Mallen's Monday Memo February 28, 2011

Monday Memo

February 28, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Last week we did a story about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We worked on a variety of skills over the story. We finished our biographies, (I will share them at conferences). We finished our short comprehension biographies on famous African Americans. We took what is called a MAP test. It is a district assessment given to every student in our district. Each student begins the test at their grade level and then as they answer the questions, the test progresses or goes back to their level. They are given a RIT level at the end of each test. We took 3 tests. We took the language arts test, the math test, and the reading test. We will do another test as a post test, in the spring. We will be looking to see if the students have made growth. Beginning next year, the test will be given three times a year. This is another way of seeing the student’s academic growth.

Our new reading unit is entitled “Heroes”. This week we are reading about Gloria Estafan and her rise to fame. We will be working on comprehension, vocabulary, object pronouns, homophones, and the spelling words are attached to this memo. Each of the spelling words has the change the y to an I rule in them. We will also be working on vocabulary skills, typing skills, and Successmaker during our center time. Writing about a hero in their life, is something we will begin on and work on throughout this unit. I will compile their stories into a booklet for them to take home.

In Math, the students are finishing up on Chapter 6 already. This chapter had them multiply 3D X 2D numbers  and with money, and with  problem solving . We will be testing over  this chapter this Thursday. We will be playing some math games on Friday. We are still working on the wonderful Drops in a Bucket skill sheets that really work them on a variety of skills. They are such good prep for the basic skills test.

We are going to be finishing up with our weather unit in Science. We will be doing a prometheon board activity on Thursday, using their voters. Next week we will be testing over weather. In Social Studies, we are working on finishing our first chapter over the Southeastern region of the United States. As I said before, this region blends in nicely with the stories we are reading for our reading class.

I sent some book orders home with the students last Thursday. They are due on March 10^th. As always, please feel free to give me a call with any questions or concerns!

Have a great day!

Chris Mallen

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

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

Mallen's Monday Memo February 14, 2011

Monday Memo

February 14, 2011

Dear Parents,

                I hope everyone had a great weekend! Last week was filled with a variety of activities. We were so fortunate to have Linda Flaherty from the Blanden Museum in Fort Dodge, come and visit with us this year. She tours North Iowa schools and centers on the fourth graders. She presents them with a presentation of a famous artist and the kids receive a book from the museum. This year she talked about a special glass blowing artist. She had the kids create a stain glass window art activity and they really enjoyed it. She showed them a video of glass blowing and it was so interesting to see how little pellets of glass become beautiful pieces of work. That was a lot of fun. We are displaying their stain glass windows right now, but will send them home in the near future. We also got to go to the Belmond Care Center. We always enjoy our trip there and got to play Valentine Bingo with our new friends. They are so nice to us over there and it is always a delight! With two days of no school the week before, we spent last week kind of playing “catch-up”. We finished our social studies test over the Western Region. We finished our Rocks and Minerals unit. We started our Chapter 6 in Math over 2DX2D.

                In Reading this week, we are finishing up on our “Problem Solvers” unit. This week the focus is on Poetry. We will be reading a variety of poems. We will be reading a book of poems. We will be writing some different kinds of poems such as lyrical, haiku and acrostic poems. We will also finish our biographies this week. We will learning about some famous poets during our guided reading time. Centers will have us working on vocabulary skills, our typing skills, and doing Successmaker. Next week we will be starting our “Heroes” unit and I will talk more about that next week. The spelling list for this week is attached to this memo. Using exact adjectives is our lesson this week in grammar.

                For Math, as I said above, we started our Chapter 6 last week. This chapter involves multiplication but now we are working with multiplying 2DX2D. We will be working with problem solving as well this week. Multiplying money will also be worked on with the bigger numbers this week. We will continue with our “buckets” which have the constant review of math concepts as well this week. Hopefully we will be able to find a little time for some math games this week.

                We are starting on the Southeastern Region of the United States in our Social Studies. We thought it was a nice fit with our “Heroes” unit we will start on next week in Reading as many of our heroes are African American and came from that region of the US. Many of the people we read our biographies about came from that region of the United States as well. For Science, we are moving on talking about weather.

                Keep having the students read each night for 20 minutes. The students tied with Mrs. Jenison’s class so the poster got to stay with both of our classes. This month we are using the points they gain when they take an RC book test. Those points will be added up for the month of February and used to decide a winner between our classes.

                Thanks to our room mothers for the Valentine’s party they put on for us today!! The room mothers were:  Soccoro Martinez, Anne Nelson, Dawn Sander, and Megan Kuhlers. We truly appreciate their time and effort in putting on a great party for us!!

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

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

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