Mallen's Monday Memo January 31, 2011

Monday Memo

January 31, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! It is so hard to believe that February begins tomorrow already. Time does fly!

This week in Reading we are beginning to finish our “Problem Solvers” unit. We will be reading two stories this week during whole group time. We will be reading about Louis Braille and Juan Verdades and how their problem solving led to some great ideas for America. We will be working on reviewing adjectives this week, vocabulary, comprehension, and discussing poetry a little as well. The spelling review works are attached to this memo. We will also be working on reading another biography that we will use to write a biography of a famous American. We will read the books this week and work on the writing next week.

We will be finishing up on a lot of chapters this week. My plan is to try to test over Social Studies on Thursday (look for a study guide Wednesday night) and to test over Science on Friday (look for a study guide on Thursday night).  We will also be finishing up with our chapter 5 in math this week as well.  We will be testing over that on Thursday. Just knowing their multiplication facts will make that test easy for them. I am thrilled at how well they are all doing on their facts now!

I sent home a book order last week and it is due this Friday. If you need extra time, just let me know and I would be happy to wait to send the order in. By next week, if your child could make a Valentine’s box at home, that would be great! Our party is on Valentine’s Day and having the box there by Thursday of next week, would be great as we can get our valentines all passed out… I have a list of the students in the class on this memo.

As always, if you have any questions/concerns, please feel free to give me a call or an email!

                                                                                                                                                                     

Easton Barrus                                       Kelsey Peterson

Chanse Berneman                               Omar Ramirez

Taylor Branstad                                    Ryann Sander

Destiny Dwyer                                      Jacob Schmidt

Katelyn Fekkers                                   Isacc Sorenson

Hailey Garrard                                      Dezeray Starbuck

Koty Kuhlers                                         Gustavo Suarez

Jayden Lane                                         Samantha Wester

Janeth Martinez                                 Keaton Wilson

Zac Nelson

Have a great week!
Chris Mallen

Phone:   444-3093 (Home)  444-4300 ext. 336 (School)

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us

Mallen's Monday Memo January 10, 2011

Monday Memo

January 10, 2011

Dear Parents,

                I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I want to start and thank the room mothers, Mrs.  Branstad, Mrs. Sander, Mrs. Kuhlers,  and Mrs. Hovden for the wonderful Christmas party they put on for the kids!! Just a reminder that the book order is due tomorrow. Also a reminder that the students need to keep reading each night for at least 20 minutes. We are continuing our reading incentive months. This month is Star Teacher month. I have challenged them all to read each night for 20 minutes as I do. We are using the reading counts book points for the books they pass, as our reading incentive challenge. The students will find out at the February reading incentive assembly who are two winners for the month are. Keep up the reading!!

                We have begun a new unit in reading entitled “Problem Solvers”. With that, the students will be reading biographies for their genre this month. Each student has a biography to read and test over and then can read what they wish for the month, once they have read the biography. The theme concerns how people have solved different problems in their life and their experiences along the way. So many of our biographies they are reading, show exactly that, how people have overcome their problems and become great people because of that. We will be working on a variety of skills this week. During grammar we will be focusing on irregular verbs. Our spelling words this week involve words with the final e dropped. We will work on vocabulary, comprehension, note taking and some health related words this week. For our centers we will focus on vocabulary and working on our typing skills as well as a Successmaker skill lesson this week.

                During Math, we are working on multiplying by multiples of 10, 100, 1000 on our new unit packet. We will also be working on estimating products, mental math, and using arrays to multiply, this week.  Along with our reviews and our occasional timed multiplication tests, we are busy during math!!

                Using primary and secondary sources of information will be a skill we will work on during social studies this week. We will also be talking about the immigrants in the west and recognizing frame of reference, during the week. We are starting to get to the end of our Western Region of the United States.

                In Science, we are working on Rocks and Minerals. We are doing a lot of vocabulary with our unit. We do a lot of it on the prometheon board and have occasional quizzes over the material we have learned. The students really tend to enjoy this unit as so many of them love to collect rocks!

                Again, just a reminder that the book orders are due tomorrow and to have the students read each night for at least 20 minutes!!

Have a great week!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

Phone:  (Home)  444-3093  (School)  444-4300 (ext. 336)

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us