Snack Update

We have welcomed two new students to our class in the last two weeks! We are so excited to meet new friends! We now have more friends to share snacks with, too!

If you have not donated a snack to our class (individually wrapped preferred), please consider a donation soon. We now have 26 students that need that extra "brain fuel" each day. Many, many thanks to all families that have donated to our class treats! We look forward to the fuel each day!

***Starting next week, due to the low number of snacks remaining, we will go down to one "brain fuel" snack each day. We are currently doing two because the kids are "starving," but we just can't do it each day!

Weekly Wrap-Up

Friday Letters went home today. Please take a minute to respond to your child. He or she worked very diligently on the 5 parts of a letter and would love a response. If you cannot respond due to time, please sign the letter each week.

Vocabulary Packets: Vocabulary packets go home each week on Fridays. They are not due until the following week. I'm going to move the due date to Fridays each week as to give the kids a bit more time to practice the words. We will still quiz over the words on Fridays as normal.

Entertainment Books: I do not know final numbers on our class sales as of today, but I promised the kids an ice cream party if we sold at least 25 books as a class. I will keep them posted.

Labor Day

Reminder: No school on Monday, September 3 due to Labor Day celebrations!

Enjoy the long weekend!

All Pro Dad's Breakfast 8/31

WHAT: Reagan Elementary All Pro Dads Breakfast

WHO: Guest speaker, Tony Pedregon, two-time NHRA Funny Car champion

WHERE: Reagan Elementary School, 4845 S. Bulldog Way, Brownsburg, IN

WHEN: Friday, August 31, 2012, 7:15 – 8:30 a.m.

HOW: Pedregon will speak to students and their fathers about this month’s topic – “Spending Time with Your Children”

RSVP online at our school chapter page - www.allprodad.com/2980.  Click on rsvp link under Upcoming Meetings . 

WHY: Founded in 1997 with its national spokesman former Colts’ coach and current NBC football analyst Tony Dungy,  All Pro Dad is a monthly breakfast held before school where fathers and their children meet with other dads and kids in the school cafeteria or a local restaurant.  During this time, they discuss a wide range of family topics, spend time together, create fun memories, and are equipped with resources to strengthen their relationships.

 

NOTE: Pedregon Racing is having an Open House Thursday, August 30, from 3-7 p.m. at their race shop in Brownsburg - 462 Southpoint Circle, Suite B. Please visit www.tonypedregon.com for more details. Tony will be competing in the NHRA US Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway over Labor Day weekend. Please visit www.lucasoilraceway.com for more information.

Scholastic Book Orders Due Friday 8/31

Just a reminder that ALL Scholastic Book Orders (online or paper form) are due by Friday. Please take a moment to browse the books and other fun items with your child online or  in the paper catalog. Every purchase provides our classroom with FREE books!

Our class code is DVNFB. Online orders work best, but please don't hesitate to send paper order forms to school, too. Thanks!

https://clubs2.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/LogonForm?esp=CORPHP/ib/////NAV/Parents/QLinks/BookClubs////

Friday Letters

I neglected to post on Friday that we did not get to writing our letters. We will continue the letters this week, but the time just got away with us with all the excitement of our flower and bean experiments!

Thanks for understanding!

Entertainment Fundraiser Deadline

Entertainment Books and/or money raised by selling the books will be due Wednesday, August 29. It's great weather to get out there and sell, sell, sell! I saved $20 last weekend using last year's book, and I've heard and seen for myself that this year's book is evern better!

If you'd rather just make a donation to the school without buying/selling books, that's an option, too.

Reagan PSG will happily accept donations.  Students will not be eligible for the duck or Ice Age prizes though because those prizes come from the company.  But, each donation of $15 can count as 1 book toward our classroom total, $30 would equal 2 books and so on.  Students that bring in $45 (equals 3 books) can put their name in for the prize drawings.

 

Thanks again for supporting our school!

Tuesday Talk

WOW! Thank you to all familie for providing an abundance of delicious snacks for our class "brain fuel!" The kids have enjoyed a morning fill up and an afternoon fill up, too! Please continue to send snacks into school as you remember!

We are finishing up our first unit in math: Unit 1. We will test over this unit on Friday. The students will get a study guide during math tomorrow that they will complete by Friday. This study guide WILL prepare them for the test, but I assure you that all of the skills we've worked on daily will also be excellent practice points!

I will be at a writing workshop tomorrow in order to enhance our writing curriculum even further! In fact, each 3rd grade teacher will be attending this workshop tomorrow, so I will not be here. I told the kids this afternoon, but please take a minute to discuss expectations with teacher guests when I am not at school. Thank you!

Enjoy this beautiful weather! It just makes us all smile a little bigger!

Class Snacks

We had almost everyone (including the teacher) starving by lunch time today! I'm not sure if we worked a few extra brain cells, burned too much fuel during our brain breaks, or we're all going through growth spurts (I certainly hope that's not the case for me), but we think a mid-day snack is a necessity!

If you would so kindly send snacks in as soon as possible, we'd be so grateful!! I will provide the first day of snacks on Monday. If at all possible, I'd prefer individual packaging, too. We'd lose valuable instructional time passing out "just the right amount" of snacks to each student (must be fair, right?), but I understand that is costly, so we will gladly accept any healthy food items!

We do have a few allergy needs, so please AVOID the following ingredients:

• tree nuts or anything processed in a plant with tree nuts
• peanuts
• dairy

Obviously, no candy or candy bars please!

Thank you!!

Telling Time

We've been working extremely hard on telling time to the minute over the last two weeks. I encouraged kids that ALREADY have an analog watch (round with hour and minute hands) to begin wearing it each day.

**I DID NOT tell students they need to buy a watch to wear to school. However, if your funds allow, I'd love to see every 3rd grader wearing one in order to assist with telling time on a daily basis!

Parent Volunteers

I am currently working on a schedule that should work with everyone that indicated they'd like to volunteer. I will get those schedules out to parents as soon as possible. I'll probably do a start date in September.

I appreciate your patience with this, and I am so thankful for all that are able and want to help our students.

**Please make sure you have filled out a volunteer form for Reagan in order to help during the school week, on field trips, field day, etc. You even have to have a form filled out if you plan on attending recess with your child. Contact Cristina Ehm at 852-1060 x2600 if you need a form or have any questions.

Entertainment Books: Reagan Fundraiser

We kicked off another great season of raising money for our school today! Seeing Mr. Chambers and Mr. Trimmel ride out in 20" bikes really got our attention-we're ready to sell at least 1 book per student (25 total) in order to win an ice cream sundae treat (courtesy of Mrs. Hill), and many, many, many MORE prizes!! Please read through your child's information packet tonight!

***Students were reminded three different times NOT to sell books to strangers. We encourage students to sell to family, friends, and familiar neighbors ONLY!

Homework: Please have your child read the story Pepita Talks Twice to prepare for tomorrow's story quiz.

Scholastic Book Online Ordering

https://orders.scholastic.com/DVNFB

We are beginning Book Clubs, Paws for Reading, and a few other activities to motivate our readers! Help us out by browsing the online order form (paper copy and a pdf will come home today, too) for some amazing new reads and adventures for your third grader! Our classroom library is also in need of a few donations--just by ordering online, our classroom will receive a FREE book!

Orders are due by August 31, 2012. If you'd rather NOT order online, please send a check made out to Lindsey Hill. I will be sure to order the books/items for you.

Thanks for supporting your child's classroom readinga adventure!

Power School/Grades

I will update grades periodically each week, but I will promise to have it most up-to-date by Mondays at 4:30. Please plan to check your child's grades with your child each week.

Keep in mind: Some items in the gradebook are not going to come home as a graded paper. We often complete participation activities, notebook journal entries, mathboxes, journal pages, etc that cannot come home each week.

If you every have any questions, please call or email me.

852-1060 x2631
lhill@brownsburg.k12.in.us

Fantastic Friday

Friday Letters will come home today inside of your child's Friday Letter notebook. Please take a minute to read the letter from your child, and sign. Each letter and your response will remain in the notebook for the entire year, so please take a minute to write back to your child each week. The notebook needs to be returned on Mondays.

Friday Folders: Last week the students brought home "Friday Folders" with graded papers, information, etc. However, to keep things simple, we're going to include these Friday-type papers in the front pouch of your child's binder.

We started musical brain breaks today! In order to practice our fluency reading, and to give our brains the endorphins they need to keep learning, we will be taking brain breaks throughout each school day! The kids really enjoyed this!!!!

We also started Literature Stations today! Students were able to work independently in their "offices" while others practiced using the SMART Notebook tools! We set our expectations prior to beginning, so each student knows what stations should look like and sound like before diving in next week!

Box Tops and Beyond

Our class is currently tied for the "gold" in our Reagan Box Tops Olympics!!! See the notes below from our PSG about receiving more Box Tops easily!

BOX TOPS
We are off to an amazing start with BOX TOP$ this year with close to 2,000 in under one week!! That may be a new record for the start of school! The deadline is September 28^th for the Olympic contest. The prizes you are going for will be announced in the near future.
You can also help us get FREE BOX TOP$ for our school by going to http://generalmills.promo.eprize.com/boxtopshero/ and http://generalmills.promo.eprize.com/clickandearn/. I love FREE money!!

Also, PSG just wanted you all to be aware that Marsh is doing Bonus 50 Box Tops certificates for purchasing 10 Box Tops participating products.  This is going on from now until next Wednesday, the 15th.  If you purchase more than 10 Box Tops products, do so in separate transactions to get more 50s. 

In Additon: 

4     Give with Target – by simply going to this link https://givewith.target.com/schools/83445 and voting, our school will be given $25 Target gift cards for every 25 votes!!  We already have earned $75, please help us bring in more by getting everyone you know to vote!  We are leading the Brownsburg schools right now, and I’d like to keep it that way…because Reagan is the best, of course! J  

5    Avery Give Back to Schools – Please go to http://givebacktoschools.avery.com/ to vote for Reagan in this Avery contest.   We lost a lot of ground this summer, but still have a chance to win something if we vote.

6    Orange Leaf – We have a Reagan Day at Orange Leaf scheduled for Tuesday, September 25^th.  Please join us, the kids love seeing their teachers at these events!

Thursday Thoughts

Vocabulary packets were due today, but I did not collect them yet. I wanted the kids to have the words to practice their meanings tonight. Our first quiz will be tomorrow.

We did not get to our first Thoughtful Thursday activity today. Hopefully things will smooth out by next week!

We took our first SRI today, and our DIBELS reading for fluency is complete. We have quite a range of readers in our classroom, but I assure you that we will differentiate their needs, and we WILL see success this school year!

Behavior/Reading/Binders/Volunteering

We’re almost halfway through the week, and EVERYONE has displayed their character well this week in our “Being Presidential” behavior system! EVERYONE has stayed on “Ready to Learn” by the end of each day, and many students have clipped up to “Good Job,” “Great Day,” and “Outstanding!” If your child clips up to “Outstanding” in one day (we reset each day to “Ready to Learn”), and he or she should show good character through another event, he or she will receive a “Being Presidential” ticket to be drawn on Fridays by Mrs. Benner, our counselor! We’ve had many tickets enter the contest already, and it’s only Tuesday!

Your child’s reading book will come home tomorrow night so he or she can reread the story Officer Buckle and Gloria (page 16) with you or to you to prepare for our story quiz on Thursday.

Please don’t forget to check out your child’s S.T.A.R. Binder each night. In fact, there is new information inside today (a sheet protector behind the pencil pouch with information to keep in the binder). Please also take a look at your child's assignment notebook each night to double-check what needs to be completed, and dates to study for quizzes.

I promise to contact interested parents soon that wish to volunteer. We'll plan to begin a rotation of some kind in September! Thanks for your patience!

Third Day of Third Grade

We're settling into a routine nicely! The kids have been so motivated by our "Being Presidential" reward system! Please remind your child that he or he MUST have all 5 days on "Ready to Learn" (white) or higher in order to join our celebrations each Friday.

Please be sure to check your child's Friday Folder each week (it will only come home on Fridays).

Please be sure to check your child's Assignment Notebook each night. It is your choice as to whether you sign the notebook or not. I will not be checking for parent signatures at this time.

Please be sure to send the following items to school if you have not already done so:

• AUP (Acceptable Use Policy and Handbook Form)
• Medical Record Form (Green)
• "Handle with Care" information form
• Volunteer form (white with polka dots)
• PSG Forms

Back to School

Thank you for coming to Reagan tonight! An exciting year is just ahead . . . please be sure to send the following to school with your child as soon as possible:

• Acceptable Use policy form (signed by you and your child)
• "Handle with Care" information sheet
• Medical form
• PSG forms
• Volunteer forms for our classroom

I look forward to spending the rest of this week with your 3rd grader! Please check this blog daily as I plan to update it regularly.