Field Trip Tomorrow!

Here are the details for tomorrows trip: Leaving St. Johns on Tri•Met at 9:15ish. Arriving @ Portland Art Museum hopefully by 10 Leaving Portland Art Museum on Tri•Met @ 12:30 and arriving back to school by 1:30. Thanks to all of you who have volunteered. We have plenty of parent volunteers for this trip. Here's hoping for dry weather!

Portland Art Museum this Wednesday

Wednesday we will be going with Ms. Johnson's class on a field trip to The Portland Art Museum.
Trudy in the Cafeteria will have sack lunches prepared for those kids who buy lunch at school.  If you haven't gotten your 3rd Grader's Parent Permission Slip and dollar for bus fare you have tomorrow and Wednesday.

Thank You Parents!

After 26 conferences over the past two days I am tired but thankful.  Not just thankful that conferences are over, but thankful that I get to work with such a great group of kids.  Your children are all incredibly hard workers and very deep thinkers.  Where do these great kids come from?  They come from you.  Great, hardworking families.  You are helping them get to school on time, helping them with homework at night and showed up to your kids conference- even though- maybe it was your third one that day, or you had to hassle to your boss to get the time off.  You did what you always do, you made the effort and showed up and support your kid.  So in case you third grader doesn't tell you, I will. 
Thank you.
I hope you have a restful Thanksgiving Break

-Mr. Leach

Green Machine Assembly with PGE

Bri, JR and Tamara, from Portland General Electric, visited our school today and put on a fantastic assembly called The Green Machine.  We learned about all of the sustainable and renewable energy options that are being developed for a greener planet.

Mucho Frio Fire Drill Today

Student Led Parent Teacher Conferences

Next Monday & Tuesday are Parent Teacher Conferences here at James John School.
Yesterday students started choosing pieces that they are going to show at conferences.  

Since the conferences are led by your 3rd Grader, it is critical that they show up with you to the conference. 

At Student Led Parent Teacher Conferences you will see:

• A portfolio of your 3rd Graders work.
• Your 3rd Grader's Developmental Reading Level
• Scored Writing
• Scored Math Assessments 
• A preview of content areas covered on their upcoming Progress Report.
• Anything else that your 3rd Grader wants to share.
• Any concerns or questions that you may have.

Importing & Exporting with Port of Portland

Brooke, Abby & Kenny from  Port of Portland stopped by this morning and helped us to learn about imports and exports.  We played a matching game to learn which items we import and which items we export here in Portland. We also learned about which items we can recycle and compost.  

We then checked out where our clothes came from by checking the tag.   We found these countries on a world map and colored them in.

Some of us tried checking our own tags- which was hard.

Off to another Great Week!

Well, we all survived Monday.  It's always a little bit of a jarring start after the weekend.  The kids did a great job on Friday with Ms. Wilcox.  I received a text from her that said "AMAZING KIDS!"
 I asked her if they were "extra recess good", or "doughnuts good".  She said, "Doughnuts for sure!"
So that's how we started the day.

All but about eight kids have turned in their book reports that were do last Friday.  I talked to those kids today and they all assured me that they would have them in soon.

Our class did FANTASTIC on the State Reading Tests that we took a few weeks back.  I'll be sharing your child's score with you at Parent Teacher Conferences next week.  Be sure and check the Calendar on the sidebar for your time.

I'm also working up a homework packet stuffed with fun that will keep your little turkeys busy all week.

Mr. L is absent today.

Ms. Wilcox will be in. She is a regular at James John. I'm sure it will be a great day. I'll see everyone on Monday.

Our Next Read Alouds . . .

I stopped by Green Bean Books this morning and did some book shopping for our class.  Jennifer was super helpful.  
I told her how much we enjoyed Because of Winn Dixie, so she suggested another book by Kate Dicamillo, The Magician's Elephant.

She also suggested a new book by Adam Gidwitz called A Tale Dark & Grimm 
Leave a comment and tell me what books your Third Grader would like to hear read this year?

No School Thursday is Veterans Day

Double Trouble by Victoree Norris

Last week I had an Asama attack from playing too hard in P.E.  The day I had an Asama attack was October 24th.  Later that night I was sleeping in my sisters room and I was wheezing the whole night.  My mom found out about my attack when my sister woke up.

After awhile my mom had pressed three numbers:  9 1 1.  The doctors arrived moments later.  The first thing they did was introduce themselves.  The first doctor was Joe, the other two were Damion and Selena.  The second thing Joe did was to put a mask over my face (there was a lot of steam coming out.)  After Selena took the mask off, Damion picked me up and took me to the ambulance truck.   My mom was in the truck with me.  I thought Kameron, my brother and Kimaya, my sister were going with me, but they didn't get to because there age wasn't over eighteen.

We got to the hospital at around 3:30 in the morning.  I was in room five and got to watch TV.  After a while I turned off the TV.  I got a little sleepy so I went to sleep.

An hour later I woke up and my mom was crying because I was getting my shot.  After I got my shot, my arm was burning.  The doctor said since I did a good job, I could go to another room.  That room was 3631.  In that room I got to drink Sprite, smoothies, water and lots of other stuff.  I didn't get to eat because my lungs weren't fully charged.

My dad came to see me and my aunties, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, cousins, my sister and my brother did too.  My sister came in with candy about an hour after I got my shot.

I couldn't sleep through the whole night, so the next morning I was tired and my eyes weren't fully opened .   I couldn't tell who was coming through the door.  I could hear and as soon as I heard Maya's (my sister) voice I knew who it was.

Later on that day I saw a lot of doctors coming in.  I knew there was something scary going on.  I saw medicine , needles and other things that the doctors would use.  So I got my second shot, but I had to scream very loud because it hurt so bad.  The doctor said, "No more shots."  I believed her because she was the best doctor.

Seeing Multiplication

This morning the class started putting together their array books.  An array is a picture that shows multiplication.  The kids were given several pages of different arrays.  They then had to name the array (i.e. 2 x 5) cut it out and glue it into their math journal. We glued them down and made a flap, writing the answer on the page undeneath the problem. They are creating pages for each number showing all of the factor pairs to 12.

Book Reports Due by Friday

The Homework for this week is the Book Report that your Third Grader brought home last week.  It's due by Friday.  If you have any questions let me know.

Don't Forget to Fall Back an Hour

Daylight Savings Time ends tonight.

Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour.

Enjoy the extra hour of sleep.

School Lunch

Great article in today's NY Times on (hopefully) the future of public school lunches.
http://nyti.ms/aGavRN

Bilingual Read Aloud

Every Tuesday and Thursday Ms. Brown comes in for bilingual read aloud.  These select stories are mainly from Mexico and Latin America written in Spanish with English translations. 

Hearing these stories in both languages reinforces vocabulary for our Spanish speaking students while, at the same time, allowing all of us to learn about folktales and celebrations from other cultures.

Getting a Good Read on Ms. Rolfe

by Trinity Andrews

Ms. Rolfe is our fantastic librarian here at James John School.  I decided to find out a little more about her.

Where were you born?
  "Kentucky."

Did you get good grades in elementary school?
  "Yes, I did."

Did you enjoy college?

  "Yeah, I think I did.  It was hard, but it was fun as well."

What were your favorite classes in college?

  "I love science.  I loved the classes, learning about science.  I loved taking trips, seeing how things like rocks were formed."

What was your last job did you like it?

  "I taught 3rd grade and I liked it.  I really liked knowing all the kids."

What is your favorite part of this job now?

  "Talking to kids about books and researching with kids."

Have you ever liked any other job more than this one?

  "If I could find one where I could work outside- I would love it."

How do you get all of your books?

  "I put in orders with a book company.

I know this maybe a silly question, but do you like to read?

  "Yes, I love to read."

Do you like being a School Librarian? 
  "I absolutely love being the librarin here at James John."

What inspired you to be a librarian?
  "I love kids and I love books.  What could be a better job?"



NO SCHOOL TOMORROW

Hey, we had a fantastic Harvest Fest.  I'm sure your Third Grader has told you that there is no school tomorrow.  However, teachers will be at school all day doing report cards.  So if any of you would like to stop by . . . with Starbucks- that would be great!
See you all Monday.

Blogging live from Harvest Fest 2010!

The fiddle music has starting, the chili smells great and crowds are starting to roll in here @ HF 2010!
I'll be posting family pictures-as they happen all night.