September+23

=__**SEPTEMBER 23**__=

** SPIRIT FRIDAY (show your Bulldog spirit with blue and white clothing) **
__** Friday, Sept. 30: **__ //** American Legion Post 403 is having an Informational Town Hall meeting Friday, September 30, 2011 from 3:00-6:00 p.m. The meeting will be at the new building site, one block east of Wells Fargo Bank. Its purpose is to update community members and invited politicians on the Post efforts to build a Veterans' Reception Center, which would be used by families having burials at the State Veterans' Cemetery, meeting rooms for community planning events for profit and non-profit organizations, receptions for weddings, reunions, graduations, etc, and a place for American Legion Post 403 to hold its Legion gatherings. U.S. Representative Tom Latham, VA Executive Directory Jodi Tymeson (representing Governor Branstad), Amy Beller (representing U.S. Senator Tom Harkin), and Van Meter Mayor Fred Scaletta are some of the dignitaries attending, Please come and join us prior to the football game. **//

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 in the spring!
//** 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! ===
 * The next VMEPC meeting is scheduled for October 20th. **

// If you did not sign up for fall parent/teacher conferences during Open House, please contact your child's teacher so that a conference can be scheduled. 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.

__**MATH:**__
The students have taken their first pretest and are working on addition and subtraction strategies/skills. We students will be adding and subtracting two-, three-, and four-digit numbers using the respective properties. They will also be applying those strategies and skills to solve math problems. This would be a great time to review basic addition and subtraction facts.

__**SCIENCE:**__
2 more monarchs flew off to Mexico this week...four to go! We are drying milkweed pods right now, with the plan to harvest the seeds and plant milkweed in the prairie portion of our school garden next spring! We have some beautiful flowers to attract adult monarchs already growing in the garden, but we want to add milkweed so we can have eggs and caterpillars as well!

We are busy studying our skeletal system right now, and the kids have decided that the upcoming Halloween season is a good time to do that! After counting our bones, we learned the "scientific" names of some of the major bones/groups,creating a chart for our science notebooks. We then practiced putting 19 pieces of a skeleton together into one big guy! After a few kneecaps attached to the hip bones, and a couple collar bones at the bottom of the rib cages, the skeletons turned out looking pretty good! Now...we'll see what the kids can remember over the weekend!

You can surprise your children by asking themr to use their phalanges (fingers) to clear the dishes off the dinner table and to use their other phalanges (toes) to walk the dishes to the counter... or by asking them to keep their pelvis (hips) firmly on the chair at dinner time...or requesting that they chew with their mandibles (jaw bones) closed! :)

__**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 Isaac, Max, Lucy, and Tico for solving the Daily Detective last week.

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**PLEA for HELP: My family is adopting a Cockatoo and a Quaker from the Parrot Rescue. (CRAZY, I know) We are looking for old phone books because the cockatoo loves to shred, and apparently my house isn't messy enough. :) Please send any old phone books to school and drop them off in my room. We understand that the silly thing goes through several a week. 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!

I sent home a reading calendar. The students are being encouraged to read 400 minutes during the month of September. That would be approximately 14 minutes read a day, 19 minutes read per weekday, 27 minutes read if s/he only read for 15 out of the 30 days, or 50 minutes read if s/he reads only on the weekends. PLEASE encourage your child to read to reach the class goal. This reading time can be done independently, reading with you, or reading to or with a younger sibling. They can read books, comics, magazines, newspapers, or poetry. The goal is to READ! Taking time to visit with your reader about what they have read can be a big help as well. Thank you for your support at home! Elementary classrooms have the opportunity to participate in the Pizza Hut Book It program. We will be doing this starting in October. If your child meets the monthly reading goal, s/he will earn a certificate good for a free personal pan pizza redeemable at participating Pizza Huts. Thank you for encouraging your child to read!

** __MRS. SKAHILL/MISS STEPHENS__ **
The spelling "routine" is changing, and word lists will now be handed out at the //beginning// of each unit so they can be studied in preparation for the cloze test. Watch for the RED note that is coming home on Friday for a full explanation! 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.

__**Wish List:**__ colored copy paper ziploc sandwich bags ziploc gallon bags Clorox or Lysol wipes (we go through a lot of these!) paper towels refills for Glade plug-in air freshener ink cartridges for classroom printer...#98 (black) and/or #95 (color