Mallen's Monday Memo December 10, 2012

Monday Memo

December 12, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Just a reminder that with snow comes the need for snowpants and boots… It really helps them not have wet clothes all day and it helps keep our carpet from getting so wet. I have just a few reminders for this week. The Christmas program is on Thursday at 4:00. I will be with the kids in the vocal music room after the program. I will have a check out sheet that I am required to have you sign to take your children home. Thanks for doing that for us. The dress rehearsal is at the high school on Wednesday at 1:00. We have been doing a great job with food for the food pantry. Please keep sending it as it is a wonderful way for the kids to feel the giving in Christmas. Thank-you for helping them to “Pay it Forward”. Today is our first day of talking about what they did to help others. It really is fun to hear all they are doing. If you care to send $2.00 for the cheer fund, that would be great, and I need to get the money to them by December 18^th. Thanks for all you are doing to help our class continue to understand the power of giving. We will be going to the care center on Friday to play Christmas Jingo with our friends. It is such a joy to go there. This will also be my last Monday Memo until 2013. Thank-you for all you do in helping me help your children to be the best students they can be!

We are continuing our “Amazing Stories” theme. This week we will be reading a story entitled “Heat Wave”. It is an interesting story of weather gone wild. We will be working on comprehension and vocabulary, fantasy/realism, and comparing and contrasting the stories in this theme. Our grammar lessons are on the past, present and future tenses. Our spelling words all end in ed or ing. We will be working on our centers and small group this week as well.

In Math, we have started on Chapter 4. The students did a fantastic job with their Chapter 3 tests! I sent those home last Wednesday. Our Chapter 4 is about time, charts and graphs. I think they will do very well. We will continue having periodic timed multiplication tests, so keep working on those facts at home. Most are doing very well!! Our daily “buckets” are also one of my favorite things they do each day as it really reinforces everything we have been learning!

I am planning to give the Science test over the systems of the body, on Friday. If they just study their study guides, they should do very well. We are also finishing our first chapter over the Southeastern Region of the United States. Next week I am hoping for us to test over that before we leave.

Thank-you ahead of time to our room mothers for putting a Christmas party together with our kids. The party is planned for Wednesday, December 19^th at 12:45. Our room mothers for this party are Deserae’s mother and Maria’s mother. Thanks so much for your time and talent! The kids really appreciate it and have so much fun!! Just a reminder that it is an early dismissal day for our teacher inservice.

I wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and I hope everyone has a relaxing break!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

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

Mallen's Monday Memo December 3, 2012

Monday Memo

December 3, 2012

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We finished our American Stories unit last week and are starting on our new unit “That’s Amazing”. We ended our unit by performing a play for each other. The students were divided into two “teams” and each had to decide who was the director, narrator and the actors. It was fun watching them perform! I also wanted to thank-you for responding to my email about how you wanted your child to get home after the Christmas program. The 4^th grade will be in the vocal music room, so plan to sign your child out at that location.

Going  back to reading, as I said above, we will be starting a new unit. Our first story is entitled “The Stranger”. It is an interesting story that is written by the author of The Polar Express. His name is Chris Van Allsburg. We will be working on such skills this week as noting details, compound words, synonyms, and writing an explanation.  Our spelling words are attached and are compound words. Our grammar this week  is introducing us to action verbs.

In Math this week, we will be finishing up our Chapter 3 over multiplication and division. We will be working on the book test and the chapter test and should be starting Chapter 4 next week. I will talk about that chapter in the next Monday Memo.

We are working on the Southeastern Region of the United States. We have talked about the Mississippi River and its importance to the development of the Southeastern Region. The warm weather and the cash crops grown in this region were also discussed. We will be discussing the resources found in this region this week also.

In Science we are finishing our discussion of the systems of the body. We talked about the skeletal, muscular, circulatory and respiratory systems last week. We will finish this week by talking about the nervous, digestive, and excretory  systems. It is so interesting to talk about this marvelous machine  that is our body.

For Christmas this year, I would like to have the students do a

“Pay it Forward” concept. With that, if the students could think of a way to help

a neighbor, friend, relative… They could scoop a sidewalk for someone, send

a Christmas card to anyone including their nursing home friends, they could

bake some cookies (with your permission of course) and give those to

anyone, write letters or stories to give as gifts, spend an hour or so visiting

with an elderly person that maybe doesn’t get visitors very often… The list

goes on. On Mondays, we have Share Day. For the month of December, our

Share Day will consist of them talking about the ways they have tried to “Pay

It Forward”. Hopefully they can see that doing things like this aren’t monetary

but  require them to give of themselves.

We are also going to have a food pantry drive as a school. We are going to start collecting food items, consumable items… There is a contest between the classes for the class that collects the most items. It is just a small incentive to continue our holiday tradition of giving at Christmas time at Jacobson Elementary. You can send these food pantry items anytime before December 14^th. Thank-you in advance for that.

Lastly, instead of buying Christmas gifts for each other, if you would like to send $2.00 with your child to school, we will donate the money to the Belmond Cheer Fund. That is a truly wonderful organization. I will match the contribution made by the students.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

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