Mallen's Monday Memo (Tuesday, November 19, 2013)

Monday Memo

 Tuesday, November 18, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! On Thursday, we are invited to play Thanksgiving Jingo at the care center!! We will be going over there around 2:00 and returning about 2:45. We really appreciate all they do for us at the care center and the prizes they give the kids are so generous!! This memo will be the last one until after Thanksgiving. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!! I am very grateful for the wonderful class I have this year and the fantastic support I get from the parents!! I am a very lucky teacher!!

 

In reading this week, we will still be reviewing our “American Stories” unit. This week we will be working on the genre of plays. We will be reading small plays during our RTI time and we will be working on a class play from a Judy Blume book that we read earlier this year. We will be working on a lot of play related vocabulary and some comprehension skills using a play. Dialogue will also be discussed this week. When we return from our holiday break, we will begin a new unit entitled “That’s Amazing” which has a lot of stories of the mystery genre.  Our grammar lessons again are reviewing the different types of nouns. Our spelling words are attached to this memo.

 

In Math we will be spending up until the break on finishing up on our Chapter 4. We will be working on misleading graphs, using data from surveys, problem solving, and then we will be doing a lot of review over the chapter, with the final test being on November 26^th.

 

 

We will be starting a new unit in Science this week. It is over Plant Growth and Adaptations. We will be working on the functions of plants parts, plant life cycles ,and discussing some “super veggies”. We will be sending home a study guide on November 25^th, with the test on November 26^th.

 

On my next memo, I will be talking about some things we will be doing in December that will involve a little help from you. More to come on that…

 

 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!

 

We said good-bye to Rachelle Cole. She and her family are moving to Onslow, Iowa. We will be writing letters back and forth to her, here at school. I am sure she would appreciate any mail and so I am including her new address:

 

Rashelle Cole

c/o Luke and Leslie Cole

13802 60^th Ave.

Onslow, Iowa  52321

 

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

 

Happy Thanksgiving,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo November 11, 2013

Monday Memo

 November 11, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Happy Veteran’s Day to all! How grateful we are to the veterans for providing us with a safe place to live! If you are a veteran, I thank you!! This week is another busy one for us! Last week we finished our MAP testing. The students performed really well. It is a tough test and takes time and I appreciate how hard they worked on them!!

 

In reading this week, we will be reviewing our “American Stories” unit. We will be reading two stories this week. One is on Amelia Earhart and the other is on Duke Ellington. We will be talking this week about biographies. We will also be working on vocabulary and comprehension and completing a graphic organizer. Our grammar work this week is reviewing plural, singular and possessive nouns. Our spelling list will be a review this week as well. We will also have the SRA kits this week and will be spending time working on those. Most of the students have passed the quiz already on The Jacket. I thank you for making sure they get that read. For those that haven’t quizzed over it, it is due November 15^th. Once they pass that, they can get a library book to read. I will be giving them a different book on the 15^th of November.

 

In Math this week we will be working on Chapter 4 in math we will be making bar graphs, graphing ordered pairs, making line graphs, and working on mean, median and range. We are also doing a variety of daily reviews, along with our Drops in a Bucket.  We also are continuing to work on doing a multiplication sheet each day.

 

We will be finishing on the NE region of the United States this week. We will be completing some graphic organizers over the lessons we did last week. We will be reviewing the vocabulary we learned in this chapter and on Thursday I will be sending home a study guide for the Chapter 6 test that we will be doing on Friday. Thank-you for going through the study guide with  them!

 

 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, November 4, 2013

Monday Memo

 November 4, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. This week is another busy one for us! We went to the Belmond Rehabilitation Center and Belle Haven at 1:40 on Thursday, and paraded our costumes for them. We came back to school and participated in the parade at school and then we had our Fall Party .Thank-you so much to our room mothers for putting on that party for us!! I would also like to remind you that your child needs to have read Bound for Oregon by Friday, November 1^st. I gave your child a new story to read by November 15^th, entitled The Jacket. This is a shorter story written by Andrew Clements. I had read the story he had written entitled No Talking and I know they will enjoy this book as much as that one. If they pass the RC quiz over this story before the 15^th, I will send them to the library to read another book. I will be giving them a book on the 15^th.

 

In reading this week, we will be starting a story entitled A Very Important Day. This is a good story about what becoming an American Citizen meant to them. We will be working on the skills of comprehension, vocabulary, and reading from a non fiction text. Our grammar skills for this story will be over possessive singular and plural nouns. Our spelling words this week are attached to this memo. We will be spending some time this week working on the individualized SRA stories. They are a wonderful way to individualize their learning, and they hold them accountable for their reading through a variety of activities they do over the story. We get the kits about a week and a half each month. They are a great way to prepare for our Iowa Assessments in the spring.  We will be completing the MAP tests this week in fourth grade. The students will be taking a test in math, language arts, and reading. Each test takes about an hour to complete and we will be doing one test per day. If they miss the tests due to being gone, they will make them up over their recess time as we have to have everyone tested by next week. This is a test that they complete three times a year.

 

In Math this week we will be working on Chapter 4 in math. We spent a couple of days working on elapsed time last week. Ask them about the number line elapsed time strategy that they learned to use. It has really helped them with their understanding of elapsed time. This week we will be doing some writing in our math, working on calendar skills, pictographs and line plots. We will continue with our daily review and working on our multiplication facts. Almost everyone has become a member of the “Never Again” club. Hopefully soon we will have our entire class become a member of the club. Most of the ones who are left, are very close. Thank-you for going through those facts with them for about 5 minutes a night. It is paying off!!

 

We will continue to be working on the NE region of the United States. This week we will be talking about the Industrial Revolution. We will compare the cities in the NE region to the city of Mumbai. We will work on distributions maps this week. By the end of the week, we will be talking about how the NE region of the United States looks today. Your child receives a  DOG each Monday, unless we don’t have school on Monday, in which case, they receive them on Tuesday.  DOG stands for Daily Oral Geography. I give them to the students on Monday, unless they don’t have school that day, then it is the next day they have school. They are due on Fridays. They are a series of geographical questions to help the students understand where they are in the world. They may use any resource they have, their social studies book, internet, maps, you… If they turn them in by Friday, have their name on them, and get them perfect, they will be in a drawing for a prizeThank-you for your help with these!!

 

 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, (Tuesday, October 29, 2013)

Monday Memo

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great long weekend. This week is another busy one for us! We are going to the Belmond Rehabilitation Center and Belle Haven at 1:40 on Thursday, to parade our costumes for them. We will come back to school and participate in the parade at school and then we will have our Fall Party. I would also like to remind you that your child needs to have read Bound for Oregon by Friday, November 1^st. I will be giving them their new story at that time. That book will be due November 15^th. If they finish early, I will send them to the library to read a book of their choice.

 

In reading this week, we will be finishing our story entitled Boss of the Plains. We will be working on the skills of comprehension, vocabulary, and using context clues. Our grammar skills for this story include rewriting plural nouns and looking for the correct noun endings. Our spelling test this week will be on Friday. We spent a lot of time last week working on the individualized SRA stories. They are a wonderful way to individualize their learning, and they hold them accountable for their reading through a variety of activities they do over the story. We get the kits about a week and a half each month. They are a great way to prepare for our Iowa Assessments in the spring. 

 

In Math this week we will be working on Chapter 4 in math. We will begin by working on units of time, elapsed time (which I have a really neat trick to help with that), writing to compare, and doing some skills using a calendar.

 

We will continue to be working on the NE region of the United States. This week we will be talking about the Industrial Revolution. We will compare the cities in the NE region to the city of Mumbai. We will work on distributions maps this week. By the end of the week, we will be talking about how the NE region of the United States looks today. Your child brought home their first DOG last week. DOG stands for Daily Oral Geography. I give them to the students on Monday, unless they don’t have school that day, then it is the next day they have school. They are due on Fridays. They are a series of geographical questions to help the students understand where they are in the world. They may use any resource they have, their social studies book, internet, maps, you… If they turn them in by Friday, have their name on them, and get them perfect, they will be in a drawing for a prize. Look for those to come home at the beginning of each week. If it is a significantly short week of three days or under, we won’t do one. Thank-you for your help with these!!

 

We have almost everyone in our “Never Again Club”!  Again, I thank-you for helping your child learn those multiplication facts. It absolutely will help them throughout the rest of their math career in school! I also 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, October 21, 2013

Monday Memo

October 21, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Since my last memo, we enjoyed having the fireman talk to us about fire safety and they also gave us a ride on the fire truck. Their message is one you can’t hear enough and we appreciate all the time and effort the firefighters give to our community! We had guidance class this week, which is something we have once a month. She is talking about goal setting with the kids. This is National Red Ribbon Week. Today the students were to wear hats to “Put a Lid on Drugs”. Tuesday it is “Tie Down Drugs” and they are to wear ties for the day. Wednesday it is “Boot Out Drugs” and they can wear boots that day. On Thursday it is “Sock it to Drugs Day” and they can wear wild socks and tuck them outside of their pants. On Friday it is wear red day. Next week we will be starting on Map Testing. We also have Monday off for teacher inservice. On Thursday, the students have their fall party parade and are going to parade over at the care center to show their costumes. They will be doing that about 1:40 and returning to school in time for the 2:00 parade. We thank our room mothers for the fall party, Michele Miltenberger, Rachel Bonin, Sandra Willms and Norma Gonzalez.

 

In reading this week, we will be finishing our story entitled Tanya’s Reunion. We will be working on the skills of comprehension, vocabulary, and drawing conclusions this week. Our grammar skills for this story include finding singular and plural nouns. Our spelling test this week will be on Wednesday. We will start a new story on Thursday. This story is entitled Boss of the Plains. We will work on comprehension, vocabulary this week as well as continuing our lessons on plural and singular nouns. Our new spelling list will be coming home with the students on Thursday. This list has ir, or, and ar sounding words in it. All of the students are reading the RC book of Bound for Oregon which is due on November 1^st. For some of the students, feel free to read a page and they read a page… This is a very good book in the historical fiction genre. 

 

In Math this week we will be working on finishing our second chapter in math. We should be ready to take the chapter test on Thursday. Most of this week will be devoted to reviewing the chapter and preparing for the test. A lot of algebraic concepts have been part of our discussion for the end of the chapter. We have talked a lot about variables and using them and applying rules to them. We will be skipping to Chapter 4 in math on Friday. We will go back to chapter 3 after we finish chapter 4. Chapter 4 is over time, graphing skills, elapsed time and using charts and graphs.

 

We will continue to be working on the NE region of the United States. The students will be finishing chapter 5, with the study guide going home with the students tonight. Tomorrow will be the chapter 5 test. We will then be working with chapter 6, still on the northeastern region. This chapter has us visiting the culture and economics of the region, as well as studying a Native American tribe that is associated with this region.

 

I thank-you for attending conferences! I appreciate how we can work together towards giving your child the best education we can!  

 

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 October 7, 2013

Monday Memo

October 7, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Last week we enjoyed a presentation by some students in 4H encouraging the 4^th graders to join their program. They sent a bag full of information home with them. This week is fire prevention week and conferences. Just a reminder that there is no school on Friday as a compensation day for evening conferences. I look forward to visiting with you this week. The quarter isn’t over, so grades won’t be there, but we will talk about your child’s progress up to this point. Thank-you for having your child read their Encyclopedia Brown book each night. Many have already passed their quiz over it and are reading a second Encyclopedia Brown book. They can read a book of their choice if they get a second Encyclopedia Brown quizzed over. They have to have one Encyclopedia Brown book quizzed on by October 15^th. This grade I use on their comprehension score.

 

In reading this week, we be starting a new unit entitled “American Stories”.  The stories they are reading all take place in America. The first one we will read is called Tomas and the Library Lady. This story is about how a little boy was from a family of migrant workers and spent time in a few different places and the importance of a library in his life. He eventually grew up to be a writer. They will be working on the following skills this week:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Contractions, and Drawing Conclusions. During grammar this week the focus will be on proper nouns and proofreading for capital letters. The spelling list contains words contain the ou and schwa sounds.

 

In Math this week we will be working this week on subtracting whole numbers and money, looking for patterns in numbers, matching words and expressions, and evaluating expressions.

 

We will start social studies this week, we are going to start working on the regions of the United States. The first one that we will be working on is the Northeastern Region. We will be looking at the states along the Atlantic Coast this week. We will also talk about the colorful environment, the cities, and their connection to the seaways, and we will work on some cause/effect in social studies. If you have any artifacts, brochures, or souvenirs etc.  from the Northeastern Region of the United States, to share with the students, please feel free to send them and the students can share them.

 

As I will be seeing you at conferences this week, I won’t be sending a Monday Memo out on the week of October 14^th. I will resume on Mondays beginning October 21^st.  

 

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 (Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013)

Monday Memo

 September 30, 2013 (Tuesday, October 1, 2013)

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Well, the students are to be done by today reading their Laura Ingalls Wilder book. They will be testing on their book today. They have three chances to pass it, but they have to wait 24 hours before retaking the test. I am giving them an Encyclopedia Brown book to read for their first book of the October. It will be due to be test on, October 15^th.  I encourage them to read another Encyclopedia Brown book and other books of their choice, if they finish the one I give them and pass the test before October 15^th. Thank-you for seeing that they read every night!!   Just a reminder to sign the planner each night verifying that they are reading each night. I have discussed with a few that they have to also fill out the planner each day. It was fun to participate in the Homecoming festivities last week. The students enjoyed the Homecoming parade and the assembly we had on Monday! This week the students will be listening to some students talk about their 4H experience, on Tuesday (today). They will be given some information about an invitation to join 4H. Look for that going home with the students today.

 

In reading this week, we are finishing our review over the journeys theme and talking about the genre:  mysteries. We will be doing some activities involving mystery stories and reading some Encyclopedia Brown minute mysteries each day. Having the students read an Encyclopedia Brown book is a way to have them read from the mystery genre. We will be reviewing a variety of skills each day including:  comprehension, vocabulary, remembering details, and some grammar review practice on subjects/predicates, common nouns, and guide words. There will be no spelling list for this genre unit. We plan to have this journey unit finished by Friday. Next week we will be starting our new reading theme. It is entitled: American Stories with the genre unit being on plays.

 

In Math this week we will be working on over and under estimates, adding whole numbers and money, column addition, and subtracting whole numbers and money.  We have 3 more members of the “Never Again Club”. That makes 14 members total. I truly appreciate you working with your students on memorizing those multiplication facts!!

 

For Science today, we are finishing up on our animal characteristics and behavior unit. I will be sending home a study guide on Thursday with your child. The test over this science unit will be Friday. We will spend a lot of time this week reviewing the vocabulary over this unit. There is a lot! I thought they did a great job on their first science test! Just make sure they study the study guide and they will do well on this test! I am keeping all of the tests until conferences at which time I will go through them with you and send them home from then on.

 

I sent home the homeroom letter with those that were willing to help out. I sent those out on Friday. If you didn’t receive one, just email me and I will get one to you. Again, I only sent them home with those that had said they could help. I thank-you in advance for your time and effort!!

 

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