Mallen's Monday Memo January 26

Monday Memo

January 26, 2015

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We enjoyed our PBIS assembly last week! Our class has done a great job with their behavior throughout the year!!

This week in reading we are reading a story entitled “The Last Dragon”. As all of the characters in our stories have problems that need to be solved, Peter does as well. Peter is staying with his grandmother in Chinatown. In a store, he sees an old dragon. It is really in bad shape, but he really wants it. He solves the problem of paying for it and getting it put back together. We will be working on the following skills throughout this story:  Comprehension, Vocabulary, using the prefixes pre, con and com, using the suffixes ful, less and ly and using a venn diagram to compare and contrast. Our grammar this week will be over adjectives.  Our spelling list is attached to this memo. The students will also be working on their daily oral language sentences each day. I have given all of the students the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to have read by January 30^th. I am really asking for your help with this. I have so many of the students that aren’t passing the quizzes and some that have admitted they aren’t even reading the book. As the only homework I give them, it is my hope that they will take this seriously and read each night. I know that a lot of the students can’t read the book I have given them, but as I have said before, please read it with/to them for 15 minutes a night. They need to be exposed to good literature. I have them reading books at their lexile throughout the day, for those with lower lexile levels. Thank-you for your help with this!!

We are into our third module for math. This module is on multiplication and division. This week we will hope to get through lessons 5 and 6. We will be talking about multiplying multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000 by single digits and we will be multiplying two digit multiples of 10 by 2 digit multiples of 10 using an area model. As I continue to say, please keep having your students work on their multiplication facts!! It really is important that they know these, not only for our math right now, but for their future math as well. We will also continue on our daily reviews and our daily division practice pages.

We will be starting on our next unit in Science. We will be talking about the systems of the body. We don’t get real in depth with them, we just learn the different organs involved in each system and talk about that. We will be hitting a variety of systems this week.

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 January 19, 2015

Monday Memo

January 19, 2015

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! It is nice to have such pleasant temperatures for a change!!

This week in reading we are reading a story entitled “Marvin of the Great North Woods”. As all of the characters in our stories have problems that need to be solved, Marvin does as well. Due to an influenza epidemic back in the early 1900’s, Marvin has to relocate to Minnesota. The story talks about how he overcomes language barriors, and learns some new skills. We will be working on the following skills throughout this story:  Comprehension, Vocabulary, Questioning Techniques, and note taking. Our grammar skills are over irregular verbs. Our spelling list is attached to this memo. The students will also be working on their daily oral language sentences each day. I have given all of the students the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to have read by January 30^th. I am really asking for your help with this. I have so many of the students that aren’t passing the quizzes and some that have admitted they aren’t even reading the book. As the only homework I give them, it is my hope that they will take this seriously and read each night. I know that a lot of the students can’t read the book I have given them, but as I have said before, please read it with/to them for 15 minutes a night. They need to be exposed to good literature. I have them reading books at their lexile throughout the day, for those with lower lexile levels. Thank-you for your help with this!!

We are into our third module for math. This module is on multiplication and division. This week we will be finishing our third lesson and working on our fourth lesson. It is about interpreting and representing patterns when multiplying by 10, 100, and 1000 in arrays and numerically. We continue to work on our daily reviews and a daily division page. Keep working on their facts each night. I have 5 students who have passed the 5 minute 100 point multiplication test. I need everyone to pass that. It is just a fact that you need to know your multiplication facts to make math a much easier process.

We will be finishing our lessons on the southeastern region of the United States. I will be sending a study guide home on Tuesday. We will be taking the Social Studies test over chapter 4 on Wednesday.

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 January 6, 2015

Monday Memo

January 5, 2014

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great, long Christmas break! I hope everyone had time to reflect on the year that was and on the upcoming year! As I reflect on 2014, having your children in my class was one of my highlights. Thank-you for sharing them with me!!

Thank-you to Merari’s mom for the drinks she sent for the students for the Christmas party! We really appreciated them!! Another thank-you to Will’s mom for sending treats for the kids for the party. Mrs. Clark made the kids some party bags as well and we truly thank her for doing that for us as well!!

We are starting a new unit in Reading. This new theme is entitled “Problem Solvers” and has a great deal of stories involving situations where people are in a situation and are able to come out of it. Our first story is entitled “My Name is Maria Isabella”. It is a fun story about how a young girl solves a problem she has. We will be working on vocabulary and comprehension as well as predicting outcomes, symbolism,  and making inferences. Our grammar this week is over completing with the different forms of the verb b. Our spelling words are attached to this memo.

We have begun our third module. As it has 37 lessons, we will be on this module for some time. The entire module is over multiplication and division. Just a reminder that this program assumes that the students have memorized their multiplication facts. As I have said since the first day of school, it is so important that they learn these. It will help them so much throughout this module. That is the best way you can help them right now!!

I hope for us to be able to test over the second part of the Southeastern Region of the United States by next Tuesday. I will refer to it in the next Monday Memo. Right now we are talking about the enormous amount of history in this region and about the economy.

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