Hope your Thanksgiving days went well and were able to tell the people that you love how much you appreciate them. Mine was great, Nadia had a blast and needed about another day just to recover. She played HARD.

Well, on to the subject of this post. You may have noticed that Marchionda.org was spotty. Here a minute, gone another. Forums broke down and all data was lost. Soooooo much has happened. After upgrading the software that runs the forums, I ran into a some issues getting all of the posts and users back. With the help of my hosting company, we were able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Then - - - MY COMPUTER BLEW UP!! Not kidding. Its video card fried and I could not see a thing. So, my wife was kind enough to let me dip into our emergency fund and I got this beautiful Mac pictured on the right. After spending about a day moving data from the old computer to the new one, I was able to get our site back up and running the way it is supposed to be. Well, except for the Downloads page. That one I have to have a long time to publish, so I will put that up later on when I have more time.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone. Please enjoy the company of your families and remember to say, “Thanks” to all of the blessing each of you have. Make sure to let your parents know that you appreciate all that they provide for you.

Have a fun break, and I will be here excited to teach you on Monday morning.

Today we had a pretty easy day, making sure that all of our corrections were turned in before the long weekend ahead. We started off the day with a math mystery picture. Most of you only had time to finish one, maybe tomorrow there will be time enough to squeeze the other one in. After that we watched an episode of “In the Book” about using our prior knowledge to help us understand text better. We applied this skill to our social studies chapter on sheep farming. After lunch and art we came back and did rocket math and reviewed for our test tomorrow on time. Feel free to download any of the sheets in our download area for any extra practice. After our afternoon recess we watch a short movie about the history of Thanksgiving and completed a Thanksgiving word scramble.

Today in science we had an interesting investigation where we took planetary data and sorted it according to distance from the sun, diameter, and length of year. After sorting that data we used our inferencing abilities to figure out what it all means. We concluded a few things:
1. Closer planets to the sun have a shorter year.
2. Rock planets are closer to the sun.
3. Fatter planets are further from the sun and made of gases.

Pretty cool stuff from pretty cool kids! Nice work!

Have a great weekend and be sure to complete all of your corrections.

~Mr. M

Kids, be sure to read or listen to Little Grunt and the Big Egg for your test tomorrow morning. Also, remember to practice your spelling words. This week we used sign language twice to practice our words, see if you can remember how to sign. If you need help look here:

Here is the homework for the day (remember to do all of your corrections!)

This post is mainly for the parents of my students. I have changed a policy in our classroom in regards to homework. Up until now any unfinished classwork is taken home to finish. Most kids have no homework because it gets done in the class time allowed. This will still be the case with one small change.

This past quarter there have been way too many kids making simple mistakes on corrections during school time. Each time a correction is sent back I stamp it with another red correction stamp. Too many have gone out and come back to me accumulating three or four, or even five stamps! Here is the change I am making: All corrections are to be done at home as homework.

My goal is to get higher quality work and to have you look at your child’s corrections to make sure that all is done thoughtfully. This will save a lot of my time and your child’s time at school. The result may be that your child is not thinking about hurrying to get corrections finished at school, and your child will be putting more effort into the work the first time around.

Here is a sample of the sheet that will come home with any corrections, absent work, or missing work. Please read everything and sign the bottom of it. Thanks for your support and help with getting homework in and done well.

Along with the classwork for the day, I want to let you all know that I will be out of the building on some professional training with a fun educational toy. And, yes, that is a hint about something really cool and really fun that is going to be added to the classroom in a few weeks. That is all I want to say about that subject for now.

Today was a great day in class. We all finally finished with our state testing. We ended the day with a fun science video on the birth of the Earth. See you on Monday:

Some kids have chosen to make the switch to cursive writing. Madison, Brianna, Brooke, Madelyn, and Eli have chosen to use cursive in their daily work. Awesome job! We will all be making that switch in January, though. So practice up, kids! Just remember that it takes a bit longer to finish your work for about a week, then things speed up. Stick to it and always do your best!

Here is the classwork for the day:

Today all you are responsible for completing is the math lesson 6-5 Practice.

Sorry about not blogging yesterday. I have been a little bit, a lot, crazy busy.

Have a good evening!

Welcome to the first day of the second quarter of your third grade school year! All grades are back to nothing, there is no late work, and it is up to you to start of your quarter with great grades. I know you can do it! Check out the Online Grade Book, it is quite empty.

We only have work in two subjects today - math and social studies. The math is a bit harder. We are subtracting larger numbers using borrowing, double borrowing, and borrowing from zero all in the same assignment.

In social studies we are starting a new chapter on rural communities. We are going to find out what it is like to live in rural areas, what it is like to farm different crops, and how some of those crops make it from the farm to your home.

In science we will be starting our chapter on the solar system.

Here is the work for the day:

Well, kids and parents, the last day of the first quarter is now behind us. Please take a moment to check out the grades in the Online Grade Book. On Monday I will begin posting grades for the second quarter. Our science test went much better this time around. Every student was able to use their book and their study guide again. Our class average was significantly higher and included many, many A’s. Good work kids!

Next week we will be using our morning chunk of time to take our WKCE standardized tests. Our afternoons will remain unchanged for the most part. Parents, you are welcome to come in and help during our math times any day of the week.

Have a great weekend and be sure to listen to the latest episode of The Marchionda Minutes!

Episode 2 of The Marchionda Minutes is up in iTunes ready to be downloaded if you are a subscriber. Click the podcast icon in the sidebar to open up iTunes and get the latest episode, or click here to download it directly from our podcast page.

Tomorrow there will be three tests in school. The first two are normal and predictable tests. We will be having our comprehension test on the magazine article “Wild Shots” along with our spelling test on words with /s/ and /g/ words. Feel free to type them in in Club Geek in the Classwork/Homework help area. Start a new topic and type away.

The third test will be in science. Today in science we made this study guide.Knowing this will get you an “A”:

Here is the work for the day:

When I came back to school this morning, waiting on my desk for me, the note all teachers fear or love was staring up at me. Yes, it is the note from the substitute teacher who takes care of you when I am gone. Usually this note can be one that makes a teacher shake his head in frustration or make him talk to a few students about respect and responsibility. But not this note . . . not this note at all. The substitute teacher was very impressed with how hard you all worked in English and in math class. She wrote a note that was beaming with compliments about your character. I felt so proud of my class and to be your teacher. This morning I could not wait to see you kids and start my day. Thanks for being great yesterday, and for being great today.

The true test of one’s character is how he or she behaves when noone is around (or when the teacher is gone )

Have a great night kids, see you tomorrow.

By the way, I hope to publish a new episode of our podcast, The Marchionda Minutes, tomorrow. Click here to view our page and subscribe using iTunes.

Sorry to be gone today. Nadia needed me home, and my wife was unable to stay home.

Kids, be sure to finish all of your work. Tomorrow morning I will be coming in extra early to make sure that all of the work from yesterday and the work you turned in for today is corrected.

Today’s work should be and English assignment from page 140 and a spelling sheet. The reading work of finding the main ideas in sections of our magazine article and the math worksheet we will revisit tomorrow.

Finally, if you didn’t study for your social studies test, you were able to in class today with the substitute teacher. Please make sure you listen to the chapter 2 lessons online or read them from your text.

See you tomorrow! If you have any questions, I will be checking Club Geek tonight. Feel free to ask!

Welcome back! It seems as if your time away from school did you all well. You worked very hard today. I was impressed.

Also, thanks again, parents, for your support and kind words at the parent/teacher conferences. It was great to talk with you all.

Just as a heads up, we are working on borrowing from zero in math. It seemed to go well in class today, but I will not know for sure until tomorrow morning when I get a chance to correct all of the work. If you want, just for fun, head on over to the Homework help/Classwork section of Club Geek and write a problem for a classmate to solve. Let’s see if we can stump each other!

Today we studied for our social studies chapter 2 test in class. Feel free to listen to the chapters on audio in our downloads section and read over your study guide. Even though we can use our text on our test, please be sure to study.

Here is the classwork for the day: