Welcome to Open House!

You must be on the back page of your scavenger hunt if you're sitting here reading the blog! Good job!

MAKE SURE that I take a picture of you today...if you have not had your picture taken by the time you're ready to go out for ice cream...come tell me that you're leaving and you need me to take your picture! Thank you for your help with that!

If you brought your supplies...feel free to organize your desk...or just leave them here and we'll organize on Monday.

I am really excited for the upcoming year and so glad that YOU are in my class!

Have a great weekend and enjoy your families...oh, and take a blue piece of paper with the blog address...when you get home, tell your parents to add it to their bookmarks or favorites, OK?

WELCOME to my new third graders and their families!!

WELCOME! This is the place where I will post information every week about the goings on in our classroom. I am guessing that since you have found this blog, you have received my letter!! If not, you should be getting it any day now.

I am so excited for the upcoming year...we are going to have a great time together while stretching our brains!!

I hope to get a chance to meet you all on Friday, August 20th from 3-4pm at the UES Open House...feel free to bring your school supplies and put them in your desks that afternoon...it will make the backpack a lot lighter Monday morning!! When you get to the classroom...look for your desk...on it will be a Scavenger Hunt to help you become familiar with the classroom and our surroundings.

We have a few new students to the third grade magnet program this year...make sure to introduce yourselves to each other so that you can start off Monday the 23rd already having made a new friend.

If you'd like to communicate with me BEFORE the 20th....maybe you'd like me to know what name you like to be called, or you'd like to tell me something interesting about your summer, or maybe you just have a question...please feel free to email me... karen.wills@fcps.org!

Enjoy the rest of your summer break...see you VERY soon!!
Mrs. Wills

Hello...and see ya later...

Hello and welcome to AUGUST...can you believe it's AUGUST? Me neither. I hope you have been spending your time enjoying yourself...and reading, maybe?!

My family just spent 12 wonderful days at the beach! We had amazing weather and spent tons of time outside...it was so much fun!

Now I am home and starting to think about the upcoming school year...do you have your school supplies yet? If not, the lists are on the school website, so you can print them off for your shopping trip! My kids did their school supply shopping at the beach, so they were excited to come home and get backpacks ready. Don't get me wrong...they are all happy they still have two weeks...but can you believe we start in only two more weeks?!

Since my last post I have seen a few more kids and heard from one other. I saw Neelam, Sammy, and Olivia at the Urbana Carnival...it was so good to see all of them! I saw John Bayley at church one Sunday...we didn't get to talk but we waved to each other! And I heard from Hoseok. He wrote me a long letter about his summer...he's had a great one! He is very happy to have Grace back home from Korea. He is looking forward to going into fourth grade!

Now here's the part that's hard...it's time to say, "See ya later..." I choose not to say goodbye because I will continue to see each one of you...however...the blog needs to turn over to the new class now...I am mailing their Welcome letters tomorrow and they will be checking out this blog soon...so their welcome message will be up mid week.

You all will always hold a special place in my heart...and I will see you at Open House.

Love,
Mrs. Wills

Happy Almost August!

Hi, everyone! I'm at the beach this week having a great time with my family! I have a few pictures to post, but I'm not able to do that here, so I will post when I return home next week!

I hope you are all having a great summer. We sure are. We've been down for about 5 days and we've been fishing, crabbing, swimming, bike riding...the kids have been on boogie boards and skim boards, and we've had fantastic weather! I just love it here.

I finally heard from one of our classmates by email! Allie sent me an email and filled me in on her summer...here is an excerpt...

I'm writing this from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You'll be happy to know I've been learning over the summer. I am learning German and improving my Arabic.

How cool is that? She also told me about visiting her family and friends, going to a birthday party and jumping on a moonbounce!

Do YOU have any fun news or info to share? I only have one more post left until I turn this blog over to my new class, so send me an email pronto! karen.wills@fcps.org

I miss you all and hope you're enjoying your break. I look forward to seeing you at Open House in August.

Love,
Mrs. Wills

Happy July...

Hello, everyone!! I miss you guys...are you having a great summer? I would love to hear from you...drop me an email so I can share what you've been doing with the class. karen.wills@fcps.org


I have been in a class since school let out. I am part of the Maryland Writing Project and have been doing tons of personal writing, as well as learning lots of wonderful strategies to improve my writing instruction! It has been time very well spent...and I finish tomorrow!


I also have spent a lot of time on baseball fields...both of my boys' teams went to the State championship tournaments this past month! And both boys' teams did very well. Connor's team and Jake's teams placed THIRD in the State. It was a lot of great baseball.


I have also been to the pool quite a bit. Kate is swimming on the swim team for our neighborhood, so I work at the swim meets...its a lot of fun. I've seen Garrett and Zach during swim meets, I saw Farzad one day at the pool, I saw Nicholas at church, and I saw Hoseok one day this summer. But for the rest of you...I MISS YOU!

I will check back in during August...but would love to hear from you soon, so please send me an email. I hope you are relaxing and enjoying your families.

Love,
Mrs. Wills

WHAT WILL I MISS?

THESE SMILES...

everyday.

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(August 2010 - absent today)

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(August 2010 - absent today)

I am going to attempt to say goodbye to some of my favorite people ever this afternoon. It will be very sad for me...but I send them back to you knowing they are ready for 4th grade! I hope you and your families have a terrific summer and I look forward to hugging (or shaking the hand of) your 4th grader at Open House in August!!

Lots of love,

Karen

So much to cover...grab a pillow...this could be a long post!

Where to begin?!?! I guess I should start by apologizing for no blog last Friday...I'm hoping this one will make up for it!!

FIELD DAY 2010...

I forgot my camera! (How could I?) If any parent has good pictures please send them my way. It was a VERY hot day and the kids were WIPED out by the end of it, but I was SO very proud of all of them. They were such good sports as BLUE battled GREY...and fun was had by all!

OUR CLASS PLAYS 2010

I know there is a lot of video footage out there...I saw you all with your cameras! I would love to post a video or some of your photographs, so if you wouldn't mind sending them to me via email, I'd really appreciate it. Weren't they wonderful?! I mean, let's be honest, some of the set changes were a bit too long, and some of their voices were hard to hear...but if you only knew the growth each individual up there has made...makes me teary eyed...they are such amazing kids. Thank you for sending props and helping your child practice his/her lines. Their success was job well done by YOU, too!

MARKET DAY 2010

What fun we had selling our products. Each company set up their "store" and worked to make profits today. The conversation we had after the sales was priceless. We discussed why the consumers were drawn to certain products over others. We discussed why profits were greater based on cost of manufacturing and advertising. This ENTREPRENEUR unit was a definite favorite among your kids. Check out our companies...

OUTDOOR PRODUCTS

THE SHARPENERS

FLYING, INC.

SKY HIGH

SCRABBLE TOURNEY
What better way to spend the last hours of our school year than playing SCRABBLE! Trust me, you better be prepared to go up against your kids in this game...they are REALLY good!