Mallen's Monday Memo November 26, 2012

Monday Memo

November 26, 2012

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing, long break!! It is so hard to believe we are looking at Christmas already! The students did a great job performing Thanksgiving poems and doing some activities with their new friends at the Belmond Rehabilitation Center! They are so good to us and once again I encourage the students to go sometime after school and visit their new friends. We finished our Science and Social Studies tests before the break and the results were sent home with your child. We are really moving along in our curriculum! We had a little fun reading some Thanksgiving stories and then creating sequence posters over the stories. I also sent those home with the students.

This week, we are finishing our “American Stories” theme in reading. We will be working on the genre of a play that comes from the story Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Having already read the book and an excerpt from the book has really helped them know the characters. I have given the students a book to have read by Friday. Some of them are reading  a Judy Blume book entitled Fudge a Mania and some had already read some of her books and are reading a Sharon Creech book. I will be giving them another RC book next week to have read before the Christmas break. This week we will be doing some more reviewing in grammar over using details with nouns. Our spelling words are homonyms, again, which are hard for the students to understand the different meanings of the words. For the play, we will be working on vocabulary over “play” words, and some work on set direction, setting, etc. (elements of a play). Our guided reading books covered these elements as well.

For Math, we are already finishing up on our multiplication/division chapter. Next week we will be testing over it. This week we are working on problem solving with multiplication and division and we are doing some more algebra. That is so fun for the kids to be able to say they are doing! I still have a couple of students that really need to work on their multiplication facts. Most are doing a great job!! It just will help them so greatly for our future math lessons.

We are starting on the Northeast Region of the United States this week. If you have vacationed there or have any experience with that region of the states, please feel free to send any pictures, brochures, travel guides… The students love hands on things!! With Science, we are also starting a new chapter over the systems of the body. We will be talking about the skeletal, muscular, respiratory and circulatory systems of the body. We don’t go into depth about them, but we do introduce them to these vital systems that help our body work together.

As always, please feel free to call/email with any questions or concerns. I want to add again how thankful I am to have such an amazing class!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

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

Mallen's Monday Memo November 12, 2012

Monday Memo

November 12, 2012

Dear Parents,

          I hope everyone had a great weekend! I am excited that we are headed to the Belmond Rehabilitation Center on Friday. We are going to perform some Thanksgiving poems for them and we are going to do some fun activities with them as well. We are so fortunate to have them as our adopt a business!!

          This week in Math, we are well into our multiplication chapter. The students are doing a fantastic job with it!! They just have to make sure they know their multiplication facts and that will help them in math from this point on. Working on our daily math “buckets” is also a great reinforcer of all of the math skills they have been introduced to. It is such a great way to prepare for the spring Iowa Assessments!!

          I will be sending home a study guide for Science on Tuesday. The test will be on Wednesday. I will be sending a Social Studies study guide home with the students on Thursday, for that test to be on Friday. This is our last week of working on the Southwest Region of the United States. Our Science chapter has been talking about plants and their needs, adaptations and they ways they can reproduce.

          For reading this week, we will be ending the “American Stories” unit. We will be reading two stories this week. One is on Emilia Earhart and one is on Duke Ellingston. We will be working on comprehension, vocabulary and reviewing the skills we learned this unit. The students will be working on an end of the unit skill’s test this week. This will help us see how the students are retaining what they are learning during our skill’s test. The spelling list with the week’s list is attached.

          We finished our essays that we wrote for a contest held annually by the local VFW. The topic this year was “What is your favorite branch of the military”. The essays have been turned in and are being judged in the near future.

          As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions/concerns!

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 November 6, 2012

Monday Memo

November 6, 2012

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I want to thank our room mothers, Mrs. Gabrielson, Mrs. Lane and Mrs. Dougherty for the absolutely wonderful Halloween party they put on for us on Halloween!! They did a great job and the kids had a marvelous time!! We also went to the Belmond Care Center prior to the parade, to show off our costumes for them. They were so kind to give each of the kids a Halloween treat as well!! We are a lucky group of fourth graders!!

I gave each of the kids a copy of the book Lucky Charms and Birthday Wishes. This book needs to be read by November 15. Many have it done already. It is just a fun book on friendship and also has a lot of holiday themes in it, which makes it kind of fun this time of year! We finally got to go to the library this week. It had been closed due to the book fair. Once the kids are done with the above book, they can read their library RC book. I will have another selection in a different genre for them the 15^th of November, but once the above book is read, they can read their own choice book. For reading this week we are reading a selection entitled “A Very Important Day”. We will be doing skills on comprehension, decoding words, reading a newspaper article, vocabulary skills, and words with multiple meanings this week. Our guided reading books will be focusing on sequencing this week. Our centers will have us doing a vocabulary activity, scrambling some spelling sentences and writing a journal entry. We will also incorporate our SRA into this week. Our hope is to get three done this week.

For Math, we are starting our new chapter on multiplication. Knowing their multiplication facts will make this chapter a breeze. We do a lot of multiplication processes within this chapter. Knowing the facts will make this very easy.  We are doing our daily review (Bucket)  each day that has them doing skills they have learned in the past. This is a great way to remember past skills.

In Science the students will be finishing up our unit on plant needs and adaptations. Next week we should be ready to test. Stay tuned to the Monday Memo as to when the study guide will be coming home. For Social Studies, we are finishing up with our Southwest Region of the United States. We should be ready to test over that next week as well. Again, stay tuned to the Monday Memo for when that study guide will be coming home with them.

The spelling list is attached to this memo. Just a reminder that we have an early out on Wednesday. If you have any questions/concerns, please feel free to call.

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:   (Home)  444-3093   (School)  444-4300 ext. 337

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