Mallen's Monday Memo December 9, 2013

Monday Memo

December 9, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! The students had a great time bowling last week! This week we will be spending some time preparing for Thursday night’s Christmas concert. We will also have a dress rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon. We are also so very fortunate to have the opportunity to visit the Belmond Rehabilitation Center on Friday at 2:00. We are going to read them Christmas stories. We look forward to our visits with our new friends!

 

In reading this week, we are starting a new story entitled Cendrillion. We will be working on the following skills this week:  Comprehension, vocabulary, using a venn diagram, discussing fairy tales and the difference between realism and fantasy. Our grammar lessons will be over using main verbs and helping verbs as well as identifying verbs. Our spelling words for the week are attached to this memo.

 

In Math we will be multiplying 3 digit times 2 digit numbers. Now I think the students realize why it was such a big deal to learn those multiplication facts!! It makes this process so much easier. The students will also talk about how to choose a computation method. We will also be multiplying money amounts this week. It will be a busy week in math, when you add our daily reviews and fact sheets!! Again, knowing those multiplication facts is really helping them now, so I thank-you for taking the time to make sure they learned them!! We are down to only 3 people that haven’t passed our 100 point 5 minute multiplication quiz at 100%! That is awesome!!

 

We have been talking about the systems of the body. We have covered the skeletal, muscular, circulatory and respiratory systems. This week we will spend time on the nervous and digestive systems and we will continue reviewing about the above systems.

 

I am just sending home this as a reminder:

 

As I mentioned in my last memo, I have a few projects in mind for the class this December. We have been talking about being good citizens. With that, I would like to do the following:  Our school is going to be sending home bags of food to people who may not have any on the weekends, after school, holiday time… If you are able, I would love for our class to help with this project. If you can send some taxable type of items such as toilet paper, soap, shampoo, the list goes on, that you could have your child bring by December 15^th, I will put all in a box and give it as a donation from our class towards going home in those food bags. I appreciate your time and effort in doing that. I would also like to ask that if you are able, if you could send $2.00 with your child, I would match what the kids bring and we will use that money towards the cheer fund. If you could send that money by the 15^th of December also, I will get it to the Cheer Fund. Thank-you for that.

 

Just a reminder that with the snow, the students are required to wear their snowpants and boots. It is also so cold that it makes recess a lot more comfortable for them with all of that on!

 

 I appreciate that you sign the planners verifying that they read at least 15 minutes a night! That is one of the best things we can do for the kids!

 

 

I hope everyone has a great week! As always, please feel free to call me with questions/concerns.

 

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo December 2, 2013

Monday Memo

December 2, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving break!! It is always nice to spend time with family and friends! We enjoyed our time at the Belmond Care Center and loved the geography Jingo that we played!! The kids did a great job with their new friends and we rewarded with such nice prizes and a treat when they left. We appreciate all the care center does for us throughout the year!! Thank-you also for the props for the play we put on, last Tuesday! They were the directors, stars, and prop people for the play. Some of them learned that when you promise your team to bring something and then you don’t, you let them down. Always a good lesson to learn…

 

In reading this week, we are starting a new unit entitled “Amazing Stories”.  Our first story is from the wonderful author of Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburg. It is entitled The Stranger. We are working on the following skills this week:  Comprehension, Vocabulary, Noting Details, Structural Analysis:  Compound Words and we will be reading some Autumn poems. Our grammar lessons this week are over action verbs and our spelling words, which are attached to this memo, are compound words. We also have the SRA kits this week.

 

In Math we will be starting on Chapter 5. We are finally in multiplication. All of that hard work learning their multiplication facts, we start to pay off!!. Speaking of that, we are down to everyone but 2 people (who are almost there), having received 100 percent on their multiplication timed tests and being members of the “Never Again Club”!!!  Our new chapter this week will have us working on multiplying multiples of 10,1,000 or 10,000, estimating products, doing some mental multiplication problems, and being introduced to using arrays to multiply.

 

We tested over our plant adaptation chapter last week. The results were sent home with your child. It was a short chapter. Our next chapter introduces the students to the different systems of the body. We will start this week by working on the skeletal, muscular,circulatory and respiratory systems.

 

As I mentioned in my last memo, I have a few projects in mind for the class this December. We have been talking about being good citizens. With that, I would like to do the following:  Our school is going to be sending home bags of food to people who may not have any on the weekends, after school, holiday time… If you are able, I would love for our class to help with this project. If you can send some taxable type of items such as toilet paper, soap, shampoo, the list goes on, that you could have your child bring by December 15^th, I will put all in a box and give it as a donation from our class towards going home in those food bags. I appreciate your time and effort in doing that. I would also like to ask that if you are able, if you could send $2.00 with your child, I would match what the kids bring and we will use that money towards the cheer fund. If you could send that money by the 15^th of December also, I will get it to the Cheer Fund. Thank-you for that.

 

Just a reminder that with the snow, the students are required to wear their snowpants and boots. It is also so cold that it makes recess a lot more comfortable for them with all of that on!

 

 I appreciate that you sign the planners verifying that they read at least 15 minutes a night! That is one of the best things we can do for the kids!

 

 

I hope everyone has a great week! As always, please feel free to call me with questions/concerns.

 

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org