Monday Memo
December 6, 2010
Dear Parents,
I hope everyone enjoyed our snowy weekend! This week we will be spending quite a bit of time preparing the students for their Christmas concert this Friday. I am having a hard time believing how quickly time is passing us by! I love seeing the students all dressed up for the concert on their concert day! Last week we wrote some letters to Santa that will be published in the Belmond Independent. Instead of asking for presents from him, we wrote about a special Christmas memory that they had. We also enjoyed the Reading Incentive assembly held last Wednesday. Unfortunately, our class didn’t win this month. We are shooting hard for winning next month. Again I appreciate the help you give us in making sure your child is reading each night! Hopefully we can get that trophy and sign back to our class this month! Each of the children who passed an RC quiz last month, received a Star Reader pencil. The winner of a dog tag from our class was Samantha Wester. We filled two whole boxes with items for the soldiers. I thank-you so much for your generosity in helping to fill those for the soldiers! This month our them is Caring Readers. As you saw, a note came home last Wednesday sharing that the students could wear caps on Dec. 3rd for a small donation. They can also work on filling that coin sheet that was sent home, with coins for each 20 minute session they read, whatever the coin may be. The money will go towards donating books for the local hospital and clinic donated by Jacobson Elementary. We have such caring kids here!!
This week we are reviewing our “Amazing Stories” unit. We will be reading two selections entitled The Borrowers and Lord of the Fleas. The stories will have us review all of the skills we have been going through throughout this unit. The review spelling list is attached to this memo. Each of the students were given a holiday book. If they had a chapter book over the holidays, that is the book they test on. Some of the students got some shorter, fun holiday books. They had to read 3 to get a punch on their incentive charts. Most, but not all, of the books are RC quizzes. Once they have completed the above, they are going to read an Andrew Clements book entitled The Jacket. I have been reading aloud to them some of his stories and they love them! I do too! All of the above needs to be finished by the time of Christmas break. The story isn’t very lengthy and with reading 20 minutes or more a night, they should have no problem being ready to pass the RC test.
In Math, we will be working with graphs this week. Last week we worked with elapsed time. That was pretty tricky for some of them. I found that there were a couple who weren’t clear on how to actually tell time. I have had some small group sessions to work on making sure they don’t leave 4th grade without knowing how to tell time.
We are continuing on our Earthquakes and Volcanoes unit in Science. We are also working on the Western region of the United States in Social Studies.
Just a reminder that the concert is at 2:00 on Friday, for the 3-6th grade.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to give me a call or email!
Sincerely,
Chris Mallen
Phone: 444-4300 (ext. 336) School 444-3093 (Home)
Email: chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us
