Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone enjoyed the snowday. I look forward to seeing everyone again when we return January 5th. Until then, ... happy holidays!

Just a Reminder!

Tuesday, December 16th we visit the Polar Express. Please feel free to wear your pajamas! If you wear your P.J.'s, please bring in either a dollar or donate a fleece blanket to the children at Spectrum Hospital. Thanks ahead of time for your generosity!

Great Christmas Concert!

I was so impressed. What excellent singers and an awesome music teacher. Thanks Mrs. Good for all of your hard work!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! It’s hard to believe that our Christmas party is next Thursday. We will be starting at 2:30, please feel free to join us and if you can help donate any items for the party and haven’t sent in a note or replied in an e-mail, please let me know ASAP. Thanks ahead of time for all of your hard work in making our holiday celebration a success!
Math: We are in the middle of unit 5. We are doing many activities with graphs and answering questions using skills such as place value and multiplication.
Language Arts: We are finishing “King Wacky”. We had a great time pretending to be King Wacky, writing a letter saying the opposite of what we mean.
Science: The children have been exposed to the 6 different simple machines. We have discussed real life examples and how simple machines make our lives easier.

Dates to remember:
December
16th Polar Express. Wear your P.J.’s and donate a dollar or a fleece blanket.
18th Christmas party
19th Last day of school before break.
January
5th School resumes!
9th Our class does the candy sale

If you haven’t checked out our class blog please try to. I have posted pictures, homework for the week, spelling words if your child misplaces their list, and I also post our newsletters, just in case you miss it. Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns.

Coming up...

Just a reminder that we have our music concert on Tuesday night @ 6:45 p.m. in the High School auditorium. We are suppose to meet in the band room and we should try to get there 10-20 minutes early. Can't wait to see everyone! Wednesday we have Secret Santa shopping, so please send money if you want your child to buy anything. Thanks!

Sledding

We had a great time sledding today. Unfortunately I only got a few shots while we were out. Have a great weekend and enjoy the snow!

Ready for Christams?

I hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving and the snow day yesterday. I am thankful for all of you! I am so impressed with your generosity, as we had the most can goods donated, way to go! I promised the kids a sledding party if they made it above 150 cans, so we will do that Friday afternoon.
We have many exciting things to look forward to. Tuesday, December 9th we have our Holiday music program at the High School. I want to encourage the children to dress up and relax. I’ve heard them all sing and they are wonderful. We also have Secret Santa shopping next Wednesday the 10th. If you would like your child to purchase gifts please send money in an envelope.

Math: We have had a great time doing activities with multiplication and division. One of our favorites has been playing multiplication baseball. The test on unit 4 will be this Friday.

Social Studies: We continue to learn about the history of Rockford, formerly known as Laphamville.
Language Arts: We are just starting a new story in our anthologies called “King Wacky”. The children love his backward ways!
Science: We are beginning our new unit on simple machines and will be doing activities all month.

Dates to remember:
December
9th Holiday music concert at RHS auditorium.
18th Christmas party
19th Last day of school before break.

Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns.

Have a Fabulous Thanksgiving!

I will be sending out a newsletter next week Monday. Until then, ... I hope everyone enjoys a nice relaxing Thanksgiving break! Also a huge congratulations goes out to our class for bringing in the most cans for our canned food drive. Thank you for your extreme generosity. The children are going to celebrate with a sledding party next Friday (unless the snow is gone). Thanks again and have a great Thanksgiving!

Almost Turkey Time!

I had a great week, meeting with all of you for conferences. I loved getting to know you and having the opportunity to share some of the things that we’ve been doing here at school. If at any time you have additional questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact me.
Language Arts: We have started the well known anthology “Chicken Little”. So far we have drawn a picture of our favorite scene and added a caption. We have also compared our text book version to others that we have heard before. The children also continue to work hard during writer workshop. They first wrote about a special person and now they are writing about a special place. With their writing I emphasize the importance of revising and editing.

Math: We are in unit 4. We have been practicing our multiplication facts starting with 0’s, 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s. Besides learning our multiplication facts, we are also practicing measurement, perimeter, and even the beginning of division!
Computer Lab: We did a reading test again on the computer called the star test. Next week we will be working on some of our math skills on coolmath4kids.com
Social Studies: We are going to begin our unit of study on Rockford. We look at the history of Rockford and compare it to today.
Dates to remember:
November
26th-28th Thanksgiving vacation, no school!
December
9th Holiday music concert at RHS auditorium.
18th Christmas party
19th Last day of school before break.
Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns.
E-mail: amatlosz@rockford.k12.mi.us
Blog: amatlosz@blogspot.com
phone: 616-863-6367 ext. 6711
Have a spectacular weekend and Go Rams!

Some cute Halloween Pictures

OK, I am not the best photographer, but I did manage to snap a few shots. I will try to take more and share throughout the year. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween

Thank you to everyone who helped with our party today. Your kindness and generosity it always appreciated!
We have been busy and looking forward to November. This month we will have report cards, conferences, and Thanksgiving. I sent home conference slips informing you of your conference time. Please let me know if you haven’t received this, and I will send home another slip or I can also let you know on the phone or e-mail as well. Thanks!
Language Arts: The children are finishing the anthology “Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock”. I have also been modeling how to write a complete sentence. I have already seen improvements, way to go!
Math: We are finishing unit 3. The children are doing a tremendous amount of measuring (to the nearest ¼ of an inch or centimeter), figuring of perimeter and area, and more practice with money.


Social Studies: We are having so much fun discussing the upcoming presidential elections. Don’t forget to vote next Tuesday!
Computer Lab: The last two weeks we have had a great time exploring a few internet sites.
One is http://www.eduplace.com/tales/ This site is similar to Mad Libs. It’s very fun and helps them realize different parts of speech.
The other site is http://www.spellingcity.com/ This site has fun activities to help the children practice their spelling words.

Dates to remember:
November
12th-14th ½ day for students. Parent teacher conferences.
26th-28th Thanksgiving vacation, no school!

MEAP begins

We had a great first week of the MEAP. The children did a wonderful job staying focused and doing their personal best. I know that they appreciated no homework, and have one more blissful week! Many people have asked when they will get the results. They should arrive in the spring, just in time for conferences. Speaking of conferences,…fall conferences are coming soon! They will be November 12th-14th. More information will be coming in the future about securing a specific time slot for you.

Spelling: We did a set list, but due to it being a short week, if your child would like to retake their test for a better score, they may do that on Monday.
Math: We are almost done with Unit 2 and will be taking the test next week!
Science: We are finishing our science unit on the human body. The children enjoyed learning about the brain with Mrs. Osborn, the lungs with Mrs. VanderWerp, and the digestive system with Mrs. Nyeholt.

Dates to Remember:
October
16th English Hills Silent and Live Auction.
17th No school for students, staff development day.
24th Picture Make-up Day
27th Family Night – Corn Maze
31st Halloween Parties
November
12th-14th ½ day for students. Parent teacher conferences.
26th-28th Thanksgiving vacation, no school!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Can you believe that it’s already October? Time flies when you’re busy and having fun! We have many things to look forward to this month. We will be starting the MEAP testing the week of October 13th. During the two week window I will not be assigning homework. We will still do spelling, but the children will have a set list those weeks. Thank you in advance for all of the wonderful snack donations that have been coming in. You may send them in any time. Your generosity is greatly appreciated!

Language Arts: The children may have told you that we have started literature discussion groups. I have two groups going at a time and when the group is finished with the book, they present a final project in front of the class. Our first group read “Stink and the Giant Galactic Jawbreaker”. They chose to present a scene from the book as a puppet show. Great job!
We just finished activities correlating with the anthology Miss Nelson is Missing. I also introduced chatter logs. The children had so much fun doing this, that we showed our buddies how to do it. I love this activity because children are reading, writing, and practicing spelling all at the same time!

Spelling: This was our first week of individualized lists. The students did great. We will continue this throughout the year, with exception of the MEAP weeks.

Math: The children have finished unit 1 and are moving through unit 2. They are learning about frames and arrows, in and out boxes, fact families, fact extensions, and number stories.

Science: We are still working on our human body unit. Soon we will be rotating and the children will visit the other third grade teachers to find out about different parts of the body. At this point the children have already learned about cells, muscles, and some basic body facts.


Dates to Remember:
October
14th MEAP begins.
16th English Hills Silent and Live Auction.
17th No school for students, staff development day.
24th Picture Make-up Day
27th Family Night – Corn Maze
31st Halloween Parties

Our room parents this year are Kendra Cook and Molly Duimstra. Thank you again to both of you for volunteering to organize our class parties. I know many of you also said that you would be more than willing to help and donate. Thank you so much for your extreme generosity, kindness, and support.
Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns.

Have a Wonderful Weekend!
Mrs. Matlosz

Fall is Quickly Approaching!

We have enjoyed another fun and exciting week here in third grade. We ended the week meeting with our book buddies from Mrs. Fowle’s class. We had a great time together! We have fun being the “older” students.
Language Arts: I had the kids use a scoring rubric and look over some of their writing and analyze how they did. I do this to help them see what they need to improve on to become better writers.
We are working on the anthology “Miss Nelson is Missing”. We also read aloud a book “The Gardner” and did several activities. We also take time to read and discuss our Weekly Readers.
We are currently learning cursive. The children are doing a wonderful job. This will be an ongoing process throughout the year.
Spelling: These past few weeks we practiced words ending with –s or –es and also words that have consonant blends. Thank you again for returning your test booklets!
Math: We are still doing many review activities in our math program. We have done frames and arrows, many coin activities, calculator review, place value, and more addition and subtraction.


Technology: The children just finished two weeks of a program called Type to Learn. This is a fantastic computer program that teaches the students to type without looking at the keyboard and constantly increase speed.
Science: We started our unit on the Human Body. The children are sharing what they already know and are having a blast learning new information.
Dates to Remember:
September
22nd Dogs for Dollars @ Corner Bar
29th Dogs for Dollars @ Corner Bar
26th Summer Reading celebration in the library. If you haven’t turned in your form, please do so as soon as possible!
October
14th MEAP begins
16th English Hills Silent and Live Auction.
17th No school for students, staff development day.
24th Picture Make-up Day
27th Family Night – Corn Maze
31st Halloween Parties

I want to thank all you for signing and returning weekly reports, agendas, spelling test booklets, and all other notes and forms. I truly appreciate it!
Please feel free to contact me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns.

Off to a Great Start!

What a wonderful first week of school! I have had a great time getting to know your children and many of you. It was nice seeing some of you at our curriculum night. Thank you again for being so flexible with the changes due to the weather. I look forward to a fantastic year.
Math:
We have already started unit 1 in math. We are reviewing subtraction, number grids, finding numbers around us, and place value. Next week we will be working on telling time, graphing, and name collection boxes.
Language Arts:
We made “Me mobiles” for the hall that tell about how we are good friends. We also interviewed friends and discussed after several read alouds important qualities that we believe good friends possess. The children also wrote about a summer story that made them smile. If you have time to look, they are hanging in the hall outside of our classroom. We started notebooks, which we do every morning when we arrive. The children have many fun and interesting things to write about, I love reading their stories!
Computer Lab:
Due to our new bond passing, we have new computers! We start next week with a typing program.
Spelling:
We took unit 1 test today and overall the kids did a great job! Next week the kids will have different lists after they are pre-tested. Monday you should see a list come home and homework will be to write spelling sentences.

Specials Schedule:
Monday: Gym and Art
Tuesday: Music
Wednesday: Computer Lab
Thursday: Library
Friday: Gym and Music

Next week Friday is PICTURE DAY! If you don’t have an envelope in your folder today, please let me know and I will get one to you ASAP. I look forward to another great week with your child, please feel free to contact me at any time with any questions, comments, or concerns.

It's Almost Time!

The first day of school is quickly approaching. I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday, September 2nd. I also hope that everyone will be able to attend our curriculum night on Thursday, September 4th. Take time to enjoy the rest of your summer and I'll see you soon!