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The Real Deal
Hey all,
So I have a few things that I think you might be interested in. Sorry this is a big one, maybe read it in chunks.
1. Storyline Culmination
I am so excited about this. In case you didn’t know, we are writing a kid friendly guide book to Portland. They received a letter a while back from the owner of the Children’s Place bookstore stating the need for this kind of book. They have agreed to host our culmination. It is scheduled on March 16th at 6:30pm. You will get a formal invitation in March but I wanted to give you plenty of notice. They have also generously offered to give 10% of all sales that day to our classroom libraries.
2. Volunteer opportunities
So a couple of ways that you could get involved. I have scheduled 2 field trips. And 1 classroom opportunity.
- Oregon Children’s Theater for Flora and Ulysses. It’s a book by Kate DiCamillo. It’s beautiful. We can only take 2 people with us because of the availability of tickets. We are taking a school bus, no need to drive. Friday march 17th, 10:30-2:30 ALL VOLUNTEER SPOTS ARE SPOKEN FOR
- Providence Park Health and Fitness Day. This is a health fair and a T2 Timbers game. We went last year during our Portland Storyline, which was perfect but the Timbers didn’t want to change their whole schedule to suit us, so it will fall out of the Storyline 😤 May 10th, All Day. 5-6 people.
- Book Groups are a fun way for kids to take their reading to the next level. They choose books. Read them and talk about them. They need a grown up to help them facilitate conversation and help them with logistics. It’s one day a week, any day that works for you. Most days any time between 1:00-2:30. Thursdays 11:00-12:15. Book groups typically last 40 minutes. They are currently getting these groups going with me and then after spring break I would love to have some parent help.
- You may or may not be thinking where is the Portland field trip? I’ll admit I am struggling a little bit to get it scheduled. My old trip no longer fits well with this new storyline. Also our cities housing crisis has created some pretty bananas situations for me in the past couple of years. I’m going to work it out. We are going to do something. Because of snow days though we are going to do it sometime in the week before spring break. We will have had our culmination so it will be a sort of celebratory field trip. Everyone who wants to come is welcome. It is all day. More details to come on that one.
3. Report Cards
They will be coming home on Monday with the regular stuff in them. But they also will have an Xtra Math print out. One is a login for you if you are interested in logging in and tracking progress or practicing at home. The other is a print out of their scores. Xtra Math is an online program to help make fast facts (+ – x /) well…fast. It has them take a couple minutes out of their day to practice. Some of you are going to be surprised by their addition scores. They are generally pretty low. But no worries, they are improving fast and it takes some time for them to know the format.
4. Snow Days
Whoa, I didn’t even know it was possible for us to have so many snow days. It is crazy…and complicated. PPS is such a huge machine and there are 1000’s of factors for each decision and then 1,000’s of consequences. I’m not holding my breath waiting for the perfect solution to our conundrum. Instead we have been doing double math. We are all caught up and doing fine in the math department. Our storyline has suffered some what, our offices don’t have a name, we have lost our character a little bit however, I think our final product and culmination is going to be so special they won’t remember that it lagged a bit in the middle.
Hope your enjoying this February fake out.
Allison
Valentines Day
Hey All,
I have a whole post for you but when it rains it pours around here so I am just going to do the time sensitive post today and I’ll put the full post up at the end of the week.
Valentines Day is next Tuesday. The only rule I have is if you decide to do it, you must bring valentines for everyone. (I have hilarious ones that I have wanted to do for years.) One thing I reccomend is not adding the To: Name because it makes it simpler for kids to stuff bags. I will send the valentines home at the end of the day.
There are 28 kids in our class. Below you will find a class list if you so choose.
Adaira
Aiden
Ashleigh
Caitlin
Casey
Danika
Eldonna
Elgin
Eli G
Eli M
Eliana
Emily
Finn
Fiona
Henry
Ilias
Imogen
Izaak
Kayla
Kevin
Lydia
Malloy
Milo
Nicole
Seren
Serena
Shani
Willa
Thank You
Hey All,
Thank you so much for all the lovely Holiday gifts. It was so nice to be thought of. My other teacher friends are always so amazed by how generous you guys are. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit. You guys are the best.
Thinking of other things to tell you I realize I owe another thank you to the Hardy’s. When I had Lachlan in my class they introduced me to Hour of Code. It is an international program that introduces kids of all ages to Coding. We have done some off the computer Coding in Math and then just before the break we participated in the “official” Hour. I really believe that coding is a language. The younger you learn, the better off you will be. It only takes them 20 minutes to be better coders than me. It’s pretty amazing.
My last thank you is to my partner teacher Brandi. Her and I worked over the break to solidify our Storyline. The characters have been hired to work at a publishing house, they have built and set up their offices. We are working from the top floor of Big Pink. The next task is to break up into teams that will cover different things in the city and then finally we will pick our topic. This year we are creating one whole book so that means that we will have 57 unique pieces about Portland to go into our guidebook.
Thank you for everything that you do,
Allison
Happy Holidays
Hello,
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I went to visit my husbands family in Colorado and I got to see the sun for 5 days in a row. It was beautiful. Just some quick things.
We are headed to Franz Bakery on Wednesday. We are headed out at 11:30 and will be back around 2:30. This is my first trip to the Bakery and I think it’s going to be pretty cool.
We are participating in the Blazer Read Big program. I think most kids who wanted to participate already have. When they finish a reading log they are given a Blazer ticket. I will turn them in next week which will generate a link for you all to get the tickets. I think the tickets they win are 300 level but of course you can upgrade if you choose.
Speaking of Portland sports team we were surprised with a visit from The Timbers Diego Valeri. It was a total surprise, they emailed because a school fell through and they needed a 3rd grade classroom at the last minute. I honestly thought they would send Timber Joey or a U23 player. I was shocked when he walked in the door. It was very exciting. I have pictures, but I never asked if you guys wanted me to post pictures on this website. So I plan to do so, in a week or so. I will send out a reminder that I have posted them, unless I get an email from one of you saying you do not want the pictures on the site. This is a public site, however I get no hits other than you guys.
We have started our Portland Storyline and we are currently setting up our offices and generating ideas about what would be cool to put in a Portland Guide Book.
Thanks so much for everything you do,
Allison
Full on Fall
A couple of things for this month
- Halloween and the deluge of candy that it brings. I do allow Halloween candy for 1 week after Halloween. If they want to bring something small for snack and in their lunch I am fine with that. After the week I will ask them to take it home and not bring it back.
- I have created a post with their PPS logins on it. Go here if you want to keep tabs of their login and password
- Here is the conference sign up, a few families still need to get on, if that is you please sign up
- Reminder for families new and old, we do not dress up during the day on Halloween, we save all of our dressing up for the Halloween Party. It is a super well attended event and so it gets really crowded, masks are not super safe for kids at this even because they cannot see well.
- Speaking of the Halloween Party we still are short some volunteers. These events only happen when people step up to run the events. Sign up here
PPS Login and Passwords
As students in PPS your child has a Google Login. It does not have a MAIL function but it does have other google functions. This includes being able to share documents among themselves as well as you and me. They have not yet been taught how to share but we are about to do that in the coming weeks. The rule is that, right now, they are only allowed to share with you (if they know your email) and me. During this year they will be able to collaborate with each other, but we are taking it slow because it can lead to funny business. Anyways since they are 8, I wanted to provide you with their login and password. I have attached their login cards, they are sorted in alphabetical order by last name. pps-logins
Hello Fall
Fall is here with our first storm. A group of teachers are headed out this afternoon (Thursday) to canvas for measure 97. That is how important Measure 97 is to us, we are willing to go out in the pouring rain in order to let people know how much we need it. At this point I am a measure 97 expert, if you have any questions about the measure or want to volunteer(!!!!!!) let me know.
Halloween Party
If you took a poll of CSS kids about their favorite event of the year I think it would be a toss up between Campout and the CSS Halloween Party. It is incredible event that transforms our halls into a spooky Halloween spectacular. This year it is happening on Friday, October 28th. This event does not happen without the volunteers to run each game and event. The ask from the PTA is that you do one 1/2 hour shift at our class game (Sign Up Here). I’m not sure if you are aware but last year our Halloween party was pulled off by a very small number of volunteers last year. It was really stressful for them and although seemed great from the outside was kind of chaotic behind the scenes. Many hands make light work so please sign up here and I will put your name on the sheet outside our door. The Halloween Party will only happen with your help!! (Seriously, it will not happen if there are not enough volunteers)
Field Trip
With great excitement I announce the 1st Field trip of the year. We are going to be headed to Franz Bakery. A Portland institution, we will be visiting during our Portland Storyline. We are going on November 30th. If you would like to come with us let me know. I am not sure exactly how many volunteers we are allowed but if you let me know I will make a list and then take the first people who volunteer.
Have a great 3 day weekend!
Nuts & Bolts Info
It was great to see so many of you at back to school night. If you were unable to make it, no worries, your child can take you on a tour of the class any time you want. I didn’t do a presentation for people last night because the kids were so pumped to show off their stuff. I think my boring presentation would lose out to your own child’s excitement to show off. However here are some things that are common questions that parents have in the beginning of the year.
- When do I see work that my child has completed? Why are there no marks on these papers? Does she even grade them? I will admit that my system for sending work home is not the most efficient system. It has not had the attention paid to it as other parts of my practice. Essentially what happens is children turn things into their red drawer and I fish them out and grade them. Sometimes I just go through the entire drawer, enter the scores digitally and file their papers. Sometimes I cherry pick from the drawers and take out a specific assignment that I need data on immediately. But either way their assignments get looked at and then filed into a little file for each child. Periodically I will take out all the papers from the file and send them home. I am hoping to do this on Friday’s, or maybe every other Friday. They almost never have any sort of mark or score on them. I do this for 2 reasons.
- I enter everything digitally so that the computer can quickly come up with groups for me. When I enter in data, my trusty software quickly puts kids in color groups based on their scores. This allows me to have flexible groupings. Each child is considered for their needs for each skill, not their over all level in the subject. For example, if I handed out two assignments in math one week, one about fractions and one about 2 digit addition, your child may be in different working groups for each skill. They were aces in fractions and they are now ready to move on to more complicated fractions. They can work with other kids who are ready with them, the next time we do fractions. But they struggled with place value so they will be placed with other kids with similar needs and we will have a small group to try and go over what they are missing. I simply do not have time to grade digitally and manually.
- The kids do not care what I write on the paper. 3rd graders tend not to take in information I write to them on assignments. I can write capitalize you I’s 1 million times and they will never do it. All they want to know is that the work has been seen and they have received credit for it. I have classroom volunteers stamp papers so they know that I have seen it.
- What is my kid going to learn in 3rd grade? Brandi and I have put together this handy dandy guide 3rd-grade-benchmarks-for-parents
- When are specials? Monday: Art Tuesday: Library Friday: P.E. Lunch 12:15-12:55
- Do you have an invention center? Yes we do. If you wanna send in recycling, please do. Also feel free to make a rule that your kids must put their inventions back in the invention center at the end of the week. They do not need to bring it all home. Discuss that with your kiddo. If they are having some trouble letting go of their inventions let me know and I can help you out.
- Storylines! What are they and when do they start? We have two Storylines this year. One I have done for years. The Portland Storylines. One little twist this year is we are going to make guide books instead of a newspaper. This one is all about Portland and informational writing. We will start in October. The 2nd storyline is new so I am going to ask you not to spill the beans. I only really get one true surprise. It is going to be a Bee Fair. It is going to be a science based storyline. We are very excited.
- Is Mindup still a thing? For those of you who need a reminder or are new, we use a curriculum called Mindup to to help students focus on their brains in order to understand themselves better and in turn understand others better. We focus on core practice, which is a time set aside to breathe, calm down and get focused. We will focus for a while on empathy and seeing things from other people’s perspectives.
- Anything else you are curious about?
Homework Etc
Hello All,
You may or may not have heard the news that Brandi and I will not be sending home weekly homework this year. It was met with a mix of excitement and disappointment. I am sure you have seen several teachers in the news lately who have elected to forgo homework. The reason is simple. The research says very clearly, for students in early grades it has absolutely no effect on their achievement. As a constructivist school we focus on work that is meaningful to build knowledge and skills they will need and use throughout the year. Homework is often disconnected because the the time frame it takes to get it done. There are so many things to learn in this life. I want a lot from them at school, I ask them to work extremely hard while they are here, I hope they can spend some time pursuing their interests while they are not in school. I hope my students get a chance to play sports, do crafts, eat dinner with their families, bond with their siblings, go to the library, take advantage of the nature here in Portland, do chores, go to the movies, make movies, learn to code, decorate their bedroom and so many other things. I want happy healthy kids who are able to put everything they have into school while they are here.
This being said, if they are not working hard during the day here I will reserve the right to send work home to be finished.
Here is a Washington Post Article that talks about homework and is linked to several studies.
Other things coming up soon:
Friday 23rd – Creative Arts Run
Wednesday 28th – Back To school Night – I will post a separate back to school night post with the nuts and bolts of the classroom so you an always go back and look for it and reread it if you need to. I will also put the sign up for conferences in that post, that will go live on Friday the 30th. If you need help with an electronic sign up let me now and I will help you out.
Important info and websites
Hello All,
Welcome to 3rd grade. I am super excited to start a new school year. This is my website. I post info and newsletters here. Each time I post something you will get an email reminder that there is a post waiting for you to read. I will do my best to be as quick as possible. I know you are busy so I will try to make it a two minute read. You also can refer back to these posts at anytime.
You can comment on these posts and it is a direct link to me. I will receive a notification and I can answer you. So if you have general questions feel free to post them here. I am sure other people will be thinking the same things. Also feel free to request updates on specific classroom stuff. So much goes on on here, and since I want to be brief, I sometimes have trouble deciding what to include. If you are wondering about something please request an update and I will include it.
Two other websites to be aware of.
1. My other website, which is not all that exciting to be honest. It is simply a website where kids go to click on tech assignments. There will be left over stuff from last year on there. We will not get started in the lab until at least October.
2. Mrs. Kleiner has set up a library website she also has a message for you that I have posted here.
If you have not yet handed in your $25 for supplies or your back to school paper work please do so next Tuesday.
Allison
CSS 3rd Grade 