End of the Year

I hope that you had an opportunity to look at some of the things your third grader brought home on Friday. If you did not see a poetry book I would encourage you to look for it in your child's backpack. I was amazed by the effort and care that was put into these books all the way up to the last day of school. The words and drawings are wonderful. I hope you enjoy looking at them with your children. It was bittersweet cleaning out cubbies on Friday. It is has been a beautiful year of learning and growing and I will miss seeing your children everyday. 

Third graders loved the reading minute auction last Friday during which students were able to “spend” their reading minutes from the year to buy different items that classmates brought in.  Thank you for sending in so many wonderful things for third graders to bid on.  It was amazing to watch the third graders practice respect during the auction, looking out for classmates who hadn’t gotten anything yet and even giving things away to others.  I was so impressed with them! 

Summer is a wonderful time for so many things.  Here is a list of some ideas to keep your children busy and engaged!

Ride your bike often, but only when wearing a HELMET. Spend time outside everyday. 

Consider subscribing to the fantastic math learning website DreamBox then practice your math skills as often as possible. Visit the website with your parent. Start with a free trial period or subscribe right away. DreamBox is an amazing web-based application. This website is adaptive, meaning that it keeps track of your answers and your strategies and adjusts the activities you encounter to make them “just right” for you as a mathematician. As an added bonus, the activities are downright fun.

Have a science experiment play date. Find something interesting that you wonder about and design an experiment to explore it. Record your investigations and discoveries in a Google document and share it with some classmates (& teachers!) to get their feedback. Incredible learning springs from curiosity!


Write often because you love it (poems, stories, magazine articles, etc.)


READ EVERY DAY. Read aloud to your family and/or pet. Ask someone to read to you. Read picture books, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, anything! Visit your public library.

Write at least one letter this summer to a friend, teacher, or relative. Getting a handwritten letter is an affirmation that somebody cares about you and your life. It’s like a gift in the mailbox. Make somebody’s day by taking the time to send them a note, even if it’s just a short shout-out with a goofy doodle on it! Teachers love getting letters and always write back!

Smile and laugh often.

End of the Year News

It is hard to believe that the end of the year is almost upon us!  Thank you for sharing your children with me.  I have relished learning with them and watching them grow.  I am proud of the progress they have made throughout this year and am confident they will be successful in fourth grade.  The end of the year has been a whirlwind of exciting activities.  I hope your child has shared his/her excitement and some stories with you.  

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kendall King for all of her help throughout the year as our Room Representative.  Her assistance in organizing parents was invaluable!  Thank you! 

It was great to see so many of you in the Bovey for our sharing program.  I hope you appreciated learning about the cities from their creators. I loved seeing the variety of cities and all the hard work that went into planning and creating them. It was also a treat to hear the third graders sing.  What they do in music is truly incredible.

Calling all classroom library books!  Please help your child look for any books that belong in our classroom library.  There are quite a few that are missing.

The third grade has been busy reading and writing poetry. We started by revising some of our favorite poems.  As we revised our poetry we thought about white space, line breaks, repetition and expressive language.  Third graders were amazed to discover that by changing one word in their poem they could drastically improve their writing.  One student said that he was going to have a hard time choosing his favorite poems to publish since he wrote so many good ones!  Mary Guider and Karen Wyatt came into our classroom to help students make a book in which to publish their poetry.  Third graders are excited to put illustrations and poems into their books next week. 

I want to let you know that I will be away from school at the beginning of next week. My husband is having surgery at the Mayo Clinic. I hope to be back at school on Thursday. I am sorry to miss these last few precious days with your children but I am confident they will be in good hands with David Sachs.

I look forward to connecting with you before the end of school and celebrating a wonderful year. 

Minneapolis Pictures

Friday Update

Please be on the lookout for Friday Folders coming home today. In the Friday Folders you should find a rubric from our most recent round of book clubs, the work and final assessment from the math unit Angles and Lines, as well as a rubric for the homework assignment "Why People Move".  Please let me know if you have questions or comments after reviewing the work. 

It has been a busy and exciting past few weeks in third grade.  Students have been working hard and having a lot of fun. I am impressed by how well the students have stayed focused and productive during these exciting weeks.

I have been incredibly impressed with your children’s recent group work during speech writing.  It is amazing to watch them negotiate and compromise with respect and humor.  

Calling all classroom library books!  Please help your child look for any books that belong in our classroom library.  There are quite a few that are missing.  All Lower School Library books are also due.

Thank you to the parents who joined us at the Mill City Museum and on our tour of Minneapolis.  I know that it is challenging to take a full day to spend on a field trip, but your time and energy are appreciated and essential for the success of the trips.  Both of our field trips have been wonderful.

I hope to see many of you next Friday morning in the Bovey to admire the hard work of your children.  The sharing program will be from 8:30 – 9:30.  There will be music, art drawings and cities.

We spent a lot of time this week talking about our create-a-city work at home.  It sounds like there will be some elaborate cities coming through the door on Monday!  I hope that you and your child have enjoyed working on the city at home. 

We have had a busy few weeks in social studies.  Students were assigned a building in Minneapolis to study.  They became an expert on their building and became responsible for giving a short speech about it on our tour of Minneapolis.  Students worked with a partner on this project.  They focused their thinking on how the building helps meet the needs and wants of the people in Minneapolis. We also learned about what happens in City Hall. It has been fun for me to learn about buildings and Minneapolis from the speeches. Our Minneapolis tour was a busy day! I hope you heard about walking across the Stone Arch Bridge, visiting City Hall, seeing the lights at Target and classmates’ speeches. 

Last Monday, we assigned the “Design a City” project.  Students have had two weeks to complete this exciting and large project. During social studies we brainstormed different ways communities meet the needs of people who live there.  These wants and needs should be represented in their cities.