. loyal

13. boiled

14. destroy

15. pointy