Dear Families:

Your child has been selected by his/her teacher to continue to participate in the WordMasters competition, a challenging opportunity to study & master 25 vocabulary terms in greater depth.

Many third graders participated in the first round, and Bower Hill entered the competition with a total score of 169 points. The top ten third grade teams in the entire competition scored between 188 and 181 points, and the median score for all participating third grade teams was 105 points. For our first try at this rigorous competition, our students performed very well – we were well above the median score and of the 520 teams participating; our score was very close to the top ten teams!

The second Word Masters competition quiz will occur sometime between February 1st and 15th, with the exact date to be announced later.

HERE ARE THE VOCABULARY TERMS TO BE LEARNED FOR THE SECOND ROUND:

rut sty turf moan dune

gully swirl cocky strut murky

sidle bellow feeble murmur hustle

fleece inland canyon babble coastal

whirlpool rickety sorrowful squabble piercingHere are notes directly from the WordMasters competition directions for preparation:

“Be sure you understand the part of speech of each word—whether it’s a noun, verb or adjective…

And try to familiarize yourself with other forms of these words—“coast” not just “coastal”

“feebleness” and not just “feeble” … “cockiness” and not just “cocky” …

“murk” and “murkiness” and not just “murky” … “fleecy” and “sorrow” and “rutted” and “pierce” are other examples…”

For Monday of next week, the enrichment website for Bower Hill will be updated with more resources for your child to use to study these words and practice with analogies. Please visit that link at: http://www.ptsd.k12.pa.us/WordMastersChallenge-ThirdGrade.aspx

Should you have questions, please do not hesitate to be in touch.

Joe Bratetich, BH Enrichment/Giftedbratetichj@pt-sd.org724 941 0913, 2230

Got a sty in your eye?I hope not.

A sty is also like a paddock. A sty is a pen for swine – hogs & pigs!

sidle Here’s the most interesting word on the list, if you ask me. When you

“sidle up”to someone, you move cautiously, carefully, almost as though you are afraid to be noticed.

In some ways, sidling is a timid, almost frightened movement. But it can also be a sneaky move, because you are trying to avoid being noticed.

To sidle is also a sideways movement, done to slide next to someone else. Often, when you sidle next to someone else, you will whisper or act as though you don’t want to be noticed.

If sidling is sneaky or timid and quiet, strutting is quite the opposite. If a strut had a voice, it would be loud and bold! Models strut when they are showing off new clothes. Roosters, turkeys & peacocks strut around too!

Now, when someone or something is strutting around, they feel good about themselves. In fact, they may feel too good about themselves. A person who has that much confidence can also be called cocky.

When someone is moaning or groaning, they are complaining aloud, either in pain or get some attention.

Turf can be real, like this grass on a football field, or artificial, like this turf from another field. See how it is fake?

Turf also means territory. Big cats like tigers hunt on their “turf” and fight with other tigers who try and come into their turf to hunt or find friends.

In the summer, when my family goes to the beach, we drive to someplace along the coast . When we drive home again, we need to go inland (or away from the coast) to get back to Pittsburgh again!

inland desert sand dunes and

coastal sand dunes by the ocean

All of these places are coastal; they are on the coast of the United States. The coast is a place where the land meets the ocean.

inland

A rut is a groove, ditch or furrow made especially by wheels.

But, if you are in a rut, then you are in a routine that is hard to escape, and being in a rut is not a happy place to be.

A gully is a ditch or channel, just like a rut, but a gully is made by nature, not by wheels. A gully is made by water, usually a heavy downpour!

A canyon is like a gully, but MUCH larger.

A canyon was also made by the power of nature, and was carved by water flowing through a river for years, and years, and years!

Have you ever heard of the Grand Canyon?

Check out this rickety bridge. Something rickety is fragile, poorly made, and easily broken. How about my broken chair in class? It has broken before and is likely to break again because after 40 years, it is old and weak and rickety.

And when something is weak and rickety, another word to describe it is feeble. While rickety is often used to describe how something has been made, feeble is more of a human characteristic. When something is considered feeble, it is because of age or physical weakness, like this older man over here…

Consider this little lamb in wrestling match with this powerful tiger. The lamb’s moves would be feeble in comparison to what the tiger might do.

Can you think of a reason why someone might be full of sorrow? To be sorrowful is to be sad, down-hearted, or blue.