Mallen's Monday Memo, November 10, 2014

November 10, 2014

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We ended our week last week with a Jacobson First Quarter PBIS reward party. This party involved the entire Jacobson family. The students were able to come to school with pajamas and for 20 minutes that day, they could play board games and were able to bring a non caffeinated  drink to drink during this party. For second quarter, only the students that show good behavior during that quarter will be invited to attend the party. Hopefully the party is enough of an incentive for the kids to follow our BK rules of:  Be Safe, Care for Others, Do What’s Right and Do Your Best.

This week we are starting a new unit entitled “Amazing Stories”. All of the stories are fantasy stories. We will begin the theme this week with a Chris Van Allsburg story entitled “The Stranger”. This fantasy story talks about how a stranger visits a family and how because of him, the weather changes. We will be working on the skills of:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Noting Details and Strutural Analysis. We will also be reading a few autumn poems. The story talks about the season of fall. Our spelling words are compound words this week and the list is attached to this memo. Our grammar moves us away from nouns and we will begin talking about action verbs. We will weekly continue to reinforce the different types of nouns through our weekly “grammar sentences”. I am sure you have seen them come home with your child from time to time. It is where I put on the board different types of nouns (proper nouns, common nouns, plural nouns, singular nouns, possessive plural nouns, possessive singular nouns) and then need to use one of each in a sentence. It is always a challenge but the more they do it, the better they will get at identifying these nouns and at writing complete sentences. Most of the students have passed the book “The Jacket” and are reading a book of their choice to be finished by November 15^th. I will be giving them a different book to read at that time. Thanks, again, for having your child read every night for at least 15 minutes!!

We will be finishing our first module in math today. Tomorrow we will start our second math module. Our first lesson will be entitled “Unit Conversions and Problem Solving with Metric Measurement”. We will also be working on “Expressing metric mass measurements in terms of a smaller unit”. The program assumes the students had background information over this in third grade and they haven’t. So, we will be really backing up a bit and trying to give them the background preparation they will need to complete this new unit. We are still completing our daily reviews and daily multiplication sheets. The more we practice with these, the better they get at it. I find they need the repetition of these math concepts so that they are “sealed” in their brain for next year. That is why you may see the same things come home over and over again. We want to learn this forever, not just for a day.

This week we will be testing over our plant adaptation unit. We will be working on the new vocabulary for this unit, doing a science review and then on Thursday I will send a study guide home with your child over this unit. The test will be on Friday.

Thanks for all you do to help me with your child’s education! As always, please call with any questions or concerns!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo November 3, 2014

Monday Memo

November 3, 2014

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We ended our week with a costume parade at the Belmond Care Center/Belle Haven. They are always so good to us and we thank them for always thinking of us!! We think they are great too!! We came back over and had our annual Jacobson Costume Parade. I would like to thank Mrs. Gonzalez and Mrs. Andrade for the food/drinks!! We really enjoyed them!!  It is hard to believe that it is November already. It is starting to get pretty chilly outside!

This week we are finishing up on our American Stories theme. We will be reading a selection about Amelia Earhart. We will also be finishing up on our “Freedom:  What it means to Me” essay that we are writing for the annual VFW contest. I will send these essays in and each of the students will receive a dollar for participating as well as possible awards for the top three placers. This week is a review week of proper nouns, possessive nouns, singular nouns, common nouns and plural nouns. Our spelling words will be sent home tomorrow. I hope to get this review unit finished by the end of the week. I have given all of the students the book The Jacket by Andrew Clements to read by November 15^th. It is a short book, so hopefully they will have it done before the 15^th and then can read a library RC book before the 15^th. The requirement is to have one quiz passed by the 15^th to receive a 3. To get a 4, they need to read and pass at least one more by then. I will give them a new book on the 15^th. Thanks for having them read at least 15 minutes each night!!

We will be finishing up on our first module for our new math series. Next week, we should be starting our second module which will have us working with the metric system. We also do daily reviews in math and our daily multiplication sheets. I appreciate you working with your child on these each night!! It is paying off!!

We tested last week over our Animal Adaptations chapter in Science. This week we will be working on the plant growth and adaptations chapter. We will be talking about life support for plants, the functions of plant parts, and plant life cycles.

Thanks for all you do to help me with your child’s education! As always, please call with any questions or concerns!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org