August 31-Sept 4

It was great meeting you all at Back to School Night. I hope all of your questions were answered. Remember, feel free to email us if you have any further questions. Those of you who signed up to volunteer, you can begin this week. The volunteers who will not begin will be those of you who are helping with Lit Circles on Tuesday morning. We'll let you know when to come in a few weeks.

Chapter 1 math tests (Place Value) were corrected over the weekend and will be sent home Monday or Tuesday. Most of the students did pretty well. Half of the class received a score of 90% and above. These tests will be reviewed by the students and then sent home for your review.

If you are interested in chaperoning for the upcoming County Fair field trip, be sure to get the driver paperwork signed in the office. Permission slips will go home soon.

Thanks again for all of your help and support this year. We REALLY appreciate!

August 24-28

Hello again! I tend to update the blog once a week, so please check for up coming events. As you all know, Back to School Night will be this Thursday at 6:15. Please arrive on time so we can begin promptly at 6:15. We will have a packet for you outlining this year in 3rd grade. A volunteer sign up sheet will also be passed around at that time. We'll need help in the classroom for Literature Circles (Tuesday morning), computer lab (Wednesday before lunch), and during math time a couple days a week. It looks like we'll have a student teacher who will be in the classroom twice a week as well. We will also need volunteers to pull out pages from the Math and Language Arts practice books, staple spelling packets for homework, and photo copying. We would like to have a parent in charge of scholastic book orders (usually 4 times during the year). As you can see, there are many opportunities to get involved. We appreciate all the help this year.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

August 17-21

Hello! The first week of school was a great success. Students seemed happy to see their friends and get back into the swing of things. It was great to meet many of you on the first day of school. I'll have a sign up sheet at Back to School Night next week for parent volunteers. I know many of you are eager to get into the classroom, so we'll look forward to your help soon.

This week we'll send home our first spelling packet including words for months of the year and days of the week. Students will need to write sentences and study the words for the spelling test on Friday. Also, we will begin using the Houghton Mifflin math program this week. Chapter 1 includes place value and homework will be sent home Monday through Thursday. The front page of math is computation and the back includes word problems. Students can choose 3 of the 6 word problems to do. Please be sure to check your child's work and make sure it is turned in on time. Also, reading logs will be checked every Friday by Mrs. Sandman.

Thanks for all of your support and donations this past week. They are greatly appreciated. I look forward to a great year ahead!

Welcome Back!

Hello Rio Parents and welcome to 3rd grade! After nearly 6 months of maternity leave, Mrs. Sandman and I are back this year. Having a baby has been a whirlwind with many fun, exciting, and challenging developments. Our little boys are growing so fast. I don't know where the time has gone. We will both be at school on Wednesday to welcome both the students and parents into our class. At back to School Night we will have a sign up sheet for volunteers, but if you are eager to help out before then, let us know. I'd like to get weekly homework packets assembled ahead of time.

Due to budget cuts this year, we will have larger classes in 3rd grade (30 students) and are requesting many supplies. Please see the supply list posted to the right. If for any reason you are unable to purchase all of the items, please let us know.

Homework assignment for the first day of school: please have your child bring in a family photo taken this summer (if you have one). Also, as an effort to communicate and save paper this year, I will be updating this blog weekly to inform you of homework assignments and upcoming events.

If you need to contact me ahead of time my email address is athena_maraldo@pvusd.net. I know the students will be eager to see us, but please refrain from stopping by on the 11th as we will be busy with meetings and setting up the classroom.

See you bright and early at 7:49 on Wednesday!