Explorers in the Forest!

Dear 3rd Grade Families,
We are winding down our Early Explorers unit this week. Last Thursday your child brought home a study guide with instructions for reviewing. We will be taking the assessment on Explorers this Thursday, 2/7/13. 

This Friday, February 8th, is our next field trip! We will be travelling to Tryon Creek State Park for their "Forest in Winter" program, where students will explore the forest in winter!  Students will examine how decreased energy from the sun in the winter has reverberations throughout the food web. As a group in the classroom, students will examine how evergreens and deciduous plants respond to reductions in energy. On the trails students will observe how decreases in energy impact the animals inhabiting the park. 
This is a joint field trip with 5th grade. We are still in need of drivers from 8:00-12:00. If you are available and willing to help, please contact me or Mrs. Flores ASAP. Thank you!

The Sally Ride Science Fair at CHPCS is coming up! 3rd grade will be completing an all-class experiment, which will be on display along with the individual/group projects from 4th-8th grade students on Tuesday, February 19th. Please join us in celebrating science at Cascade Heights!

C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S to Abigail and Adrienne for their outstanding representation of 3rd grade in this morning's Spelling Bee! Adrienne placed 2nd place! We are so proud of them!

Thank you to everyone who came last Friday to student-led conferences! I hope you enjoyed hearing about 3rd grade from your child's perspective. If you were unable to make it, I am happy to schedule conferences separately too.

Next week we begin our unit on ancient Rome! Details and instructions for our next big home project - studying a Roman legacy - will come home next week. Our March field trip, on the 8th, will be a tour of modern legacies. 

And, just a reminder of the Valentine's Day guidelines:

• Valentines should be handmade.  Start on them now!  They can be straight up Valentines, or bookmarks, origami, little books, cartoons, jokes, etc.  

• Students do NOT have to bring Valentines in.

• If students DO bring Valentines in, they need to bring one for every student in the class (I will include our class list in the body of the email).

• PLEASE NO CANDY!  If you would like to include a little something, consider fruit snacks, pencils, trail mix, etc.

• We do NOT have a Valentine's Day party.  We will instead have a little fun observing Oregon's birthday, which also happens to be on February 14.  

• Students may distribute their valentines into our class mailboxes at a designated time near the end of the day. 

• Valentine's Day is typically only "observed" by the primary classes; you should have your older students check with their teachers.

Thank you, and have a wonderful week!
Ms. Mahn