Reading Dahlathon

One of my very favorite authors is Roald Dahl. I fell in love with his books when I was young and have been sharing him with my students since I started teaching. I'm not sure if this site is new but I stumbled across it for the first time today... http://www.roalddahlclub.com/

In September, in honor of Dahl's birthday, they began a reading challenge. Any child, living in the United States between the ages of 7 and 13 can earn The Official Dahlathalon Award for reading just three Roald Dahl books.

Whether or not your child chooses to participate, the website is great fun!

Letters to Lions

One of our third grade writing standards is letter writing.
Write personal and formal letters, thank-you notes, and invitations:
a. Show awareness of the knowledge and interests of the audience and establish a purpose and context.
b. Include the date, proper salutation, body, closing, and signature.

National Geographic Kids website offers a great opportunity to practice this form of writing while doing something good! From the site - "Lions are in danger of extinction across Africa. Filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert want you to help save lions! Write letters to lions and the Jouberts will deliver them to African leaders to let them know how important lions are to kids everywhere. And we may feature a few of them in a gallery on the National Geographic websites and in print!"

For more information about these beautiful animals, click here. Nat Geo Wild will be supporting National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative with Big Cat Week starting December 6th. Check it out and
cause an uproar!

Book Club Ordering - Online!

I will be sending home another book order tomorrow and thought it would make things easier if I included the link on our blog in case you'd like to order online. http://clubs.scholastic.com/parentordering/login.jsp For every order that is placed online, we will receive $3 to spend on books for the classroom! Our Class Activation Code is: DL6GB - you will need this when you place your order.

Here's a virtual tour of some of the books available in the Holiday Books brochure: 

BrainPOP

I wanted to share a really great website for kids that provides information and videos about all subjects. To access all of their content, you have to purchase a subscription but they have LOTS of free resources as well.

Here is a direct link to the free resources for students in grades K-3:
http://www.brainpopjr.com/free/

And another link that includes resources for older children, for ESL instruction and in Spanish:
http://www.brainpop.com/free_stuff/

Veterans Day

In honor of Veterans Day, we will be learning a little bit about Veterans and the reason this legal holiday was created.




A website created just for kids is available thanks to The Department of Veterans Affairs.

Please note that although we will not have school on Thursday, November 11, we will have school on Friday the 12th. If you are planning to take the day off for a long weekend with the family, please let me know ahead of time so that we can prepare an independent study contract.