All around the world today classrooms are kicking off the Global Read Aloud.  Teachers are reading aloud the same book to students in different schools.  This year’s chapter book for third grade is Stella Diaz Has Something to Say by Angela Dominguez. We are looking forward to hearing the book and making connections with students around the country and world.

On Friday we celebrated excellent student behavior with our monthly Star party. Each day our Students are Taking Academic Responsibility by making good choices at school. They start the day with 4 stars and try to keep them all day or even earn an extra star for excellent behavior. Teachers kept track of student scores all month and averaged them to see who was invited to celebrate good behavior at our S.T.A.R. Party. Any student that averaged 3.5 stars or higher was invited to join us for an extra recess. Students who averaged 4 stars or higher were “Rock Stars” and enjoyed a popsicle.  Now we’ll begin working on making good behavior choices for October.

Check out some pictures of our third grade star students and rock stars!

Brecknock Elementary invites you to join your child for a healthy lunch in the school cafeteria on Wednesday, Oct. 16th.  Third grade has lunch as 12:05.  Please return the slip to RSVP if you can attend and the give the parent(s) lunch choice no later than 10/9. All guests MUST provide a photo ID to enter the school. Please plan to arrive 5 minutes early to check in at the office.

Choice #1 Stuffed Crust Pizza

Choice #2 Ham and Cheese Pretzel Melt

Adult lunch price: $4.00

Today we got to enjoy our Agriculture Awareness Field Trip. Our students rotated through 7 stations to learn from the Garden Spot FFA and Agriculture students. We learned a lot and pet some really cute farm animals!

  

 

 

As part of our first module in Language Arts, we are learning to care for the Earth and have become Recycling Advocates.  We have researched what it means to reduce, reuse and recycle.  We know that schools use a lot of paper, so we decided to start our own third grade recycling program.  We learned that a local organization, the Mennonite Central Committee, recycles paper and other items to raise funds to cover shipping costs for the many relief kits that they send around the world. We have decided to collect paper at Brecknock and recycle it through MCC. Each third grade language arts class will be responsible for recycling paper from different hallways at our school.  My class will be responsible for the primary wing.

First, students worked in groups to write letters.  We wrote to Mrs. Hogan, the custodian, to ask her for 9 recycling bins, a cart for our recycling center, and boxes to transport the paper in.  We wrote a letter to Mrs. Andersen, the principal, to explain our project and ask permission. We wrote an email to the primary Brecknock teachers to let them know information we wanted them to share with their students.

Next, we prepared our recycling bins by labeling them with signs to show what can and can’t be recycled.We also delivered the bins to the their rooms.

Our plan is to empty bins once a week and put the paper in boxes to deliver to MCC. We have a recycling center on a cart in our classroom. Students may need to sort out items that aren’t recyclable. Once we get a cart load of boxes, I’ll drive them to the MCC recycling center.  If your family is ever interested in recycling items, you can take them directly to the MCC resource center in Ephrata too. Here’s the flyer with information.

Last week it was announced that our class is the Golden Palette Winner for the week! The golden palette is an art award earned by the class who showed the greatest leadership, respect, responsibility, and kindness in the art room.  I’m so proud of our artists of the week! That’s 2 golden specials in a row. We’re off to a great start this year!

It was announced this week that our homeroom class is this cycle’s recipient of the Music class Gold Record Award.  Mr. Goodman awards this gold record each week to the class that has the best behavior, participation, and using nice singing voices.  I am so proud of my class!  We are displaying our gold record outside our door for all to see.

 

I’d like to introduce you to Miss Sarah Erb.  Miss Erb is a Millersville University student who will spend much of her senior year at Brecknock.  This semester she will spend two days each week in my classroom. She has a dual major of Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Miss Erb will student teach in our classroom for eight weeks this spring.  We look forward to learning from her and teaching her what third grade is all about.

This year third grade is starting Genius Hour. We are excited to see what passions and interests our students can learn more about.  Check out this video and our Genius Hour Parent Letter to learn more about Genius Hour.

We had our first official Math Class on 8/28.  All third graders took the pretest for our first math unit.  Students were grouped to work with different teachers for this unit based on their learning needs.  Some students go to Mrs. Blankley’s and Mrs. Miller’s classrooms during this time.  Other students come and join me for their daily math instruction. On the first day we spent a lot of time getting to know what math class will be like. We played a game called 1-2-3 Math. It’s sort of like Rock, Paper, Scissors except players add the total number of fingers they shoot out and use that number to lead them in a discussion to get to know one another.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most math classes begin with our fact fluency routine. This is when students will practice flashcards each day and complete timed math quizzes.  We’re starting the year with a review of addition and subtraction and then will move on to multiplication and eventually division.  I refer to this time as “Math Fact Boot Camp” because we need to work hard to whip our brains back into shape from the long summer.  Many students who were fluent with these facts in second grade had a hard time remembering them this week. Hopefully some daily practice at home and school will help us recoup what was learned.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In math class we have a whole group introduction to the day’s topic and skills.  This week we sang some fun songs to help us remember how to add and subtract big numbers.

 

 

During the remaining part of our class time, students will take turns working with me in small groups and working independently on their computers.