I can’t believe Friday was already my last day student teaching. The year flew by, and I was not ready to leave room 7! The kids surprised me with a party today, along with flowers, cards and gifts. Mrs. Willeford made me this beautiful cake with my face on it! Isn’t it incredible?

Mrs. Berggren created a beautiful scrapbook for me with pictures of the kids from all year long. The kids signed their name and wrote me a little note next to one of their pictures. They also signed a canvas bag that Mrs. Berggren decorated for me. The kids got a kick out of seeing me cry as I was looking at the scrapbook! I’m going to miss each and every one of them so much. I gave them each a goody bag and a personalized note. Each student has such amazing and individual qualities that I wrote 20 different notes, all expressing my love for each student’s individual characteristics, strengths, and what I will remember them for. I feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to teach the amazing 20 students in Room 7, and to develop a rapport with each of them. All of you must be so proud of the amazing kids your have.

Please let your children know that I will be back to visit, and that they can e-mail me at:

B_Pacheco7@yahoo.com

Here is an overview of the curriculum I have taught in the past few weeks.

After a few units on multiplication, I introduced the students to division as a backwards form of multiplication. I created the following example to explain this better:

We made Fact Family Booklets. Students were given 2 numbers in which they had to write the 4 different number sentences in the fact families. For example, the fact family for 3 and 5 would be:

3 x 5 = 15

5 x 3 = 15

15 / 5 = 3

15 / 3 = 5

We then moved on to number patterns and geometric patterns. Students were surprised to learn that they were learning geometry in third grade!

As part of our unit on the community of Richmond, we learned about petitions. The students each created their own petition for a change they would like to make to Richmond. The class voted on the 3 best ideas. The 3 ideas for petitions that got the most votes were:

1) Plant more trees, plants and flowers around Richmond.

2) Build houses for the homeless that they do not have to pay for.

3) Replace the bubblers at Richmond Elementary School with Poland Spring water coolers.

We then asked all 3^rd grade students at Richmond Elementary to vote on one of the above 3. The winner was choice number 2; to build houses for the homeless that they don’t have to pay for. I was so impressed by the ideas all the students had about making Richmond a better place!

The students have just finished writing Bio-Poems. A Bio-poem is an 11 line poem about oneself. Here is the format that the students followed to write their own bio-poems:

*First name

*4 traits that describe you

*Relative of…

*Lover of… (3 people, places or things that you love)

*Who feels….(3 feelings such as “..happy when ________”, “…sad about _____”)

*Who needs…(any person, place or thing)

*Who fears…

*Who gives…(not something you buy to give to someone)

*Who would like to see…(3 people, places or things)

*Resident of…(street, town, state or country)

*Last name

They also drew pictures to accompany their poems that will go into their “White Books” along with all other writing activities from the school year.

We are still switching classes for reading, so students’ reading instruction differs depending on the teacher.

In our class, the students each read a biography and completed a poster on the person they read about. The posters were FANTASTIC! I was so impressed by how well every student did with this book report/project.

I am so sad that my time in room 7 is finished. I could not have asked for a better cooperating teacher than Mrs. Berggren! She taught me so much and was a pleasure to work with. Thank you to all 3^rd grade families for being supportive of your children and for being involved in your children’s education. If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me at

b_pacheco7@yahoo.com

-Ms. Pacheco

My apologies again, everyone! I'm working on grading final papers, assignments and projects in order to wrap them up before my last day. I'm also working on letters to give to each of the students on my last day. Please bear with me and stay tuned for an update...it will come soon, I promise!


-Ms. Pacheco

Happy Spring, families! I've been solo teaching for a few weeks now, and I apologize for my lack of posting. I've never been so busy in my life, but I love every second of it!

I'm sad to inform you all that my last day in your third graders' class will be next Friday, May 8th. It will be very difficult for me to leave, as I have grown so close to the kids. I have always had a passion for teaching, but your children have made that passion grow and thrive.


Next week will be mine and Mrs. Berggren's "transition" week. She will be gradually taking over the curriculum again. I will be posting a "real" blog post within the next couple of days to fill you all in on the happenings of Room 7 in the past few weeks.



-Ms. Pacheco

Greetings, families!

I started my “solo teaching” last week. I’m teaching all subject areas, but feel very comfortable doing so, thanks to Mrs. Berggren helping to prepare me and give me ideas, suggestions and wonderful advice!

All of last week was Reading Week.

The week began with students designing quilt squares about their favorite books. This was the setup o f each quilt square: (Please forgive my Microsoft Paint Skills…college students are too poor to buy photoshop! J )

Mrs. Berggren then glued all 20 squares to a poster to create our class “quilt”. It was so colorful and the kids did an amazing job on it!

Our principal, Mrs. Weber came in to read to us on Tuesday, as she made her rounds throughout the school, reading to every class!

Our next task for Reading Week was making “Vocabulary Hats.” Mrs. Berggren bought the class white hats and gave each student a vocabulary word with the meaning from our collection of “words of the week”. The students then had to think of a sentence with the word, and decorate the hat with things that relate to the word and its meaning. We marched in a parade around the school on Wednesday, April 1^st, to show all classes our hats and the words in which we displayed!

On Thursday, the whole third grade went into the cafeteria to watch a magic show based on Reading. The magician was fantastic! He asked for student volunteers and really amazed us all. He also explained why reading is so important in all aspects of life, and many of his tricks were based on classic children’s book characters and ideas!

After the magic show, we had a URI athlete read aloud to us. She plays on the Women’s basketball team and volleyball team and the kids asked her some great questions afterwards!

Thank you to all of the parents who came in last Friday to listen to your children read! Students read aloud to their parents or with a partner. Many students shared our class book, The Best Part of Me, which was my very first lesson that I taught to Room 7 back in September. The students did a great job with the book months ago, but it is still so wonderful to see how much they have progressed in writing since then!

We just finished our two multiplication units in math.

We started off with multiplication cups that I made for the kids. Each student had 6 mini paper cups stapled together, and used uncooked macaroni as counters. Each cup counted as a group, and the macaroni counted as the number in each group. For example, if we filled 4 cups with 6 pieces in each cup, our two factors would be 4 and 6. The students then counted all of the macaroni and figured out that 4 x 6 = 24.

We then moved on and learned the basics of multiplication. We learned it as repeated addition and as a way to group things.

We also learned the patterns of certain factors and the multiples of each times table. We learned the Commutative (Order) Property and the Associative (Grouping) Property, and strategies to figure out multiplication sentences.

We practiced “Writing to Explain” and multi-step problems that involve multiplication, subtraction and addition.

After vacation, we will be learning division for the first time!

We began our Richmond unit by filling out our Richmond Town Government Booklets with information from online research! We used the school set of laptops, and explored the Richmond Town Website to learn all about the town departments. This was all in preparation for our mock town council meeting. We assigned roles for the meeting, and I introduced the make-believe problem that the meeting would be based on. The problem was that there was a black bear roaming around Richmond. The students then created problems the black bear could cause and came up with possible solutions. The attendees of the meeting were as follows:

5 Town Council Members (Alexandra, Will, Dana, Zac R. and Jacqui K.)

-To listen, take notes and vote on a solution

3 Local Business Owners (Devan, Jackie B. and Jared)

-To tell what problems this causes for them and what they think a good solution would be.

3 Local Homeowners (Jaimin, Grant and John)

-To tell what problems this causes for them and what they think a good solution would be.

The Treasurer (Justin)

-To explain how much money can be spent on trying to fix the problem.

The Police Chief (Daniel)

-To answer any questions or give any ideas about what the police can do to help.

The Animal Control Officer (Allison)

-To answer questions and give ideas about what animal control can do to help and to make sure the solution

is safe for the bear.

The Town Planner (Tyanna)

-To talk about any areas that may be available to build on and how these areas could be used as part of the

solution.

The Zoning Board Official (Matthew)

-To explain the problems the bear has caused to the land in Richmond that was originally available to build

on, and to allow the normal rules to be changed for this case.

The Public Works Officer (Zach D.)

-To explain the dangers caused by the problem on the roads in Richmond, and to offer a solution to the

problem.

A reporter from the Chariho Times (Breanna)

-To record what happens at the meeting and report it in the newspaper the next day.

The Town Clerk (Maddie)

-To record what happens at the meeting for the Town Hall records

The Town Moderator (Haylee)

-To act as a chairperson and make sure everyone acts properly. If there are people who act

improperly, the moderator will ask them to leave the meeting.

The meeting was fabulous! The students really worked hard to learn about the role they would be playing and really got into character. They shared well-thought out ideas and make believe problems. I hardly interfered at all…I wanted them to take on the task themselves, and they did a great job! Ask your third grader about the role they played and about the solution that the Town Council voted on!

We are working on our Grammar in Room 7. We practice with out Daily Oral Language books. The books have a sentence that is not written properly, and the students have to re-write the sentence correctly.

Example of an incorrect sentence in the book:

“me and my friend have saw professional hockey games befor”

The students will then try to fix the sentence, which should read:

“My friends and I have seen professional hockey games before.”

The students seem to have the most trouble choosing the proper words to describe actions in the past tense, and with verbs coming after “I,” “he,” or “she.”

Here are some things you can practice with your third grader:

Correct form of sentence	Common mistakes students make
I saw that movie yesterday.	I seen that movie yesterday. I have saw that movie yesterday..
I have seen that TV show twice before.	I seen that TV show twice before. I have saw that TV show twice before.
I hit the baseball out of the park last week.	I hitted the baseball out of the park last week.
I put my shoes in the closet last night.	I putted my shoes in the closet last night.
He makes dinner every night.	He make dinner every night.
She looks like someone I know.	She look like someone I know.

Keep in mind that all third graders often make these mistakes, and as teachers, we expect them! Otherwise, they wouldn’t make workbooks filled with items like those above to practice! As a matter of fact, students of all ages have difficulty with these Grammar rules.

I’m very impressed with how well the students did in learning and practicing syllabication! Last week, our spelling words were all 2 syllables that contained the vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel (VCCV) pattern. The syllables are split in the middle of the two consonants in these types of words. I passed out dry erase boards to each student, gave them a spelling word and they wrote it on their board separated into syllables. I then counted to 3 and had them all hold up the boards at once. They had so much fun with this, and really showed me how much they learned!

Sadly, my last day teaching your wonderful children will be May 8^th, as I graduate the next week. I’ve formed such wonderful relationships with each and every student that it will be hard for me to leave. I’ll be sure to visit them a few times in the remainder of the school year! They have taught me so much about being a teacher, and each and every one of you should be so proud of your third grader and know that each student has such wonderful qualities.

I have uploaded and resized a bunch of pictures to my computer from the last few weeks, taken mostly by Mrs. Berggren, and a few by me. Please check our class photo album at:

http://community.webshots.com/user/b_pacheco7

as I will be adding them to the album shortly after this post!

Have a safe, fun and relaxing April Vacation!

As always, please feel free to comment on this post by clicking the number of comments (eg. "0 comments) at the bottom of the entry.

Also, do not hesitate to e-mail me with any questions, comments or concerns at B_Pacheco7@yahoo.com

-Ms. Pacheco

Happy Spring, 3rd grade families!

Please check for an update here within the next day or two, as well as an update on our webshots photo album
(link is at the bottom right-hand side of our class website: http://www.geocities.com/b_pacheco7/room7 )

Hello Third Grade Families!
Here’s the latest on Room 7:



We’re continuing our multiplication unit. Ask your child the strategies they’ve learned to solve multiplication problems, as well as the tricks to remember the times tables. Some concepts we’ve focused on include:

• Arrays
• Repeated addition
• Adding equal groups
• Comparisons in Multiplication
• The Commutative (order) Property
• Order of Operations
• The Identity (one) Property
• The Zero Property
• Solving word problems and writing to explain
• Creating Multiplication Stories
• Patterns in Multiples of 9
  

This week, our spelling words all contained a prefix. On Wednesday, Ms. Pacheco taught a lesson and facilitated an activity in which the students engaged in a hands-on activity using prefixes, base words and suffixes. Students were given several strips of paper, each containing a prefix, a suffix or a base word. Students were asked to sort the strips and use them to create words. Ask them to give you some of the words they created with their paper strips!
Next week, our spelling list will include words with suffixes.







The students have been preparing to make their biography posters by reading several biographies and filling out informational worksheets about the people they are reading about. They will eventually choose one biography to create a poster on.
Students are also continuing to switch classes for reading and are participating in small group guided reading and activities.








Students are just finishing up letters to their pen pals from Charlestown Elementary School. They are learning the fundamentals of letter writing, and are excited for the end-of-the-year field trip to Charlestown Elementary School where they will meet their pen pals!
Students have also been given opportunities for “quick writes” lately. Mrs. Berggren has a can of popsicle sticks, each containing a word, phrase or other topic that the students base their writing on. Mrs. Berggren’s creativity is very apparent each and every month when she puts out a new set of popsicle sticks (examples: October-pumpkins at the top of the sticks; November-Turkeys; January-Snowmen; March-Shamrocks) They may write about something in their lives, or engage in creative writing to come up with a story to match the topic on the Popsicle sticks. Some examples are…

• Yuk!
• Junk
• Why the sky is blue
• The funniest day ever
• Bubble gum
• 100 Years from Now
• I feel sad when...
• Oops!
• When I am 10 (12, 20, 50)..
  

We have just finished our science unit on sound. Students seemed to really be interested in the investigations, and they have used what they’ve learned about sound to create their own musical instrument. We have just begun sharing instrument projects. Thank you so very much to all of the parents who helped their third grader with this project! I was so impressed with the instruments, and the kids are all excited to learn about their classmates’ creations.
A special thank you to Mrs. Willeford and Mrs. Potts for helping prepare materials for some of the science lessons. We couldn’t have done it without you!







Ms. Pacheco will be beginning her integrative social studies unit on the community of Richmond next week. Some of the activities and concepts in the unit are:

• Researching the Town Council on the Richmond town website
• Participating in a mock town council meeting in which they will all engage in real-life problem solving
• Learning about the population of Richmond by age group and creating bar graphs
• Identifying community services and who to call/what to do in various emergencies
• Investigating how water pollution affects the bodies of water in Richmond
• Drawing maps of the route from each student’s house to the town hall
• A Richmond Relay Race
• Richmond Bingo, encompassing social studies, science, math, language arts, physical education, health and art concepts
• And more!
  

This week was spirit week! There was a dress-up theme for each day this week at Richmond Elementary School:

MONDAY (3/16)





TUESDAY (3/17)





WEDNESDAY (3/18)




THURSDAY (3/19)



FRIDAY (3/20)





The students were told that the class with the most spirit would win a popcorn party. Mrs. Weber was so impressed with all of the school spirit at Richmond School that she decided to award the entire school with a popcorn party next Friday!
Mrs. Berggren and I took pictures of the students showing their spirit, and they will be posted to our class’ online photo album next week!



=========================================

I would like to thank each and every student in our class for the beautiful birthday cards you all made and gave me on Wednesday. Words cannot explain how much they mean to me :)







Finally, Mrs. Berggren and I would like to thank the generous families of Room 7 students for making an overwhelming amount of donations for the Pennies for Patients fundraiser. Every classroom in Richmond Elementary collected money to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Student in our class collected the most money in the 3 weeks of the fundraiser—from pennies and nickels to larger bills and one extremely generous check—and won a pizza party for doing so.
The unbelievable totals for each week collected by Room 7 are as follows:

Week 1: $50.50
Week 2: $72.69
Week 3: $154.47

For a grand total of…..

$277.47


Bravo, Room 7!








--Ms. Pacheco