February in full swing!

We have jumped head first into the new year and all of the greatness it has already brought!

Our class was recognized for earning the most Scholastic Reading Counts (SRC) points in January for third grade. We now have a trophy to show for our book-worm tendencies!

Environmental Academy students are learning about plant life cycles, reproduction and composting in order to be 'geared up' for growing. This week we received a visit from a professional gardener, and we were able to get our questions answered and guidance from an expert! We can't wait to start diggin' in the dirt!

Saturdays for Success starts this Saturday, February 9. This is going to be a great way to get some extra practice working on skills learned in class, as well as deepen our understanding of previously learned material.

Science is getting stormy, as we learn about the water cycle and the benefits of a watershed. Our field trip to the Corkscrew Watershed is February 25th from 9AM to 2PM. 

We are writing the road to success in writer's workshop and feel fully prepared to take on Collier Writes on February 26th. 

February is an exciting month of exploration and growth!

Dates to remember:

First day of Saturdays for Success:     2/9
Interim period ends:                               2/14
Saturday for Success:                           2/23
CREW field trip:                                     2/25
Interims go home:                                  2/25
Collier Writes:                                        2/26
Saturday for Success:                           3/2

Celebrating a year of success

December sure was a busy month celebrating all of our successes this past year. 

The field trip to the Naples Zoo was incredible with sightings of fosa, cheetahs, pythons, many birds and other amazing creatures. The learning continued on the field trip as we classified all of the animals observed into our Zoo Packet. We received many compliments on our behavior and our extension of classroom learning. 

Celebrating our good grades and behavior at game night on the 11th was a tremendous amount of fun. We danced on the Wii, played board games and kick ball. Wow! Hard work does have some excellent benefits. 


Mission: Respect task was completed with great enthusiasm. The respectful words and actions permeated our classrooms and will continue to impact our lives. As our reward for completing mission: respect, we got to witness a live BMX performance! These young BMXers are excellent role models and are living proof that if you work hard toward your dreams, you can achieve them. 





Polar Express theme night was an exciting event on the 18th. There was hot cocoa sipping, holiday book reading, face painting and even some early Santa sightings! 

With this whirlwind of fun, we also had our quarterly benchmark tests and achieved some tremendous scores! I am so proud of our class gains in respectful actions, academics and community. Way to go Bullfrogs!

Dates to remember looking forward to January:

- school resumes                                   January 7th
- Report cards go home                       January 14th
- No School MLK Day                          January 21st
- Quarter 2 student-led conferences   January 21st - 25th

Our enrichment continues...

October was an amazing month! 

We learned different strategies to take a closer look at more difficult texts in order to get more knowledge out of each read. In math, we worked on subtraction with comparison problems and continued data analysis. In science, we discovered different plant stimuli and learned about the process of photosynthesis. In writing, we are still working on our voice and utilizing descriptive word choice. 

We had great quarter 1 student led conferences! Thank you for your amazing involvement. We are making some tremendous progress and continue to grow with every day. 


Important dates for November:

11/9 - Walk-A-Thon
11/19 - Interims go home
11/21, 11/22, 11/23 - No School - Happy Thanksgiving

Falling into Fall

Gosh! I cannot believe that September went by so quickly. 

We had so much fun studying the main idea and text features in reading, analyzing graphs and data in math, asking scientific questions in science and exploring by experimenting. We've even begun to grow our very own lima beans and sunflower plants while observing and predicting their growth! Writing has been a journey through narrative descriptions and social studies has taught us about citizenship and responsibility. Whew! We've been busy. :) 

Quarter 1 is almost over, and I am impressed every day with the effort and skill building of each student. October is a very exciting month with student-led conferences, a field trip to the Philharmonic to learn about the orchestra and more studies! 

Please see below for important upcoming dates. 

Thank you for your continued involvement and participation. 


Upcoming Dates:

October 11: Fall pictures
October 12: Last day to order monthly scholastic books
October 17: Field trip to the Philharmonic
October 15 - 19: Student led conferences for quarter 1
October 19: No school - teacher planning day

Welcome back!

I welcome you and your child to third grade at Parkside! We will continue to explore, grow, investigate, strive and achieve, as we did in second grade. I am excited to have most of my students from last year. I know we will continue to build our community and breadth of knowledge as we take this journey through third grade together.

Please take note of some important upcoming dates:

August 17th - Meet the teacher 2 - 3:15
September 3rd - No school - Labor Day
September 17th - Early Release Day - school: 8:35 - 11:50
September 26th - Early Release Day - school: 8:35 - 11:50
September 28th - Interims go home
September 28th - last day to order scholastic books!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for reading and staying updated!