Check out this link for our fun events!

Have an amazing summer, everyone!

Enjoy these fun pictures of the third graders “building Chicago.”

First, the Noun!

The Third and Fourth Grade play was a delight of adventure and humor! For many of us, the plays-on-words were the most fun!  It is remarkable how well the students have learned to open themselves physically to the audience, project their voices, and move through the stage space so confidently–and there is always great singing going on at Quest!  Wolf howls and a “round of a-paws” go out to Mrs. Armentrout and Mrs. Hasty!

Now, the Verb!

On Thursday, the Wolves and Tree Frogs, with an amazing group of enthusiastic parents, got to play together on our train ride to the city, on our long and laughter-filled walk to the boat, and on the Wendella Architecture Tour (where we again “wowed” the tour guide with knowledge about Chicago and thoughtful questions).

This coming week, we will be continuing special projects:

Compiling our own personalized Tasty Summer Treats book lists,

Presenting the remainder of our Chicago building research,

Creating Lego versions of our buildings as one, big third-grade group,

Splicing together “rolls of film” responses to our class novel, Journey,

Editing and sharing our stories of The Journey of the Vine,

Exploring lines of symmetry and negative numbers,

Working on our scrapbooks,

Making compliment posters for classmates,

Signing yearbooks, and Enjoying time together to celebrate and reminisce.

Quick Notes:

Our students’ IXL accounts continue throughout the summer. The fourth grade language arts and math skill levels provide a great resource for revisiting and extending this year’s learning.

Each student has created a list of books he/she is excited to read over the summer months.

Friday is our last day. We will have an assembly, an all-school field day, and special time together as a class. School dismisses at 12:00. (No lunch)

Our Photo Link

Up, Up, and Away!

Just as in Jack and the Beanstalk, the Wolves have climbed together, supported each other, laughed and shared experiences, and come to the end of the year magically strengthened and transformed as a result of the journey.

Thank you all for your support of our wonderful students and Quest Academy!

Chicago Trip

Be sure to check your child’s Friday folder for important trip information for our field trip on Thursday. We can’t wait to see our buildings in real life! Ask your child about the importance of the elevator and steel frame construction in Chicago architecture.

MAP Testing is Completed

MAP is finished. Enjoy looking at the scores, but–from those of us who spend every day with your learner–take these three one-hour assessments with a grain of salt if the numbers seem glitchy. MAP is designed to measure “work sheet” type learning, and it assesses skills out of context. It does not leave room for creative thought, personal response, or imaginative ideas. It is unquestionably boring–solitary and silent.

It gives us an interesting quantitative piece for those students who “love tests” or have the maturity to trudge through and stay focused “because we said so.” it should not be viewed as particularly relevant if you know your child only brings his/her “A-game” to challenges that build over weeks, involve active learning with peers, and discovery/sharing of new ideas. (I’m pretty sure that’s why you chose Quest!)

Mrs. Gruzinsky and I get to be the “flies on the wall” as the tests proceed–and there are very few cognitive sparks flying for our third-graders. Fifteen minutes after each test was done, our class was abuzz with Chicago research and Blue Box books, solving analogies, and comparing “photographs” drawn of our class novel, Journey (see above). Our lovely kiddos were so glad to be back to real learning–and they looked (and sounded!) like our Wolves and Tree Frogs again!  It’s good experience for our students to try out these tests. Let’s just love the fact that they are third-graders–and learn better when the content, the process, and the products are the right fit for them!

Selling Our Books!

Students have begun sharing their Blue Box Books with classmates. Two amazing games and an imaginative “felt” board had us all intrigued. We look forward to more next week!

Scrapbooks!

What a great excuse to make a mess and be creative! It was interesting to see how students chose to group their pictures and begin their first pages. It gives us a great trip back in time!

Meet This Week’s Very Important Wolf:

Please meet our Very Important Wolf, William. He was born in Shanghai, China. His favorite color is black. His favorite place to go is Disney World, and his favorite food is pasta. He enjoys Geronimo Stilton, Rampage, and playing tennis.

Supporting the Pack: Please check our UPCOMING EVENTS tab for important dates!

Map Testing will be held Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings next week. Let’s help our Wolves do their best by getting a good night’s sleep, having breakfast, and arriving at school on-time and stress-free.

Field trip permission slips for our Chicago adventure on Thursday, May 17 are due by 5/1. Thanks for getting them in to us.

Spanish presentations will be videotaped on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our estudiantes should be dressed and ready.

Drama parts memorization should be completed for next week; all our actors should be completely “off-book,” so they can focus on final blocking and stage craft.

Scrapbooks: It’s time for those scrapbooks we talked about at conferences: the kind with the plastic envelope pages that the papers slip inside. On May 7, we will be ready to begin our scrapbooks, using the pictures the children have been taking and pictures we have copied for them. Cameras will go home in backpacks on Monday. Please send in any pictures that need to be printed from their memory cards by Friday, May 4. The students will be grouping them by categories and choosing their own headings.

Here’s our next fun family challenge related to our class novel, Journey:

We LOVED hearing the baby songs and rhymes shared at all your homes, and we even heard one shared with a puppy!  Feel free to send more as you think of them.

In the novel, the characters use photographs to learn about their family and themselves. In one chapter this week, the two children compared themselves to photos of their parents and grandparents when they were young. SO….who does your child look like? I shared that one of my daughters looks so much like my sister that–when we went out in public together when she was little–people always assumed my sister was her mother! In the book, one character also mentioned that his whole family looked alike, and Aariz totally related to that. He has older and younger family that resemble him. We also laughed that this might provoke some family controversy: both sides of the family might want to “claim” them! We would LOVE to have some pictures of your child’s look-alike(s): scanned, photocopied, photos of photos taken with a phone and sent by email, whatever works for your families’ archives into the past. Monday is our Character Ed. day, so we’ll share these along with our Character Stories!

Picture Link to Wolf Grandparents’ and Special Friends’ Day

Take a peek at the fun we  had on Friday with our grandparents and special friends! After performing our two songs in the gym, the Wolves showed their special people how to use Performance Poetry to liven up their rendition of some deliciously silly poems. We can see where our students’ senses of humor come from! We taught our visitors two mindfulness strategies we use in school, and together we all wrote acrostic poems celebrating the people we love. What a fun morning!

Chicago from the Beginning!

Our vocabulary word recently was shambles–and that’s exactly what Chicago was in after the Great Fire. We explored Chicago’s history and found that the stars on our city flag help us to remember Fort Dearborn, the Great Fire, and the two world expositions that attest to the courage, persistence, and industry of those who lived here before us. We continue in-class research on the students’ individual buildings. The Wolves have set up their research note cards, and we shared a comprehensive overview of architectural styles from which to “build” our understanding and recognition as the unit progresses. It is a wonderful opportunity to look at both parts-to-whole and whole-to-parts. The students know their buildings. If you’re heading into the city anytime soon, you might want to stop by and visit.

You can check our our Big Questions for this unit in the tab here on our blog.

Supporting the Pack: Chicago Field Trip

The Tree Frog and Wolf class began studying the city of Chicago this week. Our class will learn about the history of this great city, architectural styles, and important Chicago buildings.

As we conclude our year of exploration, presentation, and celebration–we need to CELEBRATE with (drum roll, please!) a field trip to Chicago! Our trip will be on Thursday, May 17. We will be taking the Metra train and then walking to the Wendella Boat Tour launch over by the Wrigley Building. We then embark on a tour by boat of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Permission slips are in Friday folders.

Would you like to join us? Each student is allowed to bring one parent. (Sorry, Wendella does not allow for more parents per student.) This is a favorite trip of third graders and their parents. Student tickets have already been taken care of. While we don’t need any money for parent tickets now, we do need to know if you are interested in coming.

Note: This is a fast-walking event. All participants should have comfortable shoes and the ability to walk rapidly from train to boat and back again so that we can work within train and boat scheduling constraints.

Parent tickets are $9.25. Parents will buy their own train ticket at the station that morning. Please contact me by email or note by Tuesday if your child is bringing a parent on this trip. If you are not sure at this point, it is better to reserve a ticket with me and cancel later, than not to have a ticket at all. Let me know if you have any questions.

Grandparents’ and Special Friends Day is this coming Friday.

If you have not yet done so, please RSVP for any visitors to Laurie DeSimone.

Scrapbooks

Please have a scrapbook for your child at school by May 7. On that day, we will begin this fun activity. I will send home cameras the week before, so photos can be developed and returned to school at that time. Remember, I may already have photos you have turned in earlier in the year. We have lots of paper and pens, but you are welcome to send in materials for your child to use to scrapbook. Please let me know if they are specifically for your child (and you’d like extras returned) or if they are available to share.

Things to Howl About This Week: Ask your Wolf to tell you about them!

Canada Wrap-Up:

 We all learned a LOT. Our Canada Quiz is coming home. You will see that the students were able to show their basic knowledge of history and provincial/territorial location, while also having a variety of options for challenging themselves to go further. Check out the cute map icons and see which geography questions you could have answered!

Beginning a Journey:

We’ve begun our new novel with a trip back in time: looking at photographic negatives! What was a roll of film? How did it work in the camera? You mean you couldn’t erase shots? No zoom? Enjoy these pictures!

Chicago:

We’ve set up our first note cards, and research starts Monday on our buildings. Woo-hoo! See if your child can tell you about Neo-Gothic architecture, Art Deco with its cool geometry, or Chicago windows.

Service Learning Buddies:

We joined with our MIddle School Literacy Service Group buddies to create stories using Storybird. The camaraderie among the students, after working together all year, was wonderful to see!

 Picture Link to More Wolf Photos

Woo-hoo!

Camp was really fun, super-challenging, and a special time to share experiences. (And eat!!! We did a lot of that, and the food was great!) The students showed initiative, strategic thinking, compassion, respect, team spirit, persistence…exactly what you would expect of our Wolves and Tree Frogs.

We took pictures!

Here is the Picture Link to photos taken by Mrs. Gruzinsky, Mr. Oremland, Mr. Ernesto, and me. There are a LOT! Make some popcorn, set it to slideshow, and watch our adventures! It’s the perfect way to make the best of a rainy weekend. (How could you write an addition to your Gratitude Journal about that?) Your child can be the narrator to tell you about the challenges–and it will be fun for him/her to see what happened when the other groups experienced them.

Follow-up activities Friday will decorate our hall bulletin board.

Canada Presentations

Most of our Wolves have presented their Canada research on the Provincial/Territorial Flags, Sports, Mounties, or Foods. A couple of students are going to do additional research after realizing they did not have needed information, and they will fill us in on Monday. Most did fantastic jobs and clearly show they can independently research, compile, and present information with style!

We’ve heard the Canadian anthem sung in not only French and English, but also in many of the native languages of Canada. Ask your child why we are going to keep practicing the English words next week! We watched this video–and we want to be ready.

We’re wrapping up our Canada study, and the children will be showing their knowledge in a specially-designed quiz next Thursday. As I told them, this is not a trick situation! They have the actual test with the responses they filled out, along with a map to practice the provinces/territories in their purple folders going home today. Please keep these materials going back and forth to school early next week, so we can use them both at home and at school. They can also go to their Google Classroom to link to province/capital games.

There is also a lot of yummy challenge material, and there is a LOT of excitement about how many of these they already know!  Students get to draw symbols on the map and prove their geography expertise. The extra-extra credit challenge is to also learn the provincial capitals–but that really is for the kiddos who just LOVE to memorize those things. Don’t worry about it otherwise!

New Math Unit

Our new math unit lets us see how we measure up–with perimeter and area formulas and problem-solving. This is the transition year, as we bridge from concrete and “count-able” representational understanding of these concepts and move on to symbolic, formulaic calculations. Seeing why the formulas work is key to working with more complex geometric configurations in the future, so we want to be sure the students fully grasp what they need to look for in distinct shapes. For example, the height of a rectangle is along its measured side, while the height of a parallelogram is from one vertex down to the base forming right angles. Be looking for your child to use good math talk to explain what is needed.

It was wonderful to see so many of you at conferences! I think we’re all set and ready to go. Please email me with any questions you may have!

We would like to have the scrapbooks by April 30th. Feel free to send them in any time from now on, and I’ll hold onto them. Similarly, you can go ahead and download/print any fun pictures your child took with his/her camera during the year  to include in the scrapbook. That’s what that camera was for!

Supporting the Pack:

Check out our PINK pictures from Spirit Week and our new friends from our Wolf Party! During our party, we played interactive Wolfie Madlibs on our Chrome Books and made origami wolf packs!

Camp Edwards Trip on April 12/13:

You will find detailed information, a packing list, a permission slip, and medical releases in your child’s Friday folder. We’re getting geared up and excited! This Quest third-grade highlight combines science, team-building, and just plain FUN! Camp Edwards is one of the preeminent youth camps in the area; they know us and are ready to host another amazing experience for our students. (And the food is great!!!) Four Quest staff members will chaperone this trip. We sleep in a heated lodge; boys and girls sleep on separate floors. Please look over the information and contact us with any questions.

We would like the permission slip returned by next Friday, and the medical releases in hand by 4/5. Pay particular information to the medical forms, as they require the signature of your doctor if it will be necessary for us to administer any medication to your child, including over-the-counter medications. To clarify: We will continue to administer any medications currently given during the school day without further authorization from your doctor. Children should turn in this form ONLY if they will need to take medication OTHER THAN that currently authorized during the normal school hours (for example, additional medication times at breakfast or bedtime or medications not on our school list that you give your chiild at home). 

We explained to the children that the packing list is not a suggestion; they should pack exactly what is on the list and nothing not on the list. We really do need winter coats, hats, and two pairs of gloves for our night activities and in case the weather is damp (which makes it chillier). As for the rain poncho, we have found that the dollar-store ones rip almost instantly. Look for the inexpensive but thicker colorful plastic ones. They make child-size. You do NOT need an expensive one! Really DO have your child pack a small stuffed animal or other “lovey” to bring along. We told the children we’re bringing ours, too! We take pictures with them–and even the ones who didn’t “want” to bring one are always happy they did.

Things to Howl About This Week: Ask your Wolf to tell you about them!

• Wolf paws do very well when writing in cursive.
• Playing cards involve lots of hidden probability potential.
• Canada has some crazy-amazing things to share. Our Canadian symbols research teams have been hard-at-work.
• Our class groans when it’s time to stop reading our Lit. Circle books. We’re almost to the end. Each child has chosen a new Blue Box book for independent reading.

Calendar Notes:

Check our Upcoming Events section.

Picture Link to More Wolf Pictures