Join us for CE Field Day!

Hello! Ms. Probst has a fun field day planned for the students at CE, and we are looking for some parent volunteers to help out at it.  It is on Tuesday, May 23rd, and we can't wait! This year there is a new "Passport to America" theme--it looks like a great time, and we'd love to have you there! Click here to sign up.: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f044bafac2da1fa7-cesfield


Third graders are wearing green year. Please also make sure they wear tennis shoes.  We encourage students to bring a water bottle and to wear sunscreen as we will be outside quite a bit. What a fun way to wrap up a great year! :)

All things Pioneer!

Happy Monday 3^rd grade families! We can’t believe there is just two weeks and a couple days left of third grade. The next two weeks are filled with pioneer fun! Please carefully take a look at the upcoming dates and reminders.

Wednesday, May 10th- Pioneer Concert @ 6:30

Join us for our pioneer concert! Students should come dressed in their pioneer costumes as 6:15.

Friday, May 12^th- Pioneer Day

Students come to school in their pioneer costumes. They will spend the entire day living the life of a pioneer. They do not need to bring a lunch on Friday. They will be eating a traditional pioneer lunch that they will help prepare throughout the day.

Wednesday, May 17^th-Field Trip to Conner Prairie

Permission slips were sent home last Friday and should be turned in along with $5.50 by this Friday. Please have your child wear tennis shoes and comfortable clothing. They will also need to bring a fully disposable sack lunch.

Have a wonderful week!

More Help Wanted: Flower Sale Volunteers

Mrs. Hreno and I know that third grade has asked for more than our share of volunteers with our recent requests for Pioneer Day help, but we have another volunteer opportunity for you today.  If you aren't able to help with Pioneer Day and would like a different opportunity to help our school--or if you are helping with Pioneer Day and are feeling especially generous with your time--please consider volunteering to help with our flower sale. Click on this link to sign up to volunteer. https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/20f094aaeaf2baaf49-carmel2 

Thank you!!

Help Wanted: Pioneer Day Volunteers

Hello!  We are only a little more than two weeks away from the much anticipated Pioneer Day, and we are SO EXCITED!  Our wonderful Pioneer Day committee has already been hard at work planning this special day, but we still need a lot of volunteers to make this day successful.  Please see the note below about the help that is needed--and please consider volunteering to help with this day. Thank you!  

Many of you have heard about the fun-filled Pioneer Day held each year in May for all of the third grade students at Carmel Elementary.  It is a day when our children experience pioneer life through various hands-on activities.  A few of these fun activities include making pioneer crafts, handling antique tools, learning in a pioneer school house, preparing food, square dancing, and listening to a story teller and a fiddler.  This event will be held from 8-2:30 on Friday, May 12th.

To make this day as exciting and memorable as possible for our children, we need many volunteers.  There are many ways to help out.  We need  help both the night before with set up and the day of Pioneer Day supervising activities; we also will need some donations.  Please follow the links below to volunteer. 

If you are willing to volunteer your time on Pioneer Day or the night before with set-up, please sign up here:

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0A48AFAD2BA1F49-pioneer2

If you are willing to donate food items, please sign up here.

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0A48AFAD2BA1F49-pioneer1

This day will be a great way to finish off the school year for our third graders!!  Thanks for your help and support! 

Final Round of ISTEP!

Third graders will be participating in the second part of the ISTEP+ testing this upcoming week. Please take a look at our daily testing schedule! Thank you for being so flexible and planning any necessary appointments around our testing times.

Tuesday, April 18th- Math 9:45-11:15
Wednesday, April 19th-Math 9:30-10:30
Thursday, April 20th-English Language Arts- 9:30-10:30
Friday, April 21st-English Language Arts- 9:30-10:30
Monday, April 24th-English Language Arts- 9:30-10:30
Tuesday, April 25th- English Language Arts-10:30-11:30

Please continue to encourage your child to put forth their best effort, remain positive each day, and show what they know! We are so proud of the hard work the students have invested in their learning this year and know they will do a fantastic job on this last session!

Flower Sale--Going on Now!!

Flower Power

 We had our Flower Sale Kick-off today.  The students were very excited to get fun pins this year--Thanks PTO!  We are asking students to wear these reminders on their shirts or backpacks during the Flower Sale to remind them to sell flowers for CE.

Today the students not only learned about the plethora of cool prizes that they can win, but we also talked about all the many, many wonderful things our PTO is able to do with the money they raise from fundraisers like this one. This is CE's largest fundraiser and a 40 year tradition! 



From Friday, March 10 through Monday, March 27, we will be collecting preorders and awarding daily prizes.  Students brought home a packet of information today that has everything they need to get started.  Please consider helping your child participate in this fundraiser to not only reap the rewards, but to feel the pride that comes from helping our school and being part of this longstanding tradition. 

Also, consider SHARING your success this year via social media! Post your student’s excitement and progress throughout the presale using #flowers4ce. Search #flowers4ce on Twitter or click here today to view tweets with this hashtag.  

Questions? Visit flowers4ce.com or email flowers4ce@gmail.com. 

If you need more order forms, you can print them here: Flower Sale Order Form. 

See Flower Sale Pictures and Care to see pictures of all the beautiful flowers that are for sale. 

Thank you for your help with this fundraiser!  I can't wait to see our gym and cafeteria filled with beautiful flowers this May. Happy Selling!! 

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

This time of year is always packed with important dates and reminders! Please take a look at what is coming up.
Friday, February 24, 6:30-8:30
Family Fitness Night

Tuesday, February 28
9:45-10:35 ISTEP Applied Skills Testing (Math)

10:40-11:10 ISTEP Applied Skills Testing (ELA Section 1)

Wednesday, March 1
9:45-10:55 ISTEP Applied Skills Testing (ELA Section 2)

Friday, March 10
CE Annual Flower Sale Fundraiser begins!

ISTEP testing begins next week. We will spend this week taking the practice ISTEP test in which students will get a feel for the what the test will look like. It is EXTREMELY important to have your child here on time each day of testing. Please try to schedule any appointments around our testing windows. Since third grade is the first year for ISTEP, our goal is to make this first time of testing for students a positive one! Staying calm will help your child stay calm. Here are some great tips that are used in the classroom that can also be used at home to help your child overcome test anxiety and to help keep positive conversations going when testing time comes!

Provide Positive Praise Encourage your child to do their best and provide positive praise for giving their best effort, regardless of how well they think they did.

Find Balance Ask them how the test went and how they felt, but also have conversations about the rest of their day. This shows them we are not just concerned with the test but how they are doing in general-academically and socially! :)

Encourage Healthy Habits Make sure your child is getting good sleep and eating healthy the night before and morning of the test. We all have trouble functioning on low sleep and poor nutrition! Encourage your child to exercise or play outside after school. It helps them unwind and clear their mind of any stress they may have built up throughout the day!

Miss White and I really appreciate your support in making this a positive and stress-free experience for the kids! We know with your help they will be able to put their best foot forward!

Sharpen the Saw

Third grade has been working hard on the 7 habits this year.  We have read books about the habits, found examples in movies and books, written goals, and, most importantly, worked at applying the habits to our lives.  Lately we have been working on habit 7--Sharpen the Saw.  We talked about how important it is to have balance in our lives.  As part of our work on this habit, we are going to create a class display of photographs of our class sharpening our saws, and we need your help.  Over the next week or two, look for a time when your child is doing something for this habit, snap a picture, and e-mail it to me or Mrs. Hreno.  We'll print it and add it to our class display.  Look at the poster below for more information about this habit.

 You could get a picture of your child eating a healthy snack or meal.  You might catch them getting exercise at basketball practice or playing in the backyard.  A picture could be sent of a family game night or your child practicing the piano.  The possibilities are endless!  Don't worry if you can't send a picture.  If we are missing any students, we will take a picture of them here at school practicing the habit so that each child can be part of our display.  This will be a fun habit to practice this week--we can't wait to see our display come together!

2017-Full of Learning!

It was a great week in third grade! All third graders began their second round of NWEA testing. We started with the math portion and will continue this upcoming week with the reading portion.

In math, we wrapped up our fractions unit and will begin Unit 5-Place Value in Large Numbers and Decimals.  Remember, multiplication/division facts, telling time to the nearest minute, and addition and subtraction (especially with regrouping) of three digit numbers are great skills to be practicing along with what we’re learning in math.

 In social studies, we started our economy unit. This is always a fun one! This week, students learned what all goes in to buying and selling things. See if your child can tell you….

·        How a market and economy relate to one another

·        Examples of goods and services

·        What it means when something is scarce

·        Costs and benefits of things we buy

In writing, we’ve ended our persuasive writing unit and are learning how to ramp up our narrative writing! One way to do this is by learning how to weave different types of figurative language such as similes, hyperboles, and personification into their writing.  We’ll read picture books that include examples of the figurative language we’re focusing on, practice writing and identifying sentences that reflect it, work on incorporating the figurative language into a whole class piece we’re working on, and then eventually include it in our own writing. Some students are already noticing that they’ve used figurative language throughout their writer’s notebook but just didn’t realize it had a fancy name! ;) Stay tuned for a closer look at what our figurative language practice looks like

Our third graders continue to blossom in reading! We’re working hard on identifying the theme of the text-the lesson or message that the author wants you to learn from the story. This is a tricky third grade skill because the theme is almost always inferred. When reading with your child at home, ask them the following questions to help them identify the theme.

•     What did the characters learn? 
•   How did the characters grow or change?
• Why did the characters act this way?    

It’s hard to believe we have entered our third quarter of third grade! Miss White and I can’t wait to see the continued growth our third graders will make in the new year! J