Hip, hip, hooray! Friday was our Valentine's Day party. Everyone was so excited. We all made cute owls out of our paper bags. Some of us made the owl eyes look like they were looking at something. They looked awesome. We passed out valentines for everyone. Some kids brought in pencils or other trinkets. The Student Council also offered candygrams for $1.00. Some people got candygrams. This was a note and sucker. Mrs. Foley hung up big and little hearts around the room. We have a selection of books on a certain topic displayed on our bookshelves, and this week there were Valentine's Day books. And a few weeks ago, our Flying Horse writing topic was about this holiday. During the party, some parents came in. We did lots of fun activities. We played Find Your Heart Mate which was a math matching game. Another game we played was a relay called Breathless. The last games we played were Cupid's Arrow, Mad Libs, and Left/Right Story. In the Left/Right Story, there were hidden words "left" and "right." The prize boxes were passed around the circle each time the word left or right was said. Some students won prizes. For a snack, we had frozen strawberry fruit bars. The Valentine's Day party was a blast!
Are you a lover? Our class sure is! We have the "Heart of a Hero" award. To earn this award, you must be a kind and caring student towards others. When you earn it, you get a certificate and a cute little white puppy named Cupid sits on your desk. Three people have earned this award: Emily, Lexie, and Ella. We think they really deserved this award because they are nice and they think of others every day. We also have new A+ Attitude award winners every week. They are very good role models in our class. Jase, Shay, Ethan, Gavyn, Lucas, Claire, Devam, Richa Shree, Tarun, and Kaitlynn recently got it. Our newest award is for participation. You get to keep a megaphone on the corner of your desk. The first people to get this are Devam and Avery. All of these award winners visit the office to share their good news with Mr. LaFrance. We are very proud of our award winners.
"Yes!" That is the sound of a students who passed a quiz for Reading Counts. Some people have read more than 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 words! Pranav has reached 1 million words. Claire and Devam have reached 2 million words. They have been working towards this goal all year. They get to have lunch with Mr. LaFrance on a day that they choose. Students who earned 1 million words are invited to a Lock-in. Everyone is happy for our million-word readers.
Do you want to know what we are doing in science? Well, your'e in luck because we just finished two important topics. They are . . . rocks and natural resources! We studied the three types of rocks which are igneous,sedimentary, and metamorphic. In our lives, rocks and minerals are very important because we use them in toothpaste and salt. Some resources are nonrenewable. That means it takes millions of years for Earth to make more. Renewable resources means that people can replace them. For example, trees, cotton plants, sheep's wool, and fruit trees are all renewable resources. Inexhaustible resources will never run out such as water, sunlight, and air. The topic was possibly the most activity-filled subject we learned this year. Rumble, rumble! The landfill is big! So we can recycle to reduce landfill space. We have been learning about the 3 R's. For those who don't know, the 3 R's are reduce, reuse, and recycle. We organized trash into aluminum, plastic, and paper. The other activity we did was sort items into plastic types: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Bloomington does not recycle number 6, which is mostly styrofoam products. We hope you can recycle more than trash. This will conserve our natural resources.
"It's raining pigs and noodles!" This is the first line of a great poem by Jack Prelutsky. We are starting our 3rd quarter poetry presentations. We have been reading poetry books like A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein, My Dog Ate My Homework by Bruce Lansky, and others. A lot of students have also been sticking Post-It notes on poems we like and want to present to everyone. The poetry presentations are due March 1. The things we try to work on in the presentations are accuracy, rate, expression, volume, posture & eye contact, and enthusiasm. We hope everything turns out fantastic!
In March, third grade is having a Folk Festival in the evening. We will do plays and songs from many different cultures. The plays we are doing are The Squeaky Door, The Gingerbread Boy and The Gingerbread Girl. We will sing "Four White Horses" from the Caribbean, "Funga Alafea" from South Africa, and "Zum Guli Guli" from Israel. This will be presented in the Oakland School gym. We can't wait to perform these songs and plays for our families.
~ Mrs. Foley's Third Grade