Monday Memo
March 4, 2013
Dear Parents,
I hope everyone had a great weekend! Last weekend was a
busy one for us! We enjoyed pairing up with a first grade class (Mrs. Wagner’s
class) and listening to an elephant story while making elephants! It was fun to
be role models for the first graders! We are really enjoying our month long
Read a Million Minutes theme of “Reading to Change the World”. We appreciate
your help with having the kids continue their reading of at least 15 minutes a
night (Which they already do) and just placing any kind of coin on the coin
sheets we sent home. The coins can be as you wish, or simply just put an X on
each slot to verify they read for 15 minutes that night. The money will be used
to buy books for an orphanage in Africa. The students have each chosen a
country in Africa and are bringing information/facts/pictures… about their
country to share with each other. Africa is a very interesting continent and
filled with countries that range from extremely poor and malnourished to
wealthy. Thank-you for helping your child find some facts and to continue to
build our Africa center with information! If you would like to donate any used
books, that would be great as well. We are sending slightly used books as well
as any new books you may wish to donate to them. We will be having a book fair
during conference week. This week the first graders are going to come to our
classroom and share an African game with us. Next week, we will be going to
their classroom and sharing an African food. I may need some help in
buying the ingredients… so please stay
tuned to the Monday Memo, where I will share any requests I may have. This has
been a lot of fun for us!! It also helps us get through the long winter time.
Speaking of, my class has really been great with this, but just a reminder that
the kids need snow pants and boots to play at recess. Thanks for your help with
that!
This week in Reading, we are starting a new unit entitled
“Heroes”. This goes perfectly with our discussions on famous African Americans
and their contributions to our country. Our first story is about Dr. Martin
Luther King and how his influence helped a troubled little boy. We will be
working on subjects and pronouns, cause and effect, comprehension, vocabulary
and sequencing, this week. Our spelling words for the week are attached to this
memo.
We tested last week on our rocks and minerals unit for
Science. We will be working on social studies this week and we will be talking
about the seaways and cities in the Northeast Region of the United States. We
will also be working on the corresponding vocabulary words we learned in our
reading of this region. The students also have a Northeast Region of the United
States booklet that they are working on in their spare time.
In Math, we are working on multiplying 2DX2D numbers, and
multiplying those with money. We will also be working on writing our
explanation of how we multiply, in words. That is tough for them to do. They
can do it, but to actually take the time to write down the steps of how they
did is, requires a lot of brain work!
Just a reminder that we have our field trip on Friday. We
will be leaving at 8:30 and should be returning by 1:15. We will be eating our
lunch in Fort Dodge before we return. This should be a fun and informative field
trip for the students. Again we appreciate the donations given to this program
from local area donors!
As always, please call with any questions/concerns!
Sincerely,
Chris Mallen
Phone: Home: 444-3093
School: 444-4300 ext. 336
Email: chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us
