Mrs. Lilly is a nice teacher. She is good at helping students edit their writing and teaching math. She is also good at reading out loud. We like it when she reads to us. We listened to Talking to the Earth by Jean Craighead George. It is a Native American story.  Now she is reading Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims by Clyde Bulla.
    Mrs. Lilly likes tractor pulls. The name of her team is Lilly Motorsports. She also enjoys working in her garden. She likes cooking, she cans vegetables from her garden. She has a cat named Earl.
    We work in the garden in school. This year, we harvested tomatoes, pumpkins and squash. We might be able to make crab apple jelly.  Each student chooses a farm or local food producer to research. We will have a Producer's Fair where everyone is invited to see what we have learned. We often have food for the people to taste! We have displays that we make about our producer and we can answer questions about the products.
    In Physical Education this year, we are going to run a mile in the spring. We ran it once in the fall. This is the first year that we ran a mile. Our school has a PEP grant. We have to fill out exercise logs so we can keep getting the grant. We got a Playstation 2 that lets us connect exercise bikes to the game. We also got Dance Dance Revolution where we have to jump on the right squares when the game says.
     In art class, we are working on cool and warm colors. We take a piece of paper and put warm colors in Craypas. Then we paint warm colors over that. We also made a piece of paper with cool colors. We are cutting the paper into strips and we are weaving them into squares.  We made clay pumpkins that we can put a candle in. There are holes in the front of the pumpkin so smoke can go out the eyes. We also had to draw a pumpkin using shading. We had a real pumpkin to draw, so we had to pay attention to the shadows. There is a new floor in the art room. It is a really good pattern.
    Library is a smaller room this year than last year. We no longer have the stairs to sit on when we listen to Mrs. Chamberlin. We sit on the floor when we listen to a story. We like to hear Herbie Jones stories. Herbie Jones is in third grade. He hangs out with his friend, Raymond. Raymond often has some schemes that are not good ideas. One time, Herbie went on a field trip that was right next door to Hamburger Paradise. They didn't eat lunch where they were supposed to, but instead went to the Hamburger Paradise instead. They got caught because Herbie had cheeseburger breath and Raymond had two little catsup dimples on his mouth. It is a great book.
    We have technology class once a week. We are working on our keyboarding in there, but sometimes we get to go on great web sites. We like to work on Read, Write and Type. We also like the website, Tutpup where we practice our math facts.
    We have Writers this year in our room. We can write stories and print them from the Writer. We are practicing our keyboarding. We are supposed to type 10-15 WPM (Words per Minute) by the end of the year.
    In music class, we learn dances. She teaches us "the movement of the month." She also teaches us a song to go along with the dance. They might be dances from Africa, Asia or a Native American dance. We have a quiet listening time every class. At the end, we have to tell her what we hear or think. We are not allowed to dance while we are listening, we just have to pay attention to the song.
    We also have guidance class. Mrs. Danzig comes every Tuesday to our class. She teaches us how to get along with others. We try and stand in other people's shoes. We want to think how our actions look to other people.
    In our classroom, we have four pods of desks. Each pod has four desks in it. We have 16 desks, but 15 students, so sometimes, the teaching assistant uses the extra desk. We have some extra desks and a table in our room, because all the third graders come together for math class. Mr. Edwards comes in during math to help Mrs. Lilly teach. They each take a group to work with, so everyone gets to work learning a game. Most of our math classes have games that help us learn math. Sometimes, we play a game called "An Hour or Bust!" This will help us learn about time. We also like learning about different base systems in math. We like the base 5 system. Most of the time, we work in base 10!
       In third grade we learn how to write in cursive. Almost everyday, we learn how to write in cursive. We started learning the lower class letters, we will end with all the capital letters.
    In science, we are studying the skeletal and muscular systems. We have to be able to name 16 bones in the human body.  In Social Studies, we learn all about Addison County. We also are learning all 14 counties in Vermont.
    We also have reading. It is right before lunch. We have different groups to work on our reading. Mrs. Lily takes a different group to work with, while they are working with the teacher, we have dictionary work  or meet quietly with our group. This time, the groups are reading Judy Moody was in a Mood. Not in a Good Mood. In a Bad Mood. One group reads Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and another is reading Horrible Harry Cracks the Code. We also read silently after recess and then we read our library books. On Friday, we do a book report on what we read during silent reading and at home. 
    Our playground is still getting better. We just got a new piece of equipment. When you walk on it wobbles, you have to have good balance. There are parts that spin and parts to hang on. There is also a climbing wall on the equipment. There are two ways that you can go all the around the equipment without touching the ground.
    This year, we have a great teacher. We are learning a lot.  We are happy that we are in Mrs. Lilly's class.

    By Ira, Averi and Angus