Dear Families,
Welcome to our 3rd
grade classroom! I am so thrilled to be here with your students. I know many of
you well and I greatly look forward to getting to know you all better. Please
visit our class blog site at www.classwithmrsnelsen.blogspot.com. This website can also be found on our Grapeview page.
If you get a chance to check this out, you will see several links that will
have assignments, Scholastic Book Club forms, and information about our class
activities and schedule. I will do my best to keep this site updated and I
sincerely hope you utilize its friendly format for your convenience.
With the busy start of a new
school year, I wanted to send home this letter to help clarify some of our
changes and upcoming events.
- Two Third Grades: I am so excited that we are
able to hire a new 3rd grade teacher and have our children in
smaller class sizes! Smaller class size is so key to student learning and
we have been very blessed to have Mr. Siptroth join us and team up with me
to teach both of these classes. Although we have separate classrooms, we
will be teaming up for all our projects, reflections, reading groups, and
math groups. Mr. Siptroth is recently retired from teaching 3rd
grade for many years in North Mason and has graciously agreed to partner
with us until we can successfully fill the position. We are so lucky!
- Upcoming: Picture Day is next week on Monday the
11th of September. Please see the order form that has been sent home.
- Registration: I have attached a packet of
registration and office forms. Please fill these out as soon as possible
and return them to the school. Many of the forms can be completed online.
Please see the form to help this user friendly process.
- Planner: Your student has received a planner that
will hold information about your child’s day. The planner will be a great
source of communication and responsibility for your child. It is important
that they review them every evening for upcoming assignments and dates. I
will sign these every afternoon when they are properly filled out.
- Homework: Your student will not have regularly
assigned homework. Rather, we have adopted the PDF philosophy in the
elementary school. PDF stands for Play time, Down time, and Family time.
We will have daily follow-up journaling activities that relate to what the
student did for PDF the evening before. Research greatly supports that
elementary students perform better in school when they get more sleep and
spend more time with their family. We will be providing some resources and
ideas for how to get your children participating in home activities and
gaining responsibilities (chores) to help support the function of the
household. Home responsibilities are so important to student success!
(If
you would like to work on school related facts and math practice at home with
your student, please let me know and I will provide enrichment materials for
daily practice at home.)
Obviously,
I always encourage students to read for at least 20 minutes a night, but that
can be any kind of reading or even family reading together. Students will also
have three large research projects this year and although much of this will be
done in class, many students will likely want to work on aspects of these
projects at home. You will have plenty of notice with each project. Please let
me know if you have and questions or concerns about this.
- Discipline Procedures: As your child’s teacher,
it is my goal to design a classroom community that works through conflict
and finds solutions immediately so problems do not escalate. Sometimes,
and very rarely, I feel the need to gain administrative support to help solve
a conflict. When this happens, I will remain in full contact with you and
I hope we have your support and share in the same mission to resolve the
conflict/behavior and create the best learning environment for your
student.
- Learning: We have great learning themes and
projects this year. We will be learning about the United States, the
continents and oceans, and our first science theme will be on Water and
Climate! We will also be doing a science unit on Motion and Matter,
Structures of Life, and the salmon life cycle and I do require science
fair projects in 3rd grade but will be providing a great deal
of class time to work on these projects. We will be conducting research
reflections this year and I will send home information and reminder forms
for each reflection. There will be 3 reflections this year. Reflections
are research reports that give students the opportunity to master their
research skills and share their new knowledge with the class.
3rd
Grade math has a great emphasis on multiplication, division, and improving math
facts and number sense. We will be working and collaborating on our new math
curriculum Math Expressions and we are excited about the opportunities this
program presents!
3rd
Grade reading has a great emphasis on comprehension, structure, and making
inferences and predictions. We will be continuing to use the Journeys
curriculum and I look forward to building these skills with the students.
8.
Schedule: Please
see the schedule below for your student. This will let you know when your
child has PE so he/she can wear appropriate PE shoes on those two days a week.
The
best way to contact me is always by email hnelsen@gsd54.org and I check it regularly. Also, you can check
information on the class website www.classwithmrsnelsen.blogspot.com, or you can call me at the school 360-275-4921 and
leave a message with the office. If you have any questions or concerns, please
let me know and I will be happy to see what I can do. Communication is key to
creating a successful plan for your student!
Thank you all very much for
all you do for your child. This is going to be a great year!
Hannah
Nelsen
P.S. Things I need:
- I always need volunteers to help support reading groups and even
basic tasks like copying and filing. If you are interested in any of this,
please let me know when you are available and we can schedule your
support! Thank you so much!
- I try to provide snacks for students daily. If you are able to
help us boost our snack supply, that is fantastic! Good things are
pretzels, goldfish crackers, and other quick snack foods.
