Mrs. Simon's Third Grade Blog

We will be taking the math MAP test on Friday, May 18 at 9:00 and the reading MAP test on Monday, May 21 at 12:45.

A lot of things are happening in 3S. We are working on our author study of Andrew Clements. We did a Highland Park drawing with Google Docs and used our notes from Highland Park history notes to create it. We finished our Story Town. Our class read the reader’s theater called Voyage Across the Solar System. We are learning about simple machines. We liked the movie Bill Nye the Science Guy to help us learn more about simple machines. In gym we did golf. Everyone’s shots were pretty cool! This week has been awesome!

We started Andrew Clements literature circles. The books we are reading are Jake Drake – Know it All, No Talking, and The School Story. We also started researching Chicago to learn about Chicago history, famous people, and famous landmarks. We having been learning about Highland Park. We put interesting facts in a Google Drawing document. In music we started play recorders. Everything we did this week was fun!!!

Don’t forget to schedule your interview for your Highland Park project! The project is due Wednesday, May 16.

We are studying Highland Park. We were assigned special places around Highland Park to find out more information about them. Some people got the Highland Park library, fire department, police department and many more. We are finishing our poet study of Jack Prelutsky. On Monday we will perform our memorized poems. We have been working on a new science unit simple machines. We finished our read aloud Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism and started Secret of Zoom. We just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods.

We have been doing all sorts of activities for our Jack Prelutsky poet study. We just received homework assignments. We need to read a poem to the class and act out a poem we memorized. We are also reading Little House in the Big Woods. We are on Chapter 11. We think we are doing a book report for it, but Mrs. Simon has not told us yet. We started getting Golden Tickets again. There are going to be cool prizes this time.

This week Sarah Weeks the children’s author came to our school. Some books that Sarah wrote are So Be It, Pie, and Oogie Codder. In gym we did tennis and tennis baseball. It was great. We finally finished our trip on the Hacker’s Trail. The red wagon train did not make it. The blue and green wagon trains made it to Hacker’s Valley.

April is National Poetry month. To celebrate we are studying poet Jack Prelutsky. We are also writing poetry. We are close to finishing our pioneer simulation of Hacker’s Trail. Happy Easter, Good Friday, and Passover!

Our class will not be sending home weekly reading sheets from March 9-April 9. I want the students to record the books and pages read on the District 112 iRead sheet. The children are welcome to participate in the 112 Education Foundation fundraiser. However, no donation is necessary. I will be checking their sheets at the end of the iRead for 112 Foundation on April 9th. Last year our class won the popsicle party for the class that read the most minutes at Braeside School. They were quite proud of their accomplishment. Let’s see if we can do it again.

On Thursday, March 22nd, Newbery and Caldecott-award winner children’s author and illustrator, Kevin Henkes, will be visiting Braeside’s first and second grade students. In second grade we did an author study of his books. While Mr. Henkes is only able to meet with those two grade levels,  all students have the opportunity to purchase one of his books, which he will personalize and autograph on the day of his visit!

To learn more about Kevin Henkes, you can visit his website here: www.kevinhenkes.com

For another copy of his order form, click here: Kevin Henkes Order Form