Monday Memo

April 7, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I thank-you all for the beautiful flowers and the thoughtful cards and letters…  I came back to work a week early. The kids have been just great at helping me when I need some help!  I appreciate all Mrs. Lovgren did with the class during my absence!!

 

Today we began the Iowa Assessments. We did the language component today. Tomorrow we will do the reading component. On Wednesday we will be doing the math component and we will finish on Thursday with the Science component of the test.

 

I also wanted to let you know that you can get on our typing page now at home and the students can practice their typing skills. They have their own password and username. (They have them memorized.) This is only if you want them to do it. It isn’t a requirement. It is just another thing they can do to pass the time that will help them with their keyboarding skills. The web site is:  www. typingweb.com/tutor/

 

We began a new unit in reading entitled “Heroes”.  This is a great unit that gives the students some traits about what a hero looks like. Last week we talked about Dr. King and this week our story is about Gloria Estavan. The story revolves around how she survived a vehicular accident and how she is now making a difference in the life of others. The skills we will be working on this week include:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, character judgements, and homophones. Our grammar skills this week are on object pronouns. The spelling list is attached to this memo. Last week the student s learned about cause and effect. They learned about subject pronouns during grammar.

 

For math, we started a geography unit last week. This week we will be talking about using geometric words to describe, we will learn about the term perimeter, area, and we will be doing some problem solving skills. We finished all of the 4^th grade drops in a bucket review series. We are going to start doing the 5^th grade drops in a bucket now. What is nice about that is that it starts by reviewing the 4^th grade material. It is such a great program to keep math concepts always in their brain.

 

Due to the Iowa Assessments, we won’t be starting our science unit on Fossils, until Friday.

 

As always, call with any questions/concerns!!

Have a great week!

 

Chris Mallen

Home: 444-3093    School:  444-4300 ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.k12.ia.us