Sunday, October 30, 2011

Hi All,
I hope you have enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend. As I mentioned in my email, there will be no Homework Packet this week. In addition, we will take Monday night off from math homework, but will continue with multiplication concepts this week. A few students needed to work on Lit. Circles this weekend, but the majority of the class appears ready for the first Lit. Circle meeting on Tuesday morning. Finally, students brought home a handout explaining the landforms project, which is due in about a week.

Have a Happy Halloween, but please keep the candy at home!
Carroll

Sunday, October 23, 2011

HI All,

Tomorrow (Monday) is our field trip to Aptos History Museum. We will leave school at 10 AM and return at 11:30 (before lunch.) John Hibble will talk to the kids about local history, including the Ohlone people and Klaus Spreckels. Also on Monday, all 3rd graders will be gifted with a dictionary by the Rotary Club.

This week, we will continue with the concept of multiplication in math, and students should also be memorizing these facts. The spelling concept this week is "long i".

Have a great week,
Carroll Mayer

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Hello All,
It was great to meet with you this week and discuss your great kids.

This week in math, we will continue learning about multiplication, including the Multiplication Properties. We will also begin discussing various strategies to figure out multiplication facts that are not yet memorized. However, it is my goal for each student to have these facts memorized by the end of the year, and will be information that they will find extremely important in the next several years. Please encourage your child in this endeavor. I always tell the kids that their parents know multiplication, and that they can practice these facts while driving in the car, standing in line, or working around the house!

We are also beginning a short unit on maps and landforms. In about 2 weeks, students will be bringing home a fun homework/craft project on landforms as a conclusion to the unit.

Finally, a big thank you for the great books many of you were able to purchase and donate from the book fair. This benefits our class and the school library! In addition, thanks to the Parent Alliance, for providing the staff with a great lunch on Thursday. The soup was yummy.

Have a great week.
Carroll

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Hi All,
I'm looking forward to meeting with most of you this week; with a few conference already held, or scheduled in the future! Please make every effort to be on time, even if you are coming from another class. Most of us have our conferences scheduled back-to-back, and so there is a domino effect if people aren't on time.

This week the kids have "regular" homework, with a spelling packet and nightly math. Many students elected to receive the packet on Friday afternoon, so that they would have a little extra time on it. This is completely up to you and your family. I did find that there were more errors on last week's spelling tests than previous ones, and so many students may have realized that additional practice time is needed now that we are learning harder words. The kids are also doing a great job on the reading logs, which I realize are a step up from the ones in 1st and 2nd grade. Please remind your child that they may take AR tests on the reading they do at home, as long as there are tests available. We will finish regrouping in math this week and move on to multiplication. However, many kids are still struggling with accuracy in subtraction facts which is why we have been practicing these facts weekly. In general, the kids have really gotten into the rhythm of the weeks, and are doing careful, consistent work.

I also had many more volunteers than necessary for our next field trip ( Aptos History Museum), which is a great problem to have! Please send me an email if you volunteered and would like to opt out. There will be several other great museum field trips this year, including the SC Natural History Museum, SC MAH, and Agricultural History Museum.

Many thanks for all your enthusiasm. I am having a great year with your kids.
Carroll Mayer

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Hello All,

First of all, let me compliment you on your hard-working and flexible children! As you may have heard, two separate dental procedures and a drug reaction took me out of the class quite suddenly for most of last week. Mrs. McElroy stepped in, and had nothing but praise for the class and its behavior. This is wonderful to hear, but not surprising as it supports my own observations of our class.

As you may also have noticed last week, the math homework was a little different on several days. This was intentional, in order to give students some extra practice. We have begun regrouping in subtraction (borrowing), which is a difficult concept for many kids. This week we will return to the regular format. However, please take extra time to carefully review your child's math homework, as even the strongest students may have occasional glitches with this concept. In addition, many of the kids are still struggling with accuracy in subtraction, so the correct procedures may still yield errors! The homework packet this week will also be a "normal" one.

Several of you have sent questions regarding the conference schedule for the week of October 10th. On Tuesday, I will send home copies of the current conference schedule. If you need to make a change, please note 2-3 possibilities, and I will do my best to accommodate your needs.

Finally, if you have not returned the permission slip for our October field trip to the Aptos History Museum, please do so, along with a dollar for the museum.

Thanks,
Carroll