Getting Ready . . . Getting Excited!

I love the start of a new school year.  The new school supplies, back-to-school shopping, seeing everyone I missed this summer---this is a great time of year!  It is a wonderful time to start fresh with new plans and new goals and a new hope for what is to come.  I now have my class list, and this adds even more to the excitement.  I was happy to see that there are some kids on that list that I already know and several I can't wait to meet.  I am definitely looking forward to the year that we are going to spend together--I have a feeling that it is going to be really special!

I look forward to seeing everyone who can make it at the Ice Cream Social on Monday, August 10th from 4:00-5:30.

Green Thumbs

Our field trip to the community garden

School might be out for the summer, but the learning opportunities are not done.  This year our plant units were some of our favorites in science.  We learned during these units that we have a lot of green thumbs in this class--and CE needs those green thumbs this summer.  Carmel Elementary has its own plot at the Carmel Community Gardens, and we are looking for some helpers to weed and water the plot this summer.  They have set up a sign-up so that everyone can volunteer to help out.  Check your summer schedules and see if you have any of the available days free to help out.  The planting is already done, so we just need helpers to weed and water (and harvest when the veggies are ready).  We learned all about weeding and watering on our field trip to the community garden, and I think the students will be super excited to practice these skills while they are helping our school.   Ann Dennerline (annfclark@yahoo.com) is our contact person if you have any questions.  I hope to hear that some of our gardeners helped out at our school plot this summer. If you go, take a picture of your child at the garden and send it to me.  I will tweet it out to the class and we can all celebrate the summer learning taking place.  Happy gardening!

Click here to sign up to help at the community gardens.

Veggie U

We have really enjoyed our new Veggie U unit in science.  This program teaches us all about vegetables--how they're planted, how they're harvested, and how they keep us healthy.  We made a worm farm for one of our first activities.  Repurposing a used 2 liter bottle, we created a home for our new 'class pets.'  We are learning about how the worms affect the soil.  Our new pets are a little shy, but we have been able to catch them eating a few times, and it has been neat seeing the tunnels they have made throughout the worm farm.  

Making our worm farm

We are also learning about soil.  Last week we studied three different soil samples to see if we could identify which ones were high in sand, silt, and clay.  This week we are using some of those samples and a couple of new ones to see which soil is best for growing plants.  Check with your scientist to see what hypothesis he or she made about the soil type that is best and worst for plants.

Studying soil samples

One of my favorite days in Veggie U so far has been our big Veggie Taste Test.  On Friday we had a whole array of veggies for the students to try.  We had some old favorites and some new veggies to try.  We tasted cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes (red and gold), celery, squash, zucchini, radishes, sugar snap peas, peppers (red, orange, and yellow), fennel, and avocado. Twenty three of our students tried every vegetable, several ate their whole piece of each vegetables, and some went back for seconds of their favorites.  Many students tried a new vegetable that day, with some trying 5 or 6 for the first time.  I was so impressed with the positive attitudes about trying all those veggies.  Maybe if some of the kids gain a better attitude about vegetables (what the program calls veggitude), it will make up for those kids who came home last week wanting to make their own worm farm--sorry about that! :) We are pretty excited about this unit!

Veggie Tasting Day!

Our Veggie U unit continues this week.  We will plant our seed trays tomorrow where we will grow some of our own vegetables right in the classroom under our grow lights. We are looking forward to watching them grow during this last month of school.  Our unit will finish up with a special field trip to Carmel's community gardens where we will replant some of the vegetables.  What a fun way to end a fun unit!

Pioneer Day

Hello!  We are only four 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 need a lot of volunteers to make this day successful.  Please see the note below from our Pioneer Day committee--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 the third grade students at Carmel Elementary.  It is a day when our children experience pioneer life, as it was in the past, through various hands on activities.  A few of these include making pioneer crafts (yarn dolls, marble bags, and quilt squares), handling antique tools and washing clothes, 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 15th.

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 the night before with set up, the day of supervising activities, or at home pre-assembly of  the craft kits we use on Pioneer Day.  Please follow the links below to volunteer.

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

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4ba4ae29aa8-poineer

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

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4ba4ae29aa8-pioneer3 

If you are willing to complete pre-assembly of the craft kits, please sign up here:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4ba4ae29aa8-pioneer4 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call or email.  

This day will be a great way to finish off the school year for our third graders!!

Thank you,

Pioneer Day Committee,

Gwen Tucker 507-3617, gtucker1@indy.rr.com

Budding Botanists

The class has done an absolutely fantastic job with our plant unit.  We started off learning about seeds.  We studied dry seeds and soaked seeds, and then we got to dissect the seeds to study the parts inside.  

We studied the inside of a seed. 

We then planted our Wisconsin Fast Plant seeds.  We did this very carefully because we knew that we needed them to grow so that we could study our plants' life cycles over the next 6 weeks.  The students did an amazing job following the multi-step directions to plant each seed perfectly.

Planting our seeds

Then we watered our plants and hoped for the best.  They started sprouting and we started observing.  The third grade scientists did a great job with their observations.  We practiced making an observation that leads to a question and then following that up with a prediction.  Ask your little scientist to share examples of how he or she did this in class.

Watering our plants and hoping they'll grow

So excited they started to sprout!

After our plants started growing, we transplanted some of them into new quads.  This gave the plants remaining in our quads more space and nutrients.  This also gave us a chance to study the roots of our plants.

They're growing!

Studying the roots

As our plants grew, we noticed some new shaped leaves growing.  We learned that these new true leaves were different from the first seed leaves.  We compared and contrasted them and made some predictions about what would happen next.

Comparing seed leaves to true leaves

We continued observing our plants as they made their way through their life cycle.  Check back after break to learn what we did during the next stages of our plants' life cycle.

Classroom News

Flower Sale

This is the last weekend to sell flowers for CE's Annual Flower Sale.  Have you ordered yours yet?  I have been so proud of all the sales the students brought in already.  Thank you for all of your support with this big fundraiser.  Don't forget to tweet any fun posts about the flower sale and check to see what other CE families and teachers have posted about the sale here.

Report Cards

Our standards based report cards were e-mailed out Friday after school.  If you did not receive it, please let me know and I will resend it.  Students also brought home several assessments that they have taken recently.  After looking through the report card and the assessments, please let me know if you have any questions.

Important Dates

Did you know that there is an Upcoming Dates page on our blog?  Click here or go to the 'Upcoming Dates' tab to see what's coming up at CE.  Yearbook order deadline, Mornings with Mom, and more can be found on that page.

Cruising to a High Score

 'Cruising to a High Score'

This class of third graders worked so hard last week on our first round of ISTEP.  I am so proud of the effort they put forth in doing their best.  To add some fun to all of the testing, we used a "Cruising to a High Score" theme. 

During the practice tests the week before, students got their ISTEP passports.  After completing each practice test, students recorded some tips to help them do their best in that section of the passport. Students then got a stamp in their passport as they made their way to ISTEP Island.  

We have our passports for ISTEP Island.

We ended the week of practice with a tropical spirit day and celebration, and students helped turn our classroom into ISTEP Island by creating tropical decorations (as we covered up any academic items on the wall).  After cruising through the practice tests, last week they impressed me as they worked so hard on each section of the real test.  I was so happy to see them arrive each day with such a positive attitude and a willingness to put forth their best effort.

Our Tropical Celebration

Our next bout of standardized tests is the IREAD assessment next Monday.  The practice test for that is on Friday of this week.  The last round of ISTEP will be the last week of April.  I have no doubt that if the students put forth the effort they did last week, they will definitely be cruising to a high score on these assessments.  

We SHINED on our tests!