Voracious Reader Eater

We had the privilege of watching a wonderful assembly called the Voracious Reader Eater during March is Reading Month. Ms. Carrie the Clown and her assistant Mr. Rowe were very entertaining and taught us how being a good reader is helpful in our daily lives.

How To Presentations

In the month of March, the third graders wrote How-to papers. Then they gave oral presentations to the class, showing how to complete the chosen task. They did a wonderful job and learned a few tips about public speaking.

Newsletter

Mrs. Bzura’s News . .
4/4/11

The St. Pius School Community, strives to follow Jesus as we Study, Pray, and Serve.

**Come join us in the social hall for a Lenten Fish Fry each Friday.

March was Reading Month! The children read and read and read in the month of March. Their flowers are covered with petals which represent the books read. We ended the month with a wonderful performance by Carrie the Clown and Mr. Rowe and by having an all school read-in on Wednesday.

Reading: We’ll begin reading another novel, Frindle this week. The children will be reading and discussing questions in literature groups before answering the questions themselves on paper.
For the month of April, the children are required to read an AR book and take a test on it.
Writing/English: This week in Writing, we’ll be writing creative Easter stories. The children will choose an egg from my Easter basket, open it, and begin a story about the picture they find inside. When finished, they’ll start another. They’ll eventually choose their favorite story, conference with a partner, revise it, and publish it.
The grammar focus will be on proofreading marks.
Science: OK, so we have animals living in our room. They are welcome to stay through the 8th of April if you wish. The children have loved watching the animals in their temporary homes. This week we begin our research on animals. Each child has a self-chosen animal about which he or she will be taking notes. All note-taking will take place in class. The children will then be putting their information into sentences/paragraphs in their own words so as not to plagiarize. The final product will be an illustrated flip book about their animal.
Religion: We’ll finish Chapter 11 this week and take a test on Wednesday, April 6th. We continue copying and singing our song/poems about the Easter season. This is for both Religion and Handwriting this month. The children have really enjoyed singing in class! We will begin Chapter 12 on Monday, April 11th.
We go to the church each Friday at 2:15 for Stations of the Cross. Please join us if you are able.
Spelling: The spelling words this week are a little difficult. It may be necessary for your child to practice a bit more at home in order to do well on their test. This week’s words are: actual, division, equation, especially, factual, famous, feature, location, pressure, nature, picture, pressure, provision, special and temperature.
Social Studies: We’ll be making flags to represent the countries from which people have migrated to Michigan. We are also learning about our economy in MI and about products that are made here. The children may bring in a MI made product or a picture of one to add to our display.

*In March, many families earned casual days related to donations given for our school auction. If your family earned 5 casual days, and only took 4 due to required uniforms on our field trip day, the extra casual day may be taken on Tuesday, April 12th.

Upcoming Dates:
4/5&6 – Accreditation team @ St. Pius
4/15 – Last day of school – Easter Break!

Newsletter

The St. Pius School Community, strives to follow Jesus as we Study, Pray, and Serve.

REMINDER: We’re going to the Masonic temple Monday to see Junie B Jones. Students are to wear their school uniforms.

March is Reading Month! In celebration of this, we are having silent reading time EVERY Tuesday and Thursday this month. Your child may bring in a blanket or pillow to use during that time. They will not however, be able to keep those items at school – we just don’t have the space. They will have to carry it to and from school each time.
This week in particular, we’ll have lots of guest readers! I can’t wait to hear from all our parents who volunteered to share their favorite books.

Reading: The students will be reading individual books this week of varying titles. They will read the books independently and then join in groups to discuss their stories. The focus will be on identifying the main ideas of the stories and on finding supporting details.

Writing/English: Due to lack of time last week, we did not begin our How-to stories. Therefore, we’ll begin drafting those this week. Each child will come up with their own topic. They will list the steps needed to get to an “end”. As a culminating activity, each child will make a presentation to the entire class.
Our grammar focus will be on pronoun/verb agreement.

Science: We’ll begin our study of the organization of living things this week. We’ll begin by classifying living things based on their observable characteristics. First we’ll look at animals. We’ll talk about how different body parts and the way certain animals are made can help them adapt to their daily lives.

Religion: We wrap up our study of Lent this week. From there we’ll move back to chapter 11 which focuses on serving others. The students will begin by taking a close look at themselves and the “good” qualities they possess. In particular, we’ll look at the gift of grace. Each child will be making a prayer card to pass along to others in need of hearing the Good News.

Handwriting: We continue practicing cursive writing and copying scripture this week! The children are now required to write their names in cursive and are copying their spelling words in cursive as well.

Spelling – This week’s words focus on the U sound at the “tail end” of words – spelled ew. The words for the week are: blew, chew, dew, few, grew, new, stew, view, brew, crew, drew, flew, knew, pew, and threw.

Social Studies – We’ll make our heritage mobiles this week. Then we’ll begin looking at when certain groups of people migrated to MI, and where they lived.

Upcoming Dates:
3/21 – Field Trip to Junie B Jones play
Last day of the marking period
3/25 – Lenten Fish Fry 4-7p.m.
3/26 – St. Pius School Auction @ Crystal Gardens
3/28 – NO SCHOOL!
3/29 – Read a Hat/Shirt Day
K-3 participates in the “Voracious Reader Eater” show
3/30 – PJ Day & All-school Read-in

Book orders are currently available online @ online at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. Our activation code is GQ9YV.

Box Tops & Campbell's UPCs

A huge thanks to all families who help collect Box Tops and Campbell's UPCs for our school. Also, a huge thank you to Mrs. Mandernach who takes the time to reward the students with goodies, such as the brownies pictured below, each time we reach our goal. We love the thoughtfulness of it all!

HAPPY CUTTING!

March is Reading Month!

READING - one of my favorite things to do. What luck - a month to celebrate that! This year, for March is Reading Month, there are many exciting activities taking place. Currently, we are trying to read as many books as possible over the course of the entire month! Each child is keeping track of his or her books by putting a "petal" on their flower each time they complete a book. See our Reading Helps Your Mind Bloom display in the hallway to check our progress.

Newsletter 2/21

Mrs. Bzura’s News . .
2/23/11
The St. Pius School Community, strives to follow Jesus as we Study, Pray, and Serve.

Reading: We began reading Ramona Quimby, Age 8. This is such a cute story. The children are really engaged in this novel. Next week we’ll read sections 5 and 6 (pages 56-80) of the book. The children will study vocabulary words within the context of how the author uses them and continue to build comprehension skills.
Mrs. Bilinski’s group will be beginning a chapter book called Jigsaw Jones, the Case of the Missing Baseball Cards.
** Please note that since these are two different groups, grades will only be entered for assignments your child is responsible for. If your child is not reading Ramona, he/she will not show grades for assignments relating to that book. The same goes for the Jigsaw Jones book assignments. These “blank”, “ungraded” assignments will not count against your child.

Writing/English: ***If you did not do this, please do so right away. The letters will be mailed on Wednesday. Please send in the name and address of someone your child can write a friendly letter to. I will also need a blank envelope with a stamp on it in which to send the letter.
Our grammar focus this week will be on the capitalization of proper nouns.

Science: We wrap up our study of light energy by reviewing the concepts of reflection, refraction, absorption and colors this week. We’ll review the vocabulary and prepare for a test over this unit on Monday, February 28th.
Religion: Our test over chapter 9 will be on Wednesday, February 23rd. On Friday, we’ll begin chapter 10 which focuses on Mass. We’ll talk about how Mass is a celebration that we gather for in the church. We’ll compare our Mass celebration with other celebrations in our lives.

Handwriting: We continue practicing cursive writing and copying scripture this week! The children are now required to write their names in cursive and are copying their spelling words in cursive as well.

Spelling –Our focus this week will be on words from our Science and Social Studies curriculums. We’ll brainstorm the list on Wednesday and do activities with those words on Thursday and Friday. Because it is a short week, we will not be taking a traditional test on Friday.

Social Studies –This week we’ll talk about how we “got our land” and do an activity about supply & demand. We’ll also make a venn diagram comparing the settlers with the native americans.

Upcoming Dates:
2/21 and 2/22 – NO SCHOOL
2/23 – Religion test over chapter 9
2/28 – Science Test

** Pencil cases are coming home over Winter Break. Please make sure that your child has his or her OWN supply of pencils. While some of you generously sent in pencils for the class “jar”, this should not be the primary source of pencils for children.

*Book orders are available online through the 21st. Go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs . Our activation code is GQ9YV.

Mrs. Bzura's Newsletter

Mrs. Bzura’s News

The St. Pius School Community, strives to follow Jesus as we Study, Pray, and Serve.

Reading: Again this week, some children will be going to Mrs. Bilinski’s room for
a reading group. It’s great to be able to split into smaller groups! Mrs. Bilinski’s group will continue reading Mascot’s Message from the Tales of Adventure series. My group will finish Conflict in the Clouds from Tales of Mystery.
Both groups will continue to work on retelling the story after each chapter. We’ll also revisit the phonics concepts of the “walkers”, suffixes, and syllables.
Following these stories, we’ll begin reading Ramona Quimby, Age 8.

Writing/English: Our grammar focus this week will be on using to, too and two at the proper times. Following that, we’ll continue with our study of writing friendly letters. Look for an assignment sheet to come home early next week asking for the name of a person your child can write a letter to.

Science: Our test over chapter 1 in Unit F will be on Monday. Then we’ll begin a study of light. This week in particular, we’ll learn how light reflects and refracts. This is a difficult concept for third graders. I hope to do some demonstrations to help them SEE what reflection and refraction look like.

Religion: We begin chapter 9 this week in Religion. We’ll talk about how as Catholics, we are “open to all”. That is actually what the word Catholic means. We’ll talk about how water is used in our daily lives. It is a great gift that God gave us and we rely on it daily. We’ll also talk about how water is used in the church. We’ll be looking at maps and tracing Jesus’ route from Jerusalem to Nazareth.

Next week I’ll need some magazine from which children can cut things out. If you have any old magazines you are going to throw out, please consider sending them in to school for us to use.

Handwriting: We continue practicing cursive writing and copying scripture this week! The children are now required to write their names in cursive and are copying their spelling words in cursive as well.

Spelling –Our focus this week is on the combination of the letters ea where the “walking” rule is not followed. Our spelling words for the week are: ahead, already, head, breakfast, breath, dead, heavy, instead, lead, read, ready, spread, sweater, thread and weather.

Social Studies – We continue chapter 4 – “Michigan Becomes a State” this week. In particular, we’ll look at what Tecumseh said and did to help form our state. We’ll also talk about how the fur trade continued into statehood.
Upcoming Dates:

2/7 – Science Test
2/10 – 3rd Grade Plans Mass
2/12 – Daddy Daughter Dance
2/14 – Valentine’s Day

*A class list will come home on Monday for children to address their valentines.

*Book orders are available online through the 21st. Go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs . Our activation code is GQ9YV.

Rainbow Sentences

The third and fourth graders have learned several parts of speech. In these rainbow setnences, they put different parts of speech on different colored squares of paper to build a "colorful" sentence. Can you tell which color represents which part of speech?????

Catholic Schools Week - PJ Day & Read In

SPECIAL REQUEST for indoor recess...

These cold winter days mean indoor recess. While I have lots of games and things for the children to do during indoor recess, it would be nice to have some legos in the classroom for them to play with.
If you have legos at home that are not being used, please consider donating them to our class for indoor recess fun!
Thanks a million.

Newsletter 1/31

Mrs. Bzura’s News . .
1/31/11

The St. Pius School Community, strives to follow Jesus as we Study, Pray, and Serve.

**Mrs. Ocacio is looking for volunteers to work at the 3rd grade “game” on Carnival night. Please call or email her to schedule your time. 313/550-3151, (cell)734/282-2850 or mocacio@yahoo.com

Reading: It was great to see the connections the children were making as they read Shadows of the Cloud World this week. Many of the mysteries of the past 6 books were solved in this book, and yet it leaves us wondering what will happen in the next book.
This week, some children will again be going to Mrs. Bilinski for a reading group. It’s great to be able to split into smaller groups! Mrs. Bilinski’s group will tackle the book called Mascot’s Message from the Tales of Adventure series.
My group will read book 8 from Tales of Mystery, called Conflict in the Clouds. This particular book will push them at times to read at a 5th grade reading level!
Both groups will work on retelling the story after each chapter. We’ll also revisit the phonics concepts of the “walkers”, suffixes, and syllables.

Writing/English: We’ll take the skills we’ve learned with adjectives and adverbs and begin writing “colorful” sentences with them. Then I’ll be doing a unit on writing friendly letters.

Science: We finished reading the information from Unit F, Chapter 1 this week. We’ll continue to talk about the concepts of thermal energy and heat on Monday and Tuesday. There will be a test over Chapter 1 on Thursday, February 3rd.

Religion: Monday is the test over chapter 8. Tuesday we’ll begin talking about Catholic Schools and what they do for us and for our church.
Handwriting: We continue practicing cursive writing and copying scripture this week! The children are now required to write their names in cursive and are copying their spelling words in cursive as well.

Spelling:
I am going to begin putting our spelling words in the newsletter. They come home every Monday, but the grades on the tests are falling a little. Please be sure your child is practicing at home. Our focus this week is the “walkers”. The words are: blue, glue, value, true, boat coast, road, doe, foe, hoe, poem, toe, fruit, juice, continued.

Social Studies – We began chapter 4 – “Michigan Becomes a State”. We talked about MI was not one of the original 13 colonies, and how President Washington sent General Wayne to take the MI territory from the British, finally making it a state. This week, we’ll learn more about our struggles with the British.

Upcoming Dates:
1/31 Religion Test
1/31 – Catholic School’s Week
1/31 Mass
2/1 PJ day, bagel sales & Read In
2/2 Patriotic Day
2/3 Student appreciation
day, Talent Show, Crazy
dress/hat day
2/4 Spirit Day, & PTO
assembly “Abe Lincoln”
2/3 Science Test

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a restful and blessed Christmas vacation. I know I enjoyed the time with my family here in MI as well as with my sister & her family in FL.

The third graders have come back in style and in awesome form! These past 2 days have been extremely productive and the children's behavior has been incredibly good! We started reading groups in which each group is reading a different novel. Check your child's planner to see which book he or she is reading. We went to the science lab to investigate mixtures and how to best separate them. We began our Poetry unit and will be writing our first poem this week, and we continue on with our cursive letters. The children still love this!

Please note that the end of the marking period is January 14th. Any FIX papers that have come home should be fixed and returned by that date.