An Exciting Year to Come!

We hope all families enjoy the final days of vacation together!  Thursday morning we look forward to welcoming students (and a couple of hermit crabs) back into the classrooms. With the new year comes some exciting learning opportunities for third graders.  They will be learning all of their cursive letters, wrapping up persuasive speeches, jumping on Prairie Schooners to head west, writing fairy tales, exploring geology through stream tables and hands-on field trips, and producing a musical play!  Yes, we can't wait for the 2014 and wish you and your family a safe and Happy New Year!

Marie, Tonya, and Emily

Snowy Recess!

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After spending recess indoors for the last few days, we were delighted to get out and play in the snow today!

Words for Thirds

This morning, volunteers from the Beacon Light Grange in Richmond visited the RES Third Grade in support of The Dictionary Project and The Grange's "Words for Thirds" program.  Through the tireless efforts of the Grange’s network of more than 300,000 volunteers, America’s oldest rural and agriculture organization has presented third grade students across the nation with more than 100,000 dictionaries -- our RES third graders are the latest recipients.

A dictionary is one of the most powerful reference tools young children will be introduced to during
their schooling years. Its usefulness goes beyond just providing correct spellings, pronunciations,
and definitions. It is also a companion for solving problems that arise as children develop their
reading, writing, and creative thinking abilities.

The Grange, headquartered in Washington, D.C., partnered with The Dictionary Project, a 501(c)
(3) nonprofit organization, in 2002. The goal of the program is to assist third grade students to
complete the school year as good writers, active readers and creative thinkers by providing them
with their own personal dictionaries. The dictionaries are a gift to each student to use at school and
at home for yeas to come.  Nationwide, the Grange has provided more than 1.8 million dictionaries to students.

To learn more about the Grange's "Words for Thirds" program, please visit www.nationalgrange.org.
Thank you to the members of the Beacon Light Grange for this exciting program!

Hour of Code

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This week, December 9-15, is Computer Science Education Week and Miss Darby's third grade participated in an "Hour of Code" to celebrate!  It's an opportunity for scholars to have the opportunity to try computer science for just one hour, the first step on a journey to learn more about how technology works and how to create software applications.  Several tutorials were available on the CS Education Week website: www.csedweek.org.

Check it out!!

Author's Celebration

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This morning, the library was abuzz as third grade authors shared their nonfiction books with families and friends, the culmination of writing workshop for the last two months. Student authors were immersed in nonfiction during reading workshop, learning the various parts of nonfiction books from mentor authors. In writing workshop, student authors researched information on an organism, and practiced organizing books using a table of contents, writing strong leads and making sure that each chapter was connected by the book's main idea. Again, authors returned to mentor texts to learn how the experts (real authors) tackled these tasks. As the publication date neared, authors worked to revise and edit their books, and to include text features (diagrams, maps, illustrations) to help their readers understand. Third grade authors were quite proud sharing their books! Thank you to the families, friends, and VIPs who took time to share our books with us today.

Tradition Shares

We are enjoying learning all about various traditions students and families have--from all times of year, friends, families, places, and more! Thanks for sharing!

[caption id="attachment_130" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Opening a gift from her brother on Christmas Eve.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_131" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Every year the family "Elf on a Shelf" comes back and does silly things.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_132" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Getting salt water Taffy in Ocean City, New Jersey every summer.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_133" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Going to Cape Cod with family every summer.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_134" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Making special family recipe Christmas cookies every year.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_138" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Elf on the Shelf--new this year![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_149" align="alignnone" width="300"] Tradition: Advent Calendar and Nativity story[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_151" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Nativity scene[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_150" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: A new Nutcracker every year[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Special birthday breakfast[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_153" align="alignnone" width="225"] Tradition: Waterbury River of Light Parade[/caption]

 

A Huge Thank You to Parents!

Every dollar parents spend through Scholastic book orders helps teachers accumulate points.  I used my collection of points last month to purchase these new books for our classroom library!  The students are so excited to read these new titles.  :) Marie Ayer