Mallen's Monday Memo December 5, 2011

Monday Memo

December 5, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! This will be an interesting week, getting ready for Friday’s Christmas program! The kids enjoyed singing Christmas songs at the bank on Friday. Thank-you for your generous donations to our food pantry box.  The Cheer Fund money is also very welcomed and we will be using it to purchase an item off the giving tree. One more thing that our school is going to do is to replenish our hats and mittens supply through allowing the kids to bring some money for “Kaps for Kids”. On Dec. 7, and Dec. 14, the students can wear their hats that day for a donation. These things are just a few examples of how we are a giving and caring community at Jacobson Elementary!!

For reading this week, we are reading a story entitled Cendrillion. It is another version of Cinderella. We will be reading a variety of versions of Cinderella this week. We will also be working on vocabulary, comprehension, fantasy/realism, venn diagram over two characters in the story, main and helping verbs in grammar, and our spelling list is words with the schwa sound in them. The list is attached to this memo. Our small group stories are also all take-offs of Cinderella.

We will be continuing in our new Chapter 5 unit. It is also on multiplication/division. We skipped chapter 4 but will go back to it after we finish this unit. We wanted to stay on this topic to continue getting those multiplication facts learned. This week we will be multiplying 2DX1D and 3DX1D. We will also be doing some multiplication with arrays. Keep working on those facts at home!!

I sent home a social studies study guide with your child today. The test over Chapter 9 will be tomorrow. We will be finishing up on the body systems unit in Science, hopefully this week. Stay tuned to the Monday Memo…

I look forward to the students being all dressed up on Friday. It is always so fun to see them in their “Sunday Best”!!

As always, with any questions/ concerns don’t hesitate to give me a call or email!!

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us

Mallen's Monday Memo November 28, 2011

November 28, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great holiday break!! We enjoyed visiting the Belmond Care Center last Monday! The students did a great job of performing our Thanksgiving poems for their new friends! They followed that with a color sheet and conversation. They are so good to us over there and we all look forward to our next visit in December!!

I appreciate that the students finished the book The Jacket. Most of them passed the test. They are also finished the book Sarah, Plain and Tall. We took the RC test and a paper test over the story. We also did a daily quiz, that just helped make them accountable for their reading. Many failed the quizzes. It has helped me see that they need to continue being monitored with their independent reading. We will continue with that and it also makes them realize that they need to read for a purpose, not just look at the pages.

We are starting a new unit this week, in reading. It is entitled “Amazing Stories”. These stories are under the fantasy genre. Our first story is entitled The Stranger. We will be working on comprehension, vocabulary, noting details, compound words and structural analysis of words. During our grammar lessons, we will be working on action verbs this week. Our spelling words are compound words. The list is attached to this memo. We will be working on the following centers this week:  Vocabulary Center, Successmaker, Language Bucket, Fusion Writer, Poetry Center. Each of the students was given an RC book to work on and have finished by December 2. Let’s keep up the reading!!

During Math this week, we will be working on finishing our Chapter 3. We will be testing over this chapter on Wednesday. We are going to skip to Chapter 5 to continue with our multiplication/division. With that, they just need to have their facts memorized. Keep working on those, as we are taking daily multiplication tests.

We will be working on the nervous and digestive system this week. We have covered the skeletal and muscular system. We worked on the circulatory and respiratory system as well. We are getting there. We have an awesome video series that includes quizzes… and does a great job of showing how the systems work together.

We are on the Mountain Region of the United States. We will be talking about the crops in that region as well as the mining that goes on in the mountains, this week in Social Studies.

I want to briefly talk about Christmas this year. I would love to do a “Pay it Forward” type of theme for this Christmas. It would be great if the students could work on giving of their time to help another. I know their care center friends would love a visit from them, maybe after school… Another possibility is helping a neighbor shovel their sidewalk (should we get snow…). Maybe they could bake some cookies and deliver it to a neighbor. The list is endless. With that concept in mind, if they could possibly bring $2.00 to school, I would match what they bring and we would get an ornament from the Cheer Fund tree. I am also planning on ordering some extra books to give along with that ornament, to be given to kids that may need some books… I would also like to start a box of items for the food pantry. I would love to  have our box be filled with taxable items like toilet paper, soap, toothpaste… anything you would like to give. I will have a box available in the classroom tomorrow. Thank-you for your help with this. These are such special, caring kids and would do a great job “Paying it Forward”.

Have a great week!

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

Email:  cmallen@frontier.com

Mallen's Monday Memo November 14, 2011

Monday Memo

November  14, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We enjoyed the wonderful assembly for Veteran’s Day last Friday. It was nice to see everyone with their red, white, and blue on!! The kids also entered an essay contest sponsored by the local VFW Auxillary. The essay was entitled:  “My Definition of A Veteran Is…” I sent the entries in on Monday and usually in January sometime we find out the winner. They were very good and I am anxious to see the results!

In reading this week we are finishing up on our “American Stories” theme. We will be reviewing nouns and using commas between nouns… during our grammar time. Our spelling words are some more homophones and are attached to this memo.  We will be reading a play from a book we read at the beginning of the year entitled “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing”. We will be just doing some activities over the genre of plays. We will be looking at words with er, ist, and or in them. We will also be working on the vocabulary words that go with a play. We will also be reading the story Sara, Plain and Tall and then hoping to get to also read Skylark. That is the next book. My hope is that the kids will want to continue the series and read Caleb’s Story and More Perfect Than The Moon. We will be doing some activities over the stories as well. I also have some neat comprehension activities for Thanksgiving that we will be doing this week and next. On Monday, we are going to the Care Center and perform some poems for our friends and then do a fun color sheet with them. We really like to go over and see them!! The students are reading The Jacket right now and need to have it read to test on Friday.

In Math, we are getting closer to finishing up on our multiplication and division unit. We are working on multiple step problems, writing and evaluating expressions, finding a rule, and solving multiplication and division problems. We will continue working on our review “buckets”. We are also taking daily multiplication tests for those that still haven’t gotten a 100% on their X test. Please make sure you are working with them for at least 5 minutes each night. It really makes a difference!

We are starting on the Mountain Region of the United States. Again, if you have anything to share from that region, that you may have visited, have relatives at… please feel free to send it with your child on Mondays for our share day. We are working on the human body systems in Science.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving brea

As always, feel free to give me a call or email with any questions or concerns!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us

Mallen's Monday Memo October 24, 2011

Monday Memo

October 24, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We had a send off party for Mrs. Staley on Thursday. We wish her the best for her future teaching career! This week is Red Ribbon Week. I sent home a note with the students on Friday, which detailed what things they can wear each day this week. We are having an assembly on Thursday at 2:45 about Red Ribbon Week. We are also having our Halloween Party this Friday at 2:00. It begins with our annual costume parade and then continues in our classroom. I wanted to make mention to my room parents that Rachel Boots-Vestweber’s phone number is 641-275-0179. I look forward to the upcoming party and appreciate all the time and effort put into it by our room parents!! The kids always look so forward to it!

This week we are finishing up our MAP testing today!! We are also starting a new story entitled “Boss of the Plains”. It talks a little about how the Stetson hat began. It is part of our new unit “American Stories”. With that, the students have been reading the book Bound for Oregon. This is a great book that talks about a girl’s experience on the Oregon Trail. Each night they are assigned a chapter to read and to write three sentences over. Most of them get the chapter read during the day but wanted to let you know that some of them may be bringing that home as homework. We will be working on the skills of:  comprehension, vocabulary, writing a business letter, using the context, and the grammar skill will be continuing our work on plural common nouns. Our spelling words will have the ir and ar sounds and are attached to this memo. Our guided reading books this week are all American stories and our centers will have us doing Successmaker, a poetry center, our vocabulary center and a spelling center for this week.

For Math, we will be working on a couple of reviews to prepare for our Chapter Two test this week. We should also be getting started on our next chapter over multiplication if all goes well. In Science I will be sending home a study guide tomorrow, to help prepare for their Science test over plants which will be Thursday.  We will continue finishing up on the Northeastern part of the United States this week. I hope to have us testing next week.

I hope everyone has a great week!

As always, feel free to give me a call or email with any questions or concerns!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us

Mallen's Monday Memo October 17, 2011

Monday Memo

October 17, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I am back to teaching again. It was great to have had our student teacher, Mrs. Staley, the last couple of weeks. She will be in our district this week, but will be observing different classrooms.

We enjoyed the firemen and can never hear their message enough! The fire truck rides are always an added bonus to their day! Quite the excitement on Wednesday! I had a meeting in Mason City and the power went out for over an hour. I guess it was pretty dark in the classroom, so it was very interesting continuing with their day. I think our student teacher learned a bit about flexibility that day!

The fourth grade will be starting with our trimester MAP testing. Mrs. Jenison’s class will be doing it from 8:30-10:00 M-W and we will be doing it from 8:30-10:00 Th., Fr., and Mon. That makes our lesson plans a little interesting. We are going to try to complete a new story, Tanya’s Reunion, through the next two weeks. We will be working this week on comprehension and vocabulary, using exact nouns, making inferences, and writing a few character sketches. Our grammar will have us working on singular and plural nouns. Our spelling words have the sounds of u in them this week and the list is attached to this memo. Our centers will have us working on the fusion writers, completing Successmaker, a vocabulary center, poetry center and a language skill review. Our guided reading stories are entitled “A Breath of Fresh Air”, “Gifts of the Dineh” and “Coming Home”.

We will be really working on our multiplication facts as well as working on finishing up our Chapter 2 in Math. With MAP testing this week, it will be a challenge to see if we can get through the chapter. Hopefully within in the next two weeks we will get through it, and tested.

We will be talking about the American Revolution and drawing inferences as our critical skill, during Social Studies. We will be finishing up with Science on the ways that plants reproduce. We hope to get to our vocabulary review this week as well in Science.

On Thursday, we are going to have a little going away party for Mrs. Staley at 2:00. At 2:35 Mr. Johnson is going to talk to the class about study skills. A quick reminder that Math Night is Thursday night from 6:30-7:30. You can stop in a variety of rooms and learn different math games.  I look forward to seeing you there!

Have a great week!!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  444-3093 (Home)  444-4300 (School)

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us

Monday Memo September 26, 2011

Monday Memo

September 26, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Can you believe it is autumn already?  Where has the time gone? I am enjoying the time with your children. We have been reading some interesting books in our small groups that have really sparked an interest in your child. Each group reads a different story and we work with that story the entire week. We have discussed: orphan trains, discovering gold, the potato famine, birds migrating and amazing journeys that have taken place in our world. In last week readings we read two shorts stories: One was about a cricket taking a ride on a pigeon and the other was an actual true story about a child who was sent by Postal Express to her grandma’s in the 1913’s.The students have really enjoyed historical fiction books and non-fiction.

Our read aloud story is titled The Thing about Georgie. This is a story of a 4^th grade boy who is a dwarf and the trials and tribulations of his life. I think this book is very good for the elementary student as they see that everyone does not look the same and how to accept others.

This week we will be reading an Encyclopedia Brown book as a class. We will be working on comprehension and grammar skills.

In math this week we are going to work on mental math. This is an important skill that may come to some students quicker than others. We will work as a group and if needed break into small groups for understanding of the concept. Again we will keep up with the multiplication facts and our “bucket” which is a review of past math concepts we have learned.

We will be completing our unit in Science entitled “Animal Growth and Adaptations”. I believe the students have enjoyed this unit as much as Mrs. Mallen and I have! The next two units are “Identifying Cause and Effect” and “Robots, Roaches and Ants”. For Social Studies, we will be discussing and investigating “Seaways and Cities” and we will do some Promethean Board exercises on our NE Region, including harbors.

 Our share day is every Monday. The students are free to share something they want to share with the class, whether that is an item or just verbally share with us.

Again, I am proud to be working with such delightful and knowledgeable children.

As always, please feel free to let me know of any questions or concerns you may have!

Sincerely,

Kay Staley

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us

Monday Memo September 19, 2011

Monday Memo

September 19, 2011

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! What a week we had last week with one day being really hot and a few days later, really cold. Only in Iowa… It was great seeing so many of you at our Literacy Night last Thursday!  I think it is a great way to get together as a community and to support reading for leisure! The Book Fair is always a nice thing to add as a possible way to get some more books into the kid’s hands! Mrs. Burt was awesome as always, with her interactive books for the kids!!

Mrs. Staley will be taking over reading this week, along with math. For reading this week, she will be working on our review week. It is a review week for grammar, reviewing kinds of sentences, common nouns and subjects and predicates. With spelling, we have a list of review words that are attached to this memo. During whole group reading, she will b working on compare/contrast, syllabication, and abc order. They students will be reading two shorter stories this week entitled: Parcel Post Kid and Chester Cricket’s Pigeon. Our centers this week will include: Successmaker, Poem center, Vocabulary Center, Typing Tutor, and our language “bucket”. Add that to our guided reading groups, and it will again be a busy week in reading!

Mrs. Staley will also be working on math this week. She will be working on using decimals in numbers and again, numbering numbers from least to greatest. Last week the students worked on counting money and counting back change. That is a tough skill, but so important. The students will constantly be working on that concept by playing “store” as one of our Math Menu games. This week she will also be having them do a review and if they are ready, she hopes to give them their chapter test on Friday. If they aren’t we will do it next week.

We will be starting our new unit in Science entitled “Animal Growth and Adaptations”. It is such a neat unit. We are also working on our daily oral science. Our focus this week is on our teeth. For Social Studies, we will be reviewing the vocabulary we went over throughout the handbook. We will also be working on our daily oral geography lessons. This week it is over using a map grid. We will be starting on the regions of the United States next week. The next Monday Memo will let you know what region we are starting with and the students may bring items to share from that region, if they have been there on vacation… Our share day is every Monday. The students are free to share something they want to share with the class, whether that is an item or just verbally share with us.

Starting the next memo, Mrs. Staley will be taking over the writing of it. She will also be taking over the entire class for the next 3 weeks.

As always, please feel free to let me know of any questions or concerns you may have!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@belmond-klemme.k12.ia.us