Volunteer Tea, Wednesday, May 28, 8:45 in the cafeteria!

Oh, dear!  I thought the invitations went out last Friday, but they didn't!  Volunteers are so important to Laurelhurst.  Thanks for all the hours with the auction, the play, field trips, room parents, novel studies, Wordly Wise, art projects, filing papers, Passport Club and so on.  We will be walking across the stage Wednesday morning.  I hope to see all of you in the audience.  Thanks for all you do.
I am putting the official invites in their Special Delivery envelopes.
Have a fabulous three day weekend and see you all on Tuesday!
Mrs. McKenzie

News from Room 21

May 19, 2014

Dear Families,

Within a month summer vacation will begin and your students will be headed to fourth grade!  It has been an incredible year, full of learning and fun.  It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with your kids.

Next week we have our field trip downtown, Thursday, May 29.  This is a wonderful experience and caps off our year of studying Portland.  Ms. Crandell’s class had beautiful weather, let’s hope we get as lucky.  I got a lot of offers to volunteer, I can only take four people with me. I had to put names in a bucket to choose.

My volunteers will be:

Heather Whiteford, Molly Raimondo, David McLaughlin and Laura Ehrlich.  We will leave at 8:45 and return before lunch.  If you can’t make it, let me know immediately.  I need all of you.

The end of the year brings many celebrations; the Rose Show, Field Day and more.  But for third graders the big event is the Coffee House.  This celebration of classroom writing is held during the last hour of the last day of school –June 13, 2013.  Students will share some of their writing “beatnik” style, dressed in black and snapping fingers instead of clapping.  We’ll turn the room into a café and set the mood with lights and music.  It is a joyful way to end a year!

It has been a pleasure to watch your kids grow and learn.  I can really see this in their novel studies.  Each of the groups is taking their responsibilities seriously and are working together.  We’ve also begun a Storyline (remember the Henry Huggins Storyline at the beginning of the year?)  This one is science based, looking at plants and cycles.  We are building a nursery and stocking it with flowers, fountains, trees and other plants –all out of painted paper!  Stop by and see this garden grow!

We have just completed our “I Am From” poems-amazing! I’ll post them in hall this week.   Now, we are working on color poems, using Molly O”Neill’s book, Hailstones and Halibut Bones as a mentor text.  It’s fun.

Thanks for all you. 

Valerie McKenzie

From Passport Club

Ms. McKenzie - could you please forward this to our Class Family List?

Calling All Passport Checkers!

• Make-Up Passport Check for April 24th
• Wednesday, April 30, after drop-off in hall outside of Ms. McKenzie's Classroom
• No experience necessary.
• Shouldn't take but a very short time
• The more hands the merrier!

Thank You ~

 

Chelle

Passport Make-up for April

The Passport Checkers will be upstairs in the hallway tomorrow morning (Wednesday) testing kids that didn't get to Passport last week due to OAKS testing.
Thanks to Michelle Kirk and all the other Passport folks!!

Laps for Lions and OAKS testing in Math

We will be running around the school Monday supporting our Laps for Lions.  Students will be running at 8:50 starting at the NW corner of the block.  Come on over and cheer us on! 
Due to the change, we will start our round of OAKS Math testing on Tuesday and finishing on Thursday.  We worked on a practice version in groups and kids got a feel for the format.  Most of them are excited to give this a go! 
Wednesday will be the Egg Drop.  We've been reading about eggs and engaged in a couple of eggsperiments.  We'll try a couple more things next week.  It's a lot fun.  Kids need to have a contraption, a detailed drawing and the three paragraphs of the Scientific Inquiry with them on Wednesday.  You all supply the raw egg for the egg drop.  I won't have any extra.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Valerie McKenzie

Third Grade Egg Drop 2014

Today, I sent home the information about the Third Grade Egg Drop.  Students are excited.  Please go over the information with them.  They have a lot to accomplish in the next three weeks.  There is a writing piece, a detailed drawing and a contraption to build.  Have fun!

 

Third Grade Egg Drop 2014

The Egg Drop is a highlight for third graders!  Your child needs to design something to put a raw egg into.  On Egg Drop Day he/she brings it to school and drops it out Mrs. McKenzie’s classroom window.  (The window opening is 25”X 15”.)  The contraption is limited to 5 pounds or less.  Your child will take apart his/her egg drop and see if it survived. 

            This activity is an introduction to writing a “Scientific Inquiry”.  Along with the egg drop, students need to draw their design and label the materials they used.  They also need to explain, in writing, how it was put together and why they feel their egg will survive the drop.

Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Time:             View the designs in classrooms from 9:00-9:30am

             9:30 –The Egg Drop

Place:  Spectators can assemble on the playground

              Great Photo Opportunity!!!

See you there!

Outline for Scientific Inquiry:

Question: Will a raw egg break or not break when it is dropped 20 feet out a window onto an asphalt surface?

 

1.      What I already know: (for example: an egg is fragile, the surface is hard and many materials can be used to cushion the egg.

2.     Prediction: I think….  This is the section where students explain what they think will happen and why they chose the materials they used.

 

3.     Procedure:  In this section, students explain how they put their egg drop together.  Include a drawing and a materials list.

 

4.     Conclusion:  This section will be completed after the egg drop.  They will record whether or not the egg survived and explain their results; why it survived or why it did not.

 

The first three sections are to be completed at home and turned in on Egg Drop Day.  They should be written in paragraph form.  The inquiry can be typed or neatly handwritten.

Biography Lap Books

Thanks for helping your student with the editing on their biographies.  I have a good 6-7 kids who haven't gotten their work looked at yet.  Please help them before tomorrow.  They are chomping at the bit to begin the publishing portion of the project.
Thanks
Valerie