October+14

=__**OCTOBER 14**__=

==** A big "THANK YOU" goes to Emma Braun's Aunt Mary, who visited us on Tuesday and shared her recent trip to China. Aunt Mary had a traveling companion, "Flat Emma", who showed up in the power point slide show many times! (The other students will soon be learning, in social studies, how their flat friends can travel the world too!) Thanks, Mary, for taking the time to come visit and share your very interesting experiences! **==

Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Blomgren, Jacob and Molly's mom and dad, who visited with us today about making wise financial choices. Mr. Blomgren is a financial advisor and shared information about taxes, interest, insurance, investments, and the importance of savings! Ask your child how much money s/he should be saving every month, starting now, to save 1 million dollars by the age of 62! The answer may surprise you!

**We're looking forward to more parent visits in the future! Please contact either Mrs. Skahill or Mrs. Volk to set up a time**!
= __**PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE SLIPS WENT HOME ON TUESDAY.**__ = = __**PLEASE RETURN YOURS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! THANK YOU!**__ = = __**We look forward to seeing you Oct. 25 or Oct. 27!**__ =

=__** ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPCOMING DATES :**__=

Thurs., Oct. 20...VMEPC Mtg., 7:00 p.m.
Tues., Oct. 25...Parent-Teacher Conferences, 4:00-8:00 p.m. Thurs., Oct. 27...Parent-Teacher Conferences, 4:00-8:00 p.m.  Fri., Oct. 28...No School...Conference Comp Day Mon., Oct. 31...Halloween Parties

**//Halloween Parties will be held on Monday, October 31st. All parties must be held in the afternoon. The school is encouraging each classroom to have a 'healthy' Halloween party. Please consider bringing healthy snacks. Also, we are asking parents to bring light colored drinks so as to avoid stains on the carpeting. Students may wear their costume for the party but may not wear make-up, scary or incredibly violent costumes in school. Weapons must be left at home. Thanks!//**

** Here are the important dates to remember: **
= __ DUE NOW!!! Pledge envelopes need to be returned to school. Do NOT collect money at this time __**. ** =

** Oct. 31...Pledge envelopes and money due back at school **
=== ** There's a lot at stake in addition to just collecting pledge money! If we as an elementary, K-5, can spell 4500 words correctly, everyone gets 10 extra minutes of recess! 6500 correctly spelled words earns everyone one full extra recess! 8500 words spelled correctly will result in an all-school ice cream party! ** ===

Do you like to write? Consider entering Mrs. P's (Kathy Kinney, AKA Mimi from the Drew Carey Show) writing contest. Please visit the following website for information.
@http://www.contest.mrsp.com/

One of our annual, and favorite, assemblies every year is The Old Creamery Theater's Young People's Tour. It is always packed with fun skits and songs, based on a theme.
==== The theme this year is "The Very Best Me". They are looking for original stories, poems, or songs that focus on characters striving to do their personal best by using one or more of the pillars of character. ====

It would be fun to announce a winner from our school when The Old Creamery Theater visits us on April 16!
//** Parents: Just a reminder that after 3:00, you should pick up elementary students through the cafeteria door entrance. A new state law requires bus and parent pick-ups to be at different entrances. Once the buses start lining up at 3:00, parents should NOT use the front entrance to pick up students. You may park in the pick-up lane in front of the cafeteria door, or in parking stalls on the east side of the building. Please wait in the cafeteria at the end of the day for students. If you wish to visit with a teacher, you are welcome to come down to the classrooms after students are dismissed. **//

=== //In the mornings, the front of the elementary is for __student drop off only__. If parents are wanting to come into the building in the morning, please park in stalls along the north or east sides of the building.// ===

=== Each grade level is needing a representative to the Van Meter Elementary Parents' Committee (VMEPC). This person will attend the VMEPC meeting each month (every third Thursday, usually at 7:00 p.m.) to represent your child's grade level. You will help make decisions regarding the elementary fund raisers, money usage, and teacher support. The VMEPC is a great way to be involved and to meet other parents! Please let us know ASAP if you are interested in serving as the rep from either Mrs. Volk's room or Mrs. Skahill's/Miss Stephens' room. Thank you! ===

=== ** Your child has been introduced to the Skills Iowa computer program. This is a computerized program that your child can access at home. S/he can work on a variety of reading, vocabulary, math, or language arts skills. You will find the link on the Van Meter Library and Tech site. S/he has been given a username and password, which should be written on the front pages of their planner. Please feel free to investigate at home. Thanks! ** ===

=== Both homerooms will have a "Homework Club" each quarter. We will keep a chart in our rooms, tracking which students return their homework packets on time each week. Students who consistently return their packets each week will be rewarded at the end of each quarter! ===

=== //We have been informed that the kitchen can no longer store items that need to be frozen or refrigerated. You will need to provide a cooler if your child is bringing treats that require refrigeration. Thank you for your cooperation.// ===

__**LITERACY:**__
Please check out the link below to follow our Roald Dahl 50th birthday celebration activities. @https://sites.google.com/a/vmbulldogs.com/van-meter-technology/author-and-book-news/3rd-grade/follow-that-peach We are introducing the 6-Traits of Writing and will be focusing on the trait of IDEAS. In reading, we will make predictions and connections. We will use context clues, identify main events, question, and infer. Please encourage your child to read at home.

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This chapter will focus on place value--specifically reading, writing, and identifying place values of digits in whole numbers through hundred thousands. We will round numbers through four digits, compare and order numbers, and analyze and solve problems using skills and strategies.===== Please continue to practice the basic math facts. Many of the errors we see with addition and subtraction of greater numbers are errors in our basic facts, not errors in the process.

__SCIENCE:__
This was a short week in science due to missing Monday and having a couple guest speakers. We took a written assessment over the skeletal system and joints. Most of those were sent home, and a few have been held back to be shared at conference time. We then began a short unit on how our bones, joints, and muscles work together to give us our coordination (or lack thereof!), and the students were introduced to the concepts of stimulus and response.

= __**SOCIAL STUDIES:**__ = ==== We are continuing to look for a volunteer to help us turn the paper design into a fabric flag. The flag isn't due until the end of the year when we host our country potluck. If you are interested in helping us with this project, please contact Ann Volk. ==== ==== We are reviewing the different features of urban, suburban, and rural communities. We will also be learning about how communities change and how people of many cultures live in the communities. We will identify some of the holidays that Americans celebrate together. ==== ==== During the week of September 12th and 19th, we participated in activities that helped us to become more familiar with our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We performed plays which highlighted 4 different rights. I'm hoping to have our plays linked to this site so that you can enjoy them at home. I will let you know when that happens. We played 'what if we had to narrow down the 10 rights to 5' and tried to come to a consensus about which 5 of our rights we could eliminate. We realized that this was harder than we thought. We shared our ideas about how our lives might be different if our founding fathers hadn't written the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We signed our own Third Grade Constitution. ==== ==== Check with your child about Daily Detective. The purpose of this project is to not only help the students learn about the countries of the world, but also to help them research. Each day a new clue will go up on our 'detective board'. The students will be able to write the clue down and bring it home so that you can, if needed, help your child to identify the country. The clues start out very broad and as the week goes on, get more specific. Please ask your child about Daily Detective and each daily clue. ==== Congratulations to Lucy, Isaac, Lilly, and Tico for solving the Daily Detective last week.

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**PLEA for HELP: My family adopted a Cockatoo and a Quaker from the Parrot Rescue. (CRAZY, I know) We are looking for cardboard egg cartons because the cockatoo loves to shred. :) Please send any egg cartons to school and drop them off in my room. We know he loves to play with and destroy them. Thanks for your help!** =====

Spelling note: At the close of each spelling unit the students are given a CLOZE paragraph to test their word and spelling knowledge. I have decided to give the students the words prior to the CLOZE so that they can practice the words that they do not know how to spell. The students are given a choice about which words to write in their planner. They may write all the words or only the words that goof them up. I encourage you to check out their planners and compare it to their CLOZE paragraph to see how they are doing. You may want to tell them to write all the words unless you are confident in your child's ability to spell. Keep in mind that the CLOZE paragraphs may not be a weekly thing as it depends on how many lessons we do in each unit. Once the CLOZE paragraphs are graded and returned, the students are suppose to write the words missed on a sheet of paper. This is to be an on-going list and should be kept in their take home folder. Please ask your child about this list. It can be used to help them study. Thanks

Thank you to everyone who signed up to help with our parties this year. We are still looking for some helpers. Please let me know if you are interested in signing up for any of the following spots: We are REALLY needing one more brave risk-takers to sign up to be the **Person in Charge** of the Halloween party. Thank you to Mrs. Gilliland for volunteering to chair the Christmas party. We are also needing someone to bring in a drink item for the Christmas party, and another person to bring in a non-edible treat for the Valentine's Day party. Please let me know if you are interested in helping with any of those areas!

** __MRS. SKAHILL/MISS STEPHENS__ **
==== Spelling word lists are handed out at the //beginning// of each unit so they can be studied in preparation for the cloze test. Watch for the word lists glued into the planner. As mentioned previously, we won't be taking a cloze test every week...we work up to tests as we go through the word/phonics lessons in each unit. ====