Looking Ahead... Nov. 30 - Dec. 18

Dec. 1 - 11 - Christmas Ornament Sale: Our Bauer Elementary Leadership
Team is proud to introduce our 2015 ornament sale. This year the money raised will be donated to the Caring Kids program at the Helen Devos Children’s hospital. 
It costs just $2.00 to purchase an ornament, or you can buy three for $5.00. Each ornament will have a sticker attached to it. The sticker is a homework pass for your child to use on one page (not a packet) of homework. They will be available December 1-11. Purchased ornaments will be placed on the Bauer Christmas tree until December 17, when they will be delivered to students and sent home. These also make very cute gift tags as well.

Dec. 3 & 4 - Santa Secret Shop -- We shop Thursday, Dec. 3.

Dec. 8 - Bauer Parent Club Meeting @ 7:00 pm

Dec. 10 - Bauer Christmas Program @ 7:00 pm at Fair Haven

Dec. 17 - (Thursday) Christmas Parties (Red & Green Spirit Day)


Math: 
The students finished Unit 2 in Math last week. Their pre and post test from Unit 2 will be coming home this week, so that you can see the amazing growth that they've made from the beginning of the unit to the end. We are finished learning all of the math facts, please remember to continue to practice facts with your child every night. It is a 3rd grade end of the year expectation that students master their facts 1-10. Mastery is displayed by answering correctly in 3 secs.
We will begin Unit 3 this week. Unit 3 is focused on Measurement and Time.

Reading: 
The students have been working extremely hard on analyzing characters in their series books and having meaningful conversations with their reading partners. We will be beginning our Non-Fiction Unit in Reading. The students will be encouraged to read 15 minutes of fiction and 15 minutes of non-fiction text every night.

Writing: 
Last week we generated seed ideas for our Opinion Essay Unit in writing. This week we will begin looking at the format of an essay and how it differs from a narrative. We will begin to draft our Opinions in the next week. An opinion essay consists of 5-paragraphs with at least five sentences in each paragraph. We will also be learning how to give proof to our essays by providing examples from our own life experiences.

Science: 
Last week we concluded our Light Unit in Science. The students test over light will be coming home this week. This week we will begin our Sound Unit. This unit is only about 2 weeks long.

Important Information:

Please remember to check over your child's learning target sheets each night to keep you informed of tests and important information that is happening over the next three weeks of school.

There will be notes coming home this week about the Christmas Party.

Remember to check their folders every night for any important notes.

As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you and your family have a safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving!
*Enjoy this time with the ones you love.*

I'm so grateful to have each one of your children in my class this year!

Thank you for sharing them with me.

Marco's Pizza Night is Thursday, Nov. 19!

Thursday, November 19, will be a Marco's Pizza Night!  If you are looking for a simple and yummy dinner, please consider ordering from Marco's that night.  You will need to inform them that you are from Bauer Elementary and the name of your child's teacher as this is a competition for a class pizza party!
Thank you!

Looking Ahead... Nov. 16- Nov. 24

Important Dates:
Nov. 19 -- Science Test - Review Sheet will be coming home on Nov. 17

Nov. 20 -- Last day for food drive!

Nov. 23 -- Math Test -- Unit 2

Nov. 25-27 -- No School!

Dec. 3 -- Santa Secret Shop

Dec. 10 -- Christmas Program @ 7pm

Dec. 17 -- Wear Red/Green - Holiday Party!

Dec. 20 -- Jan.1 -- Christmas Break
Math: 
We have been working hard on practicing our math facts in class and at home. Unit 2 is coming to an end. Students are expected a lot in Unit 2 with multi-step word problems. They are encouraged to break the problem down, and write "I know" steps first, and then solve the problem. We've been working on this in class over the past week.  Test is Nov. 23!!

Writing: 
We finished our Personal Narrative Unit! On Friday, we celebrated our narratives with the other two 3rd grade classrooms. The students had a great time reading their stories and listening to their peers. We will begin our Opinion Essays this week.

Reading:
We are well into our Series Unit for Reading. The students are so excited that they are getting to read new series, take quizzes, and discuss characters with their reading partners.

Science: 
We have been working with Light throughout the past couple of weeks. Students have been experimenting with Reflection, Refraction, and Prisms during this unit. We will be concluding our unit on Tuesday, Nov. 17. The students will take a test over Light on Thursday, Nov. 19.

Spelling: 
This week students are learning to spell verbs that end with -ing or -ed. It is important that they not only know what the work is with the suffix at the end, but also what the word would be as a base/root word.
swimming
swam
getting
coming
came
having
doing
ended
happened
happening
started
joked
received
smiled
smiling

Spelling List

missed
willing
balloon
spelling
pretty
still
off
added
letter
different
pattern
middle
Mississippi -- Proper Noun - Must be capital :)
zipper
carry

Our Pre-K Reading Buddies!

We met and read to our pre-K reading buddies today! It was so awesome to see the leadership in our 3rd graders during this time! They are so excited to have  reading buddies!

Spelling List

Sorry, with conferences this week, I forgot to post the spelling words.

save
give
have
live
move
above
alive
alike
to
two
too
know
do
blew
blue

*They will need to know correct meaning of the homophones on the test as well. :)

Leader of the Week!

Taylor was our Leader of the Week last week!

10 things you need to know about Taylor are:

10. He has a dog.

9. He likes his family.

8. He likes playing video games.

7. He loves the mountains in Alaska.

6. He likes going to Alaska to go to the glaciers.

5. He likes to watch movies.

4. He really likes food.

3. He likes to ride on his Segway.

2. He loves his sister.

1. He loves Jesus!

Looking ahead...Nov. 2-6

Nov. 2     - PE Cares Food Drive Begins - Fruits and Veggies (Food Drive ends Nov. 19)
                - Report Cards go home

Nov. 3-4  - Parents Teacher Conferences

Nov. 3     - Book Fair Preview

Nov. 6     - Book Fair




Reading
We have been working hard analyzing our characters in books that we read. We've discussed character struggles and how characters change in our stories. We will be finishing up our unit this week with the importance of secondary characters in our books.
Our 3rd grade classes will be watching Because of Winn-Dixie on Thursday to compare and contrast the book to the movie. This will conclude our unit on characters.

Writing
Our students have been working on writing their second personal narrative. I'm so proud of all their hard work. This week we will be concentrating on editing and revising our narratives.
They will be working with their writing partners to perfect their stories.

Spelling/Grammar: 
Our spelling and grammar units will begin again on Monday! :)

Math
In math we've been working on becoming fluent on our math facts. It's so important to continue to practice facts with your child at home. We are about half way through Unit 2 in Math. We will be taking our math test in about two weeks. I will keep you posted on the exact date.

Social Studies: 
We took our Social Studies test on Friday to assess students' knowledge of Geography of Michigan. The tests will be coming home this week. I am very impressed with how well the students did on this test.

Science
We will begin our Light and Sound unit this week!!

Halloween Party

Thank you so much to our parent helpers for making our party so fun and special for our class!!