10 2 09 Newsletter

HIGH POINTE ELEMENTARY SPELLING LIST

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beautiful

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before

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discover

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enough

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first

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good

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shook

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Sunday

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study

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cousin

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cookie

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summer

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uncle

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touch

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studies

DATES TO REMEMBER Conferences 10/27 &10/29

The Brubaker Buzz I S S U E

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A Look Back We certainly worked hard this week in third grade! Your child made huge accomplishments during our busy week. We will continue to work hard and get more intense in our work. I tell the students that I won’t ask them to do something that I don’t believe they can do. I read some research yesterday that said we are becoming an accepting society in education. The author was saying that we are expecting less and less from students and in turn they are learning less. He went on to say

that if students were expected to do more, they will. I’m a firm believer in that. If you believe a child can do something and push them with the ability to do it, they will be successful. I’ve been seeing this for many years while in the classroom. We began working on gathering research for our next five paragraph paper. The students have been doing a wonderful job with this as we used the laptops to gather info! We have been working on giving credit to authors whose work we use and paraphrasing so that

we don’t copy word for word. We also have been working on measurement using both customary and metric units. During reading we read books about habitats and use skills such as vocabulary, main idea, cause and effect, and the gist of the story.

Classroom Rule:

If you ask for a reward, the answer will always be “no.”

A Peek to Next Week

Half-day 10/16

10/8 Grandparents’ Day

10/9 Fall Festival

10/9 Habitat Projects Due

We are sneaking closer to end of the quarter! We talk daily about how much more is expected out of them in third grade. It will get more rigorous as the year goes on. I try to make sure we can have fun as well as learning while we

do it. Please keep encouraging your children to do their best! Remember that if you expect them to do it, they can do it. It’s all about the expectations. I tell my class that I know I have the smartest class and we want to prove it! We

will continue to work with measurement to introduce area and perimeter of objects. This is always a fun unit to do. The students get to do a ton of hands on measuring! We will also introduce The Star Method. A few of the students may have been introduced to it in second grade.

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Next Week Cont. This method helps students find answers easier while reading and how to prove their answers. After we learn this, the students are expected to use it for many reading activities. We will continue our habitat writing process. We should be beginning our rough draft and working toward a final draft by the end of the week. My goal is to have the final draft complete by Friday.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. John Lubbock

Since it is the end of the quarter we will be reviewing what we learned during these last couple of months in preparation for benchmark testing.

Ask Me, I Know! What are the eight states around Missouri? Name the two major rivers in Missouri.

Name one carnivorous plant that you learned about this week. What was your survey question?

Is St. Louis on the east or west side of Missouri? Is Kansas City on the east of west side of Missouri?

Reminders •

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Don’t forget to sign your child’s assignment book each night. This is a great way for you to know what is going on in the classroom. Also, weekly checkups will be coming home on Friday for you

BRUBAKER

BUZZ

to sign and your child to correct. These are due back on Monday.

If you are planning on sending your child home with a grandparent or

grandfriend on Grandparents’ Day, please make sure you send a note and they are on the pick-up permission form at the front office.