Month: January 2026

What a great week of celebrating the gifts of Catholic Education! The students topped of the week this morning celebrating Mass and shining in front of the whole school. I will post more photos of the week on Seesaw. Thank you for helping your children produce some of the most amazing book report commercials I’ve seen! Have a wonderful weekend and please don’t forget to invite your friends to our Open House on Sunday from 11:30-1:30.

Academics

Literacy -This week students finished their “I have a dream” paragraphs, read about the topic of heredity in a new program called Readworks, and also spent a whole “day” enjoying a read-in celebrating their met reading goal.

Math -We continue to work on understanding the concept of division. We will wrap up the unit with a short assessment on Monday and then will dive into memorizing division facts next week. We will also get back to the X routine of practicing facts for those still mastering multiplication. KEEP PRACTICING!

Social Studies -Students hit the polls after registering to vote, and selected our class president, Ms, Keira Patelli. Congratulations to all three candidates who worked so hard and truly exhibited amazing leadership through the whole experience.

ESPAÑOL, 3rd -We practiced the days of the week, numbers, colors and animals, through the use of a calendar.

Art – Students explored creating small penguins, designing each one to fit their available space. This activity also gave us a chance to discuss proportions and how they affect our artwork.

PE -This week in PE we played an invasion game called Capture the Flag.  The students worked on teamwork, strategy, chasing, and fleeing.  Next week we will start our jump rope unit for the 3^rd and 4^th graders and volleyball for the 5^th graders. 

Father Moore Praying over the beautiful quilt Mrs. Patelli helped the students produce. YOU CAN BID ON THIS AT THE 2026 GROWING GREAT KIDS AUCTION!

Have a wonderful three day weekend. I am away today at an Archdiocese GRACE meeting with Mrs. Russell and learning with other amazing teachers throughout the archdiocese and bringing back information to our teachers. I always love these days, but it’s hard to be away from the classroom.

As I’m sending this, I realized I have no photos from the week to include, a definite rarity! We must have been soo busy! 🙂

MAP Testing -Mr. Ramos decided to bring back winter MAP testing, but just for Reading and Math. We completed Math this week and I was quite impressed with the growth. Reading is longer and we will do this Tuesday and Thursday next week.

Talent Show -Friday, January 30th. PLEASE LOOK FOR RAIN BOOTS AND RAIN COATS!

Field Trip -Wednesday, February 11th at 12:30. We will be walking to the Whatcom County Courthouse and visiting Superior Court Judge Jones. This is one of my favorite field trips and if you are able to join us, I highly recommend it. Look for permission slips coming soon.

Book Report -Directions and information on January’s book report are coming home in the Friday folders today. Students should be busy reading their approved book and the videos OR presentations are due no later than January 30th. We will share them throughout the last week of January. This is a fun one!

Class President Election – Our unit on government is in full swing and I’m sure you have heard about our class election. We began the process by talking about qualities of a good leader and students nominated classmates they thought would be good presidents. At this point we have three candidates who are running for office. Speeches will take place next Tuesday and a debate will follow. Classmates have given ideas and it’s a great overall learning experience.

Auction Items -Families are asked to complete their donations at this time. Deadline is January 22nd and we are working towards a class pizza party and free dress.

Academics

Literacy -This week we read about the history of voting. In writing we wrote a story about being caught in a snow globe, and those were fun. We are going to publish those next week after completing the whole writing process. We focused on main idea with a variety of Martin Luther King books and articles this week as well. Students discussed and started their next writing piece on a dream they have.

Math -Mathematicians are exploring all kinds of different ways to understand division and are coming to the overall concept of the close relationship between multiplication and division. As we’ve discussed this can be challenging if students do not know their facts. Please keep practicing!

Science -Thank you for collecting data for the next part of our heredity lesson. Students will using this data to form conclusions on which traits are recessive and which ones are dominant. We specifically talked about inherited and acquired traits this week as well.

Social Studies -Third graders learned about the three branches of the government, which can be a challenging concept when you dive into each. We will keep discussing this, as well as the election process. We are looking forward to sharing all we’ve learned with Judge Jones on our upcoming field trip.

Religion -This week we completed a chapter on the dignity of each and every human being. We had a lot of great discussions and take aways.

Art – 3rd graders experimented with tints and shades, adding white or black to colors to see how the same hue can change. They had fun discovering different values and how it affects their artwork!

PE -This week in PE we practiced chasing and fleeing, change of direction, spatial awareness and demonstrated knowledge of offensive and defensive strategies and teamwork while playing games called “Yoshi” and “Mushroom ball”. 

Music -This week in music we are…Learning finger placement, breath control for a good sound, and proper rest position, Beginning our recorder unit by learning about the history of the recorder, Getting and labeling recorders and learning classroom rules and procedures

Welcome to the best time of the year! Students know the expectations, each other, and are off and running. So much learning is happening right now! I LOVE it!

TALENT SHOW – Please plan on attending the 2026 Talent Show on the evening of Friday, January 30th. We are doing a class act and the students will start practicing next week and it will be amazing! Look for fun rain boots and rain jackets to wear.

Book Reports – Students have chosen a book for January and should be on their way reading. This month is a fun one and directions will come later in the month. This book report will be due the week of January 26th.

Academics

Literacy – This week we began our new unit on Benchmark and explored the essential question of “Why do people participate in government?” We read a story about a flood in North Dakota, and the students had a lot of connections due to recent events around here. Skills covered this week were irregular verbs, important/unimportant information, and answering the 5W questions. We are building up to the skill of summarizing. We began reading government books in reading groups to support our learning. In writing we began the prewrite to our creative stories, being caught in a snowglobe.

Religion -We began the week celebrating the Epiphany with a story, classroom blessing, and then covered the chapter on God’s Creation in our religion books.

Math -DIVISION! Third graders began the week exploring equal groups, and the concept of division. I can’t express how important it is to keep practicing multiplication facts at home.

Social Studies -This week we talked about comparing and contrasting time now and long ago. We looked at some photos of Bellingham long ago and the students were very engaged! One of our lessons also covered the concept of cause and effect, where we played a fun game performing “silent plays” and guessing each others causes to the effects acted out.

Science -Our new unit is heredity. The lesson this week looked at the vocabulary words of offspring, dominant, traits. The students explored different monsters -mommies and daddies, and then used a chart to determine the traits their babies would have. Ask them about the word “dominant”!

Art – Penguins in the Polar World. This week in art class, students explored the polar regions by creating a scene with an iceberg, glacier, and happy penguins wearing hats.

Music -Please see the attached letter from Ms. Varon for recorders.

PE -This week in PE we learned how to solve certain types of conflict through Rock, Paper, Scissors.  We practiced these skills by playing “Rock, Paper Scissors, Hop”.  We also played an invasion game called “King Pin”. 

Music –This week in music class we are…Singing the song Donkeys Love Carrots in a round to practice part-singing and listening skills, Reviewing and assessing students’ ability to name notes on the treble clef staff, Beginning our recorder unit by learning about the recorder, its history, and how to care for the instrument, Introducing Recorder Karate, where students learn songs and earn belts as they progress

Library -This week we read  Taste Your Words.  We talked about how we feel when we say things that are kind and unkind.  We then continued to work on our class book Little White Dog.  We also spent some time working on our typing skills.  Students that brought books back also had the opportunity to check out new books.

Junior Achievement -Learning about money from our volunteers