Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Thank you to everyone who attended our Esprit Team Publishing Party on Wednesday!  The children were very excited to share their hard work in writing with you!  When we get back from vacation, we are going to start our next writing genre: persuasive or opinion writing!

We also a "Sip and Snack and Paint" celebration on Monday!  The children had a little snack and painted a holiday gift for a special person in his or her life. The paintings turned out very cute!  Thanks to those who provided the snacks/drinks for our classes!

Just a reminder that we do not have school from December 23rd- January 2nd. School resumes on Wednesday, January 3rd.  We hope that you have a wonderful holiday season and a happy and healthy 2018!

Getting Ready to Publish!

Esprit Third Graders have spent the week finishing their nonfiction books, adding the final text features, cover, and illustrations!  They are very excited to share these books with you at our Publishing Party on Wednesday, December 20th at 2:30pm.  Please let your child's teacher know if you can attend the Publishing Party. If you cannot, we will be sure to invite other staff members from our school to attend and listen to your child's book.  See you Wednesday!

Last week, the students of SCS filled up the big C in SCS with cat coins!  That means there has been a lot of safe, responsible, and respectful behavior happening here at school!  To celebrate, we had a Mix-it-Up afternoon!  Both Miss Deb's class and Miss Niles' class met with their middle school buddies and created holiday cards for some senior citizens in our area. Everyone had a wonderful time creating their cards and mixing it up!

In math we focused on subtraction strategies this week, particularly the standard algorithm for subtraction. We used base ten pieces and sketches as a visual to see what happens when a mathematician has to trade or regroup with subtraction.  We continued to practice during much of the week as this tends to be a tricky strategy to master quickly.  Ask your child if he or she can show demonstrate the subtraction standard algorithm for you!

Miss Deb's class spent some more time this week doing "An Hour of Code" with Chromebooks.  They also played a fun game on Kahoot.com that Miss Deb created to practice their multiplication facts.  Both Miss Niles' and Miss Deb's classes have been working toward fluency with multiplication facts during the month of December.

During Reader's Workshop, Miss Niles' class has started doing a book study of Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  They are reading the story aloud as a class, discussing characters, and focusing on comprehension strategies.  Ask your child about the wild and wacky characters they have met in this book so far!  Miss Deb's class is reading books about people who have made a difference in the world.  These books are giving students a glimpse into life in other areas of the world and modeling for students how one person, adult or child, can make a big difference in the quality of others' lives.  Ask your child how some of the people in these stories have helped others have a better life!

Many third graders also chose to participate in the Scripps Spelling Bee written test to try and qualify to participate in the SCS Spelling Bee.  We will know the results soon!  Way to go spellers!

Have a great weekend!

Hour of Code

This week we participated in the Hour of Code, a week in December,  during which children are encouraged to try coding and beginning programming.  On Tuesday, we the children had the opportunity to try out different coding games.  They can access these coding games at home at Hour of Code Activities.  Be sure to ask your child about the coding games he or she tried!

In math, we continued working with triple-digit numbers and worked on rounding those numbers to the nearest ten and hundred.  We also learned the standard algorithm for adding numbers in math.  After using a variety of strategies to solve multi-digit addition problems, the children were taught how to add numbers in the way you were probably taught in elementary school.  We used base ten pieces (hundreds, tens, and ones) and quick sketches to help model the standard algorithm as well.  Can your child demonstrate this new strategy for you?

In Reader's Workshop, we are continuing with our nonfiction study.  Miss Deb's class is reading historical books and Miss Niles' class is reading biographies.  This week Jeff Badillo, our technology integrationist, visited Miss Niles' class to teach them how to use Puppet Edu.  This is an app on the ipad that allows students to make slide shows with voice recording.  The children then read and created slideshows about the subjects of their biographies.  Ask your child about his or her slideshow!

Our nonfiction books in Writer's Workshop are coming along quite nicely!  We hope to have some kind of author's share before the Holiday Break.  Many children are in the rewriting and publishing phases of the writing process.

We were very excited that one of our Esprit 3rd Graders was chosen as Principal of the Day for this month!  He spent the day with Ms. Celmer and had the opportunity to read to some of the students in the school and drink hot chocolate!!!

Lastly,  we hope to see many of you at the PTO Holiday Craft Fair this Saturday.  Team Esprit will have a table so be sure to stop by and see all of their creations.  Have a great weekend!

Spelling Bee

Mrs. Davenport visited our kiva this week to invite third graders to participate in this year's Spelling Bee.  Those students who are interested in participating have been given a list of words they may study to prepare for the written part of the Spelling Bee, which will take place before the Holiday Break.  Five third graders will be selected to participate in the SCS Spelling Bee based on how well they perform on the written test.  Ask your child if they are participating in the Spelling Bee.
Esprit spent our week getting ready for the SCS Holiday Craft Fair.  We typed our recipes, created covers, and assembled our cookbooks.  We also painted kindness rocks to sell on December 9th.  Thank you for sending in all the great recipes for us to include in our cookbook!
Esprit students have earned enough cat coins for positive behavior, both in school and at home, to have a celebration.  It has been wonderful to see all of the "above and beyond" things students have been doing at home and in their commnity.  Students chose to bring a stuffy to school on Monday as their celebration.
A huge thank you to those of you who have signed up to work the Esprit Holiday Craft Fair table!
Have a great weekend!
:)Deb and Jenn