Mallen's Monday Memo May 19, 2014

Monday Memo

May 19, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We were so lucky to have been invited to the Belmond Health Care Center for lunch on Wednesday. That was so much fun!! The meal was wonderful and we thank our friends for all they have done for us!! It has been a great year with them! We are going on June 2 to play Bingo with them as our last adventure with them had to be postponed. This week we also finished up on our Map Tests. Each of the three tests we took, took around an hour and a half to finish, so we didn’t get as far as I had planned, on our reading. Amy Bates, from the library, will be here tomorrow to tell the students about their wonderful summer reading program. She always does an awesome presentation for the kids! Our elementary track meet will be Thursday at 9:00. That is another thing the students look forward to!!

 

For Reading this week, we are working on a story entitled “Skylark”. We will actually be reading a chapter from the book. I have read the series of books (The Sarah Plain and Tall series) to them. They thoroughly enjoyed those books. This is one of the chapters from the book Skylark. The story talks about the extreme drought that was faced in Kansas. It is how they survived that period of time. We will be working on vocabulary, comprehension, and sequencing this week. We will be working with the same spelling and grammar lessons as we began last week, due to our Map tests, that we didn’t get through.

 

For math, this week we will be working on finishing our unit on fractions. We will be testing over this unit on Wednesday. We will be starting our new unit on adding and subtracting fractions this week as well.

 

Social Studies has us continuing to work on the Southeastern Region of the United States. We should be ready to take a test over Chapter 4, on Friday. I will send a study guide home with the students on Thursday.

 

The students have received their last May book from me. They will be due to be tested on by June 2^nd. That way, if they need more than one time to take the test, they will have that time.

 

Thank-you for returning the summer school note with your child! A letter will be coming home with your child in the near future letting you know if your child will be selected to be in the summer school program!

 

This will be my last Monday Memo of the year. I have included some dates/times of special things we have going on:

 

May 22:  Elementary Track Meet at 9:00

May 26:  No School

May 28:  Fishing trip from 8:20-10:00 (Dress accordingly)

May 30:  Music Man Square Field Trip (The students will be eating the school’s sack lunch.) We leave at 10:30 and return at 2:45.

June 2:  Care Center at 2:00 to play Bingo

June 4:  Last day of school

 

It has been such a pleasure teaching this outstanding group of students. I will miss each and every one of them!! I look for them all to have rewarding futures! Keep them reading this summer and always. I would also recommend they practice those multiplication facts from time to time this summer to keep them right in their memory. Thank-you for sharing your children with me and thank-you for all the help you have given me and them throughout the year!!

 

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.org

 

 

Mallen's Monday Memo May 12, 2014

Monday Memo

May 12, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We finished our ads for the Belmond Independent. Mr. Vanderlinden will be sending copies of the paper home with the students when he is finished. They turned out very nice. We figured out that we have been doing this project with the fourth grade for over twenty years now!! This week we will be spending a lot of our time on the Map Tests. We will be using the new computer labs for our test. That will be exciting for us!! We also got an invitation for dinner at the Belmond Care Center on Wednesday. We are going to help them celebrate National Health Care Center Week. We truly appreciate all they do for us all year long!!

 

For Reading this week, we are working on a story entitled “Skylark”. We will actually be reading a chapter from the book. I have read the series of books (The Sarah Plain and Tall series) to them. They thoroughly enjoyed those books. This is one of the chapters from the book Skylark. The story talks about the extreme drought that was faced in Kansas. It is how they survived that period of time. We will be working on vocabulary, comprehension, and sequencing this week. Today we took the reading test over “Wildfires”.  Our grammar lesson is on expanding our sentence writing with phrases. Our spelling words will be sent home tomorrow as we tested over last week’s spelling words, today. We will hopefully test over those words next Monday.

 

For math, this week we will be working on circle graphs.  We are also at the end of this short chapter. We will be doing a diagnostic checkpoint over this unit, a book chapter test and the official Chapter 9 test will be on Friday. We will be starting chapter 10 next Monday. I will be giving you information over that on our next Monday Memo.

 

Social Studies has us continuing to work on the Southeastern Region of the United States. We finally took the test on Friday over Chapter Three. We started with Chapter 4 on the region today. We talked about the Native American tribe associated with this region. We will also talk about the economy of this region, this week.

 

Just a reminder that the student’s first May book is due to be read on May 15^th. They will have one more book to read before the end of this school year. I also issued a challenge to them. They were starting to have struggles settling down and getting work completed. They were very chatty. I have challenged them to make good choices up until the end of the school year. The reward for that is a pizza party the last day of school. That has really turned their behavior around and the choices they make.

 

Tonight will be the Fine Art’s Festival that is rescheduled from last Thursday night.

 

Thank-you for returning the summer school note with your child! A letter will be coming home with your child in the near future letting you know if your child will be selected to be in the summer school program!

 

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.org

 

Mallen's Monday Memo May 5, 2014

Monday Memo

May 5, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Last week we had a lot of things going on! We enjoyed the “Go the Distance Day” with Nicole Christians. She came and did a Rumba session with the  Pre K-6^th grade for half an hour. This was a lot of fun for the kids! I enjoyed it as well! I think the kids enjoyed watching me attempt to follow the steps. I tried is all I can sayJ We also were treated to Dirk Vanderlinden coming and talking to us about putting our ads together for the Belmond Independent. We realized that this 4^th grade project has been going on for over 20 years. What the project involves is the 4^th graders grouping together and designing an ad for a local business. If they aren’t familiar with the business they are encouraged to go visit it and talk to the store keepers as to what they would like to see in their ad. A phone call can also be done. We will be creating our ads during school, but investigating the business, needs to be done while out of school. This is a project that is really fun for the kids and truly shows their creativity!

 

For Reading this week, we are working on a story entitled “Wildfires”. We will be talking about how wildfires can help and destroy land. We will be working on vocabulary, comprehension, main idea and supporting details, this week. Our grammar lesson is on writing with adverbs and also over the adverbs good and well. Our spelling words consist of words with unusual spellings. We are a day behind due to having “Go the Distance Day”. So, today the students got their new spelling words and will still have their spelling test on Friday. However, they took their reading test today and will start the new story tomorrow. So, the spelling words are still attached to this memo.

 

For math, this week we will be working on using number sense to compare fractions. We are also at the end of this short chapter. We will be doing a diagnostic checkpoint over this unit, a book chapter test and the official Chapter 9 test will be on Thursday. We will be starting chapter 10 on Friday. I will be giving you information over that on our next Monday Memo.

 

Social Studies has us working on the Southeastern Region of the United States. We will be taking the test over that on Wednesday, with the study guide going home with your child on Tuesday night. We will continue on Thursday over the Southeastern Region focusing on the Native American tribes living in this area.

 

Thank-you for returning the summer school note with your child! A letter will be coming home with your child in the near future letting you know if your child will be selected to be in the summer school program!

 

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.org