12/9

How is it already December?? It feels like just yesterday that we were having back to school night and I was meeting all of these kiddos for the first time! They have grown so much since then and I am so proud of each  one of them!  

Upcoming dates:
December 14- Citizen of the month assembly
December 20- Winter party

Here are some curriculum updates!

Reading: We recently finished our latest read aloud The Kid Who Ran For President! The kids loved this book and it was a great way to learn about the election process. In Daily 5 we are continuing to do small guided reading groups! The kids have grown so much since the beginning of the year.

Math- We have began our unit on multiplication. We are focusing at recognizing groups of items and developing patterns to help us count them quickly!  This week we began our investigations over our Muffles and Truffles unit. This asked the students to take large groups of Truffles and break them down into boxes of 10. The students have been doing well on this topic so far. When we come back in Janurary we will begin to work harder on the fact fluency. 

Science- We concluded our unit on citizenship and American symbols with having each of the kids present their American symbol project to the class. We have now began a unit on weather. 

Writing- We have been hard at work on a project the kids are making to give as a present for Christmas. We have also begun our nonfiction writing unit. The students are currently writing a piece over something that they are an expert in! 

This week we also did a fun activity to decorate our room for Christmas! We lit up the room with kindness! We took some time to write out some kind words about one another and hung them up around the classroom! They look great!

11/11

Happy Veterans Day! I hope that everyone is enjoying their day off from school today! This week was short but very productive in third grade! It was such a great experience to meet with each family this week to let you know how great this class is! It is so hard to believe we are already done with our first trimester this year! Time flies so fast!  Here are some updates about what is going on in our classroom.

Upcoming Dates:

11/14-Veteran's/Grandparent's Day Celebration-10:00-11:00

11/15-Picture Retakes

11/17-Third Grade Music Performance-6:30

11/22-Thanksgiving Celebration- 12:45-1:15

11/23-11/25-No School

Thanksgiving Celebration:

On November 22, third grade will be inviting all parents in to the classrooms for a Thanksgiving Celebration. The celebration will start right after lunch (at 12:45) and will only last about 30 minutes. During this time, we will be performing a Thanksgiving reader's theater, enjoying some pumpkin treats and apple cider, and sharing a Thanksgiving craft. Also, if you are wanting to join your child for lunch before, you are more than welcome to come and eat with them in the cafeteria. Lunch starts around 12:17.  I am really looking forward to sharing with our families everything we are thankful for this year!

A note from Miss Martin, our music teacher:
Reminder that the 3^rd Grade Music Program “Best Self, Best Work, Best World” is on Thursday, Nov. 17^th at 6:30pm in the BEU Cafeteria. Your child needs to be dropped off at 6pm to meet Miss Martin in the music room. Please email jmartin@cpsk12.org with any questions!

On Nov. 16^th, 3^rd grade will be taking a field trip to see the MO Symphony perform at Missouri Theatre. Students will leave school at 9am and return around 11am. 

Math:

This week we began our multiplication unit and the kids are really picking it up fast. This unit is very driven by studnet inquiry and lets students explore several real world scenarios to develop a deeper understanding of multiplication.  The students are beginning to look at different strategies that can be used to help them group larger numbers together efficiently. 

Writing:

This week in writing we were able to share our personal narratives. As a class we had a small share fair with Miss Ryberg's class where the students were able to share their hard work with other kids. It was incredible to see how hard each student has worked in this unit and how much they have grown since the beginning of the year. 

Mascot Election:

If you have not heard by now, Beulah Ralph has officially adopted the Timber wolf as the new school mascot! The kids were so excited during the morning meeting when it was announced! 

10/28

What a fun fall party today! It was so great to see so many families in the classroom! I know that the kids had a blast! Here are some updates about the classroom. 

Upcoming Dates:

10/31-No School

11/4-Progress Reports go home

11/7-Parent-Teacher Conferences

11/8-No School

11/10-Parent-Teacher Conferences

11/11-No School

11/14-Veteran's/Grandparent's Day Celebration-10:00-11:00

11/15-Picture Retake

11/17-Third Grade Music Performance-6:30

11/22-Thanksgiving Celebration- 12:45-1:15

11/23-11/25-No School

Math:

This week we finished our subtraction unit and took a test1 You should see these in Friday Folders. They did a great job! Next week we will begin our multiplication unit, which truly is my favorite! We will begin by exploring what multiplication is through a problem solving unit. Eventually, we will start memorizing multiplication facts, but not right off the bat. 

Writing:

We are in the FINALLY in the publishing stage of our personal narratives. Next week we will be working on writing an essay for Veteran's Day called "What America Means to Me". One third grader will be chosen to read his or her essay at our Veteran's Day assembly!

Reading:

We started our new read aloud called The Kid Who Ran for President! It is a great fictional book about what would happen if a kid decided to run for president. We are also going to be learning about the election process through this book! 

I hope everyone has a great three day weekend and a safe Halloween!

Kimber Rutledge 

10/14

Important Dates

10/19- Half Day

10/28- Fall Party

10/31- No School

10/17- Dental Clinic

10/18- Lunch with the principal

11/4 progress reports go home

Happy Friday! We have been having a great week here in room 205. Here are some updates on what is happening in our room

Math: We have been working on two digit subtractions. Students have been struggling with the concept of regrouping so we have been taking our time to make sure we all understand. We started out using place value blocks and then we branched out to using the stacking and regrouping method! Next week we will move onto three digit subtraction before we take our test.

Writing: We are almost done with our personal Narratives. Students finished their first story and are now working on their second story. These stories are looking great so far and it looks like we will have them all ready by the time of conferences!

Science and Social Studies: This past week we learned a lot about magnets! We learned about the different poles they have and what type of metals they attract.  Next week we will start our civics unit. We will be learning about our country and learn more about how the election works!  We will be using the BEU mascot election as an example!

Fall Party: October 28^th is our fall party! If you would like to sign up to volunteer for this event please go onto the shutterfly class page and sign up. As a school we will not be allowing students to dress up for the fall party. However, it should still be a great time!

November Thanksgiving Celebration:  Something to put on your calendars is our Third Grade Thanksgiving Celebration on November 22^nd. More information is to come!

Reading Log: make sure you are keeping up with the reading logs for this month! They are due on October 28^th!

Coats: As the weather is changing please make sure to be sending coats with your students on chiller days! A rule in my classroom is that if it is below 50 degrees you need a light coat or a sweatshirt on!

Have a great Friday!

Miss Rutledge

September 30th

Math- Today we had a math test over three digit addition. We have been reviewing for the test this whole week and the students have been doing well! Next week we will be switching gears to work on subtraction. This will be our third unit this year and should take us a couple weeks.

Writing- In writing we have selected our favorite personal narrative we have written so far. Now we are beginning the editing process! This week specifically we worked on drafting interesting leads to start our stories. We learned how to start our stories with dialogue, sounds, questions, and action verbs to keep our readers engaged in our stories.  Next week we will begin to work on adding in character traits and dialogue in our stories.

Science- The past two weeks have been very exciting in science! Our force an motion unit is off to a great start. Last week we defined forces to be a push or a pull. We also experimented with ramps to discover what force pulls things to the ground. This week we learned about air resistance and friction. We designed parachutes in order to help our small animal toys land safely from being launched off the playground! The students did a great job creating effective parachutes.

Sick Day- THANK YOU to all parents who donated things for our “sick day” we had a blast. The kids more than deserved this award this week.

Golden Broom Award- This week our class won the golden broom award. This award is given to the classroom who has the cleanest room. I am thrilled we have finally won this award! It was much deserved!

Reading Log- I have sent home the October reading log today with students. I will continue to check the reading log on Fridays for that week. Make sure that your student is reading  20 minutes a night!

Have a great weekend!

Miss Rutledge
Krutledge@cpsk12.org

September 19th

This week we received our classroom set of iPads! Students have worked with a few apps, such as ST math,  Myon reader, educreations, seesaw, epic, and many more!

Reading- We have continued to practice rotating between our Daily 5 groups: read to self, listen to reading, word work, work on writing, and small group time with me. Students have been doing an awesome time so far! We have been working hard to do each station for 20 minutes at a time! Starting next week, I will begin meeting with each student, every day in a small group setting during Daily 5. 

Math- This week we worked on adding numbers using a hundreds chart, estimating sums of addition problems, and learning the different addition properties. Next week we will begin to work on two and three digit addition. Students were able to make some really cool math videos about their thinking on their Ipads! Here are a couple videos to check out what we have been doing!

Video 1
Video 2


Science- We began our force and motion unit. Student learned about forces and motion this week. Next week we will be experimented with ramps, balls, and sandpaper to observe different forces acting upon one another. 

Please make sure you are looking through Friday folders and signing them. 

Upcoming dates:
September 26th- teacher work day
September 30th- monthly reading log due
October 4th- picture day
October 19th- Early release day

September 9th

Happy September! It has been a great week in third grade! It great to meet with you on Get the Scoop Night! I love to hear all that you have to say about your kids and I feel like I got such a better peek into their lives outside of school! This past week we had our first library checkout and the kids loved exploring all of the many new books. They cozied up on the couches and chairs and wanted to stay all afternoon to read!

This week in reading I have been spending a lot of time assessing each student to see where they are as a reader. These assessments will help me form reading groups that will be starting once we have started all of our Daily 5 stations. This week we focused on the Read to Someone station and have begun to build our stamina. 

In writing we have been learning about strategies to come up with a small moment story for a personal narrative. We also set writing goals for this new year. Next week we will talk about the important elements of a personal narrative. 

We have been working so hard in school the past couple weeks! The kids have already grown so much!  Make sure to check out their Family Notebooks that are coming home today for more information about what we have been up to in class!

Here are some other important house keeping things to be aware of

BIRTHDAYS: Per the parent/student handbook, treats must be store bought. These are requested because the nutrition labels help us to ensure the safety of our students with allergies. I ask that you refrain from bringing in presents/balloons/gifts for your student on their birthday. We will celebrate together with treats. Please communicate with me before bringing treats so we can set up a good time in our busy daily schedule! ​

SHUTTERFLY:  Many of you have already gotten an invitation to join our shutterfly page! Jada Hallmark, Tanners Mom, was kind enough to set this up for us. This is a great place to look for photos, updates, and sign ups to help out our classroom! If you did not get an email feel free to email me and I can get you connected!

FRIDAY FOLDERS:  Our Beulah Ralph Friday Folders have been coming home every week so far! You will find that inside there is a yellow piece of paper with the behavioral checklist each week. Please look this over and sign the back each week. I try to include comments each week to let you know how your student is doing in class!  I also ask that this sheet STAY inside the folder at all times! I already have a couple sheets missing so please make sure these are staying with the Friday Folders so I can keep track of your student’s progress throughout the semester.

FAMILY NOTEBOOKS-  Every two weeks your child will be bringing home their Family notebook on Friday. This is a great way for them to communicate with you about what is happening in our class. Please make sure to send them back to school the following week. Also I encourage you to write back to your student! They love to see that you are reading their writing and giving them some feedback!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Miss Rutledge

krutledge@cpsk12.org

Third Grade Update 8/26

UPCOMING DATES:

Tuesday August 30^th – GET THE SCOOP NIGHT

September 5^th – NO SCHOOL FOR LABOR DAY

Well we survived our first week of school! It has been such a great week getting to know each of the wonderful students in my class. I have been so fortunate to have an amazing group of students who are so caring and kind. These kids will bend over backwards to help each other and it makes me so happy to see that on a daily basis. I also can see our classroom community starting to form and I have loved seeing the kids make new friends. You would have no idea if you walked into our classroom that we all had just meet each other less than two weeks ago! Here are a few things to be aware of in the next week.

1. FAMILY NOTEBOOKS: We have learned a lot of new things this week, from establishing our class rules to starting to work on math and learning about place value the kids have been working so hard! If you would like to get a peek into our classroom check out our twitter account @Miss_Rutledge3 . Another great way to find out what we are learning is to check out the family notebook that came home with your student this Friday.   Our family notebooks are used to give the students an opportunity to tell their families about some of the great things we have been learning in class.  The students took their notebooks home today so please try to take the opportunity to read them this weekend! Also feel free to write back to your child in the notebook as well. This can be an awesome tool to help talk about school and how they are feeling about things in the classroom!  Please make sure to return the notebooks by MONDAY AUGUST 29^th!

2. BEHAVIOR CHECKLIST-Another important thing to note in the Friday folders this week are the behavior checklists. This yellow piece of paper should remain in the folders AT ALL TIMES.  I will send home this checklist every week with notes and comments on how your student has done this week. Make sure to sign the back of the page and send back the Friday folder on Monday. There is also a place for you to write back if necessary but as always feel free to email me with any other questions, comments, or concerns!

3. READING LOG- Starting on Monday students will be bringing home their weekly reading log.  This is the main homework assignment students will need to complete each week. This reading log asks that the students read 20 minutes a night and write a short response about what they read.  If you are busy with soccer practice or other events one night it is not a big deal Just make up the time another night and make sure we still meet our goal of 100 minutes a week!  Send the reading log back to school on Friday to turn it in! 

4. GET THE SCOOP NIGHT- I am very excited to see each of you at get the scoop night! I sent out an email earlier today asking for you to confirm your time to me in an email! We had some people who still needed to sign up and I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to meet with me.  I have read over the million words or less pages that you sent back to me and I have loved getting to know more about each student. Please feel free to bring anything else important to our meeting you would like me to know!

4. ACADEMICS- Here are some of the great things we will be doing in class the next few weeks.

Reading- We have been working on building our reading stamina. The kids have been trying so hard to reach their goal of 20 minutes and on Thursday we meet and beat our goal by two whole minutes. The kids tried so hard to “just keep reading” the whole time they were practicing building their stamina. This next week we will be working on building our Work On Writing stamina as well. We are trying to get to 20 minutes of independent writing as well!

Math- This week we have been working on place value, standard, and expanded form of numbers up to 100,000.  Soon we will be moving to working on adding and subtracting three digit numbers. We will be working on many different strategies for adding numbers to help the students solve them in many different ways.

Writing- Thank you for sending in some awesome pictures to help us decorate our writing notebooks! We have been generating ideas to help us write and next week we will be moving into our personal narrative writing unit.  Students will be focusing on writing about small moments and adding details and description to make their writing more vivid.

Thank you so much for all the generous snacks and donations to our classroom in the past few weeks. Our classroom has been able to run so smoothly because of these generous gifts!  The kids have loved being able to get a snack when they forget one. It has saved many hungry stomachs this past week!  I am excited to continue getting to know this silly group of third graders!

Miss Rutledge

krutledge@cpsk12.org

First Day of School!

Man! What a great first day! I feel so exhausted ! The kids were so great today I could not have asked for a better class. We practiced how to line up in the hallway, we colored Lego versions of ourselves, and made a lot of new friends!  I hope that all the students had a great day just like me. I can't wait to start the second day tomorrow.