Sept. 9 - 13

Pictures Tomorrow--Friday, September 13th

All students at school will be photographed for the class composite and school records tomorrow. Fliers to order pictures were sent home last week. To order online, please visit:

geskusphoto.com/fallorders

The code for our school is 3717IAYSOEDVIM. All credit card orders must be handled online. You may also send cash or check to school in your child's envelope. Please mark the "online order" box and make sure the exact amount is included. Please make checks to GPI

Bear Wear Order

https://epc19.orderpromos.com

For families wishing to order bear wear, please use the above link to do so. Orders must be placed by Tuesday, September 17th at 11:49 p.m.  All orders will be delivered to school 3 weeks after the store closes.

Back-to-School Night

We look forward to seeing all of our new families Monday night for back-to-school night. Times are as follows:

5:15 - 6:00pm - 1st & 2nd Grade

6:15 - 7:00pm - 3rd & 4th Grade

7:15 - 8:00pm - 5th Grade

Paws on the Path

Our official Paws on the Path kickoff is tomorrow at lunch. Packets will come home with your child. Paws on the Path is our main fundraiser for the year and an amazing community event sponsored by our PTO. The information included in the packet will help you get started assisting your child's class in our annual competition. We hope you will be able to join us the afternoon of September 20th for the actual event. It's always such a fun time for everyone!

Scholastic Book Orders

Scholastic book orders are a fun and inexpensive way to get books in the hands of your child. AND!!! Our class earns points for free books when you order! If you would like to order, please go to:

https://clubs.scholastic.com

You can choose the books you would like to order and pay right online. The process is easy--you just need your child's teacher codes. They are as follows:

Covert: N96RR

Knuth: J7328

Yoder: W6DZ3

          

Next Week's Schedule:

Monday: D Day
Tuesday: E Day
Wednesday: F Day
Thursday: A Day
Friday: B Day

Upcoming Events:

Sept. 16: Back to School Night
Sept. 17: Bear Wear orders due
Sept. 18: Late Start
Sept. 19: PTO (Noon)
Sept. 20: Paws on the Path (specific times to come later)
Sept. 25: Late Start

What we've been up to:

Reading: We have been working on building our reading stamina. This is important as students will be doing a lot of reading in 3rd grade! We have also been reviewing and practicing our class routines for Reader's Workshop so that students are ready to make the most out of their learning time while the teacher meets with students in small groups for reading instruction. Also, remember that students need to spend a lot of time reading! Third grade teachers expect students to read at least 5 out of 7 nights at home for at least 20 minutes. This is a nice wind down activity at night or, if you are having difficulty fitting it into your life, have your child read while you travel from place to place. A trip to the store and back could earn your child 10 minutes of reading time!

Word Study:  Our first word study unit was compound words. This was a fun unit for our students and got them used to some of the routines that we have for word study. Our current unit is adding -ing to VC and VCC pattern words. What does this mean? The word run is a vc (vowel consonant) pattern. The final consonant is doubled before adding -ing to become running. Words like talk and pass have a VCC pattern (vowel-consonant-consonant). Because there are already 2 consonants, there is no doubling before adding the -ing making the words talking and passing. Now you know the rule that perhaps you just did automatically!

Math: We are very excited about the start of our first math unit! Our first standard is based around place value. We want our students to have a solid understanding of numbers. Children should be able to count forward and backwards by 10's and 100's from any number. They should easily be able to add 10's and 100's to numbers also. Additionally, we are working on rounding numbers to the nearest 10's and 100's. Our kickoff was a place value popcorn party that helped us learn how to round numbers--it was a lot of fun!

Science: We have not started our first science unit yet.

Social Studies: We are learning all about Michigan's state symbols, the Great Lakes, and the surrounding states. Next week we will have a quiz on the map of Michigan. Students are expected to label the Great Lakes as well as Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. We are practicing in class, but we will send home extra maps so your child can give it a try at home as well. 

Writing: No formal writing unit has been started yet, but we have been writing just for fun!