Our First Author Celebration!

For our first Author Celebration, our third graders shared their Personal Narratives (true stories from their lives) with our kindergarten buddies. Check out the photos below!

The Secrets of the SPY Codes

A short article by Siddharth Pyapali



Have you ever wondered how spies carry secret messages from one place to another? They use a lot of spy codes! Shhh... close your windows and doors, I'm going to tell all the secrets of the spy codes. So, read on to know more! (hint: every code needs a key)


Every spy uses their own spy codes, but there are some famous codes that you can use after reading this article to make your own secret messages. Some popular codes are:

The Pinhole Code

The Undercover Postcard Code

The Wheel Code

The Playing Card Code

The Navajo Code

The Spike Code

The Keyboard Code

Pinhole Code

All you need to make a Pinhole Code is a magazine or newspaper and a safety pin. That's it! The Pinhole Code was invented in England almost 200 years ago. People who could not afford to mail a letter figured out a clever way to write to their friends. They would make pin prick holes above printed letters in the newspaper until they spelled out a message. It didn't cost a cent to send. And that is the secret of the Pinhole Code.

The Undercover Postcard

You can send a secret message by writing in tiny letters in a top right corner of an envelope. Place a gummed stamp on top of it, and mail. Your friend needs to place some water on top of the stamp to easily peel it off to read the secret message.

The Wheel Code

The wheel code is made by using a decoder wheel. The decoder wheel has an inner wheel and an outer wheel. The outer wheel has the alphabet in clockwise order from A to Z. The inner disc has all the letters jumbled up. By lining up the inner wheel with the outer wheel you can make the wheel code.

The Playing Card Code

Pull out two full suits of cards from a deck to make a total of 26 cards. Make each card stand for one letter from the alphabet. This is the key to a code.

The Navajo Code

This is about sending messages in your native languages. The enemy will never know what you are talking about.

The Spike Code

You start with the Morse Code that is made up of dots and dashes. To convert the Morse Code to the Spike Code, use a tall spike to stand for a dash and a short spike for a dot.

The Keyboard Code

The letters on the keyboard are not in A-Z order, so take a blank sheet of paper and order it A-Z. Place it on the keyboard and type your message using the key!

Kaitlin's Treasure Story

Kaitlin would like compliments and suggestions for her story, below. This story is only a draft.

Demi's Concert

One day I went to Demi Lovato's concert. "I had front row seats," I said. "When I walked in, it was so crowded." I walked to the line for t-shirts. I waited in line for 45 minutes. Then finally I got my t-shirt. Then we went and took our seats. "First David Archuleta came out," and sang 5 songs! Then Demi Lovato came out! She sang my two favorite songs, "This is Real, This is Me" and "Here We Go Again," and much, much more! "She rocked!" I said. When the concert was over it was very late and I was very tired. When I got home my dad put me to bed and said, "Did you have a good night?" I smiled and went to bed.

Please leave suggestions and compliments in the comments for Kaitlin!

Wackadoodle Spelling

The truth is, spelling in the English language doesn't always make a lot of sense.

For example, how on earth did "L" end up in the middle of the word "could"?

And given that "again" ends the same way as "rain," "drain," and "Spain," why isn't it pronounced the same way?

Because of their inherant wackiness, many words need to simply be memorized. But memorizing doesn't have to be boring! Here are a few fun ways that we practice spelling our word wall words over and over in class!

Alphabet stamps:

Wikki Stix:

Colored sand:


Play-doh:

Etch-a-sketch:

How do you make spelling practice fun at home?

Third Grade Spelling

On Friday we talked about what to do when we come to a word in our writing that we aren't sure how to spell. I tell students to make their best guess (so that they don't lose the momentum of their writing by stopping to look it up), then underline the word. That will make editing so much easier later on!

Something else that I ask parents to help me do for students is to watch carefully for misspelled words from our Word Wall. If a student misspells any word from the Word Wall at any time, I don't correct the word but instead write a small "ww" next to the word. That reminds the student that it is a word he or she should know, and prompts them to check the correct spelling on the wall.

Creating our Journals

This year we are going to work very hard in writing, but I think you'll be surprised at how fun that work will turn out to be!

Our first step in setting up our writing time was to personalize our journals this week. This is an important step, because we really need to come to see our journals as extensions of ourselves. We will put the stories from our lives, our feelings, and our ideas into these notebooks.

How many of you have read the Harry Potter books? Do you remember Dumbledore's Penseive? The Pensieve is a vessel where a person can put his or her most precious thoughts and memories. These thoughts and memories are stored in the Pensieve, and can be sifted through and revisited anytime. Can you see how our notebooks are like Dumbledore's penseive?

Summer Writing

Hello writers!

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer so far. In this post, I'd like to find out who has begun writing at home already. In the comments section, please tell us:

What have you been writing?

Where have you been writing?

Who have you shared your writing with?



If you would like to share your writing on this blog anytime this summer, you can email me your pieces at emilyellen24@gmail.com!