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

 

Monday Memo

April 28, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Last week was filled with so many different things. We were treated to a visit from Kelley Wilhelm (AKA Antarctica Man). He has spoken to the 4^th grade for the last 4 years about his work on the continent of Antarctica. In the past he has Skyped us from there. He was here in person and did a fantastic presentation about the continent and what he does there. He will be receiving his PHD from the University of Wisconsin in August. One of the components of his Antarctica project was student outreach and our 4^th grade at Jacobson Elementary was chosen to be his outreach class. Ask your child what they learned about Antarctica! We also celebrated Earth Week by reading stories, cleaning our lockers out, and we will be picking up trash in the community, once the weather cooperates!

 

We finished our Heroes unit. We really enjoyed the stories and activities over a variety of different heroes. The students all wrote a hero story. I thought they did a great job on them and I look forward to you reading them when they take them home! This week our new unit is entitled:  Nature Friend and Foe. We will be reading stories about nature. Our new story is entitled “Salmon Summer”. We will be working on the following skills this week:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Direction Following and we will be working on some outlining skills. Our grammar skills this week will be over adverbs. Our spelling words are attached to the memo.

 

For math, we started on our ninth chapter about decimals and fractions. We also started a new unit in Social Studies over the Southeastern region of the United States. We will be talking about the Mississippi River this week, comparing map scales, talking about the warm weather and crops in the region and we will talk about the coal mining done in the region.

 

Today, the students will be bringing home a note letting you know about our upcoming summer school. It will be held June 16-27^th and July 7-18^th. It is a four week session for reading. The students will be here from 9:00 until 12:00 with lunch provided. We will be having a bus stop in Klemme, Goodell, and Rowan at a site to be revealed in the forthcoming letter. Once you have received the letter, please email me if you are interested in your child participating. Once we have all of the names of students willing to commit to the program, a letter will be sent home with those that will be elgible to participate. My email is at the bottom of this memo. I will put this paragraph in the next few Monday memos to remind you to let me know if you are interested in your child participating.

 

 

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 April 21. 2014

Monday Memo

April 21, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! Unfortunately we were unable to go to the care center last week, but they were so kind to us and brought over treats in Easter eggs and marshmallow treats!! So wonderful of them and a nice way to kick off our long weekend!!

 

We will be reviewing previously learned skills over our Heroes unit. We will be reading a story this week that comes from the series of books about the horses of Chincoteague. The students all received one of Margurite Henry’s books on the horses, as their second book to read for the month of April. Those books are due on the last day of April. I will be giving them their first book of May, on the first of May.  This week we will be writing a story about our hero. We will go through all of the steps of publishing. We will also be talking about cause and effect. Our review spelling words will be going home with the students tomorrow. Today we took our post test from last week since we weren’t at school last Friday.

 

For math, we will be spending the week reviewing over Chapter 8. On Friday, we will be taking the test over our geometry unit.

 

We have just started a very short unit on Fossils in Science. I will be sending a study guide home with the students on Thursday. We will be testing over this short unit on Friday.

 

Sometime in the near future, the students will be bringing home a note letting you know about our upcoming summer school. It will be held June 16-27^th and July 7-18^th. It is a four week session for reading. The students will be here from 9:00 until 12:00 with lunch provided. We will be having a bus stop in Klemme, Goodell, and Rowan at a site to be revealed in the forthcoming letter. Once you have received the letter, please email me if you are interested in your child participating. Once we have all of the names of students willing to commit to the program, a letter will be sent home with those that will be elgible to participate. My email is at the bottom of this memo. I will put this paragraph in the next few Monday memos to remind you to let me know if you are interested in your child participating.

 

 

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.k12.ia.us

 

 

Monday Memo

April 7, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I thank-you all for the beautiful flowers and the thoughtful cards and letters…  I came back to work a week early. The kids have been just great at helping me when I need some help!  I appreciate all Mrs. Lovgren did with the class during my absence!!

 

Today we began the Iowa Assessments. We did the language component today. Tomorrow we will do the reading component. On Wednesday we will be doing the math component and we will finish on Thursday with the Science component of the test.

 

I also wanted to let you know that you can get on our typing page now at home and the students can practice their typing skills. They have their own password and username. (They have them memorized.) This is only if you want them to do it. It isn’t a requirement. It is just another thing they can do to pass the time that will help them with their keyboarding skills. The web site is:  www. typingweb.com/tutor/

 

We began a new unit in reading entitled “Heroes”.  This is a great unit that gives the students some traits about what a hero looks like. Last week we talked about Dr. King and this week our story is about Gloria Estavan. The story revolves around how she survived a vehicular accident and how she is now making a difference in the life of others. The skills we will be working on this week include:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, character judgements, and homophones. Our grammar skills this week are on object pronouns. The spelling list is attached to this memo. Last week the student s learned about cause and effect. They learned about subject pronouns during grammar.

 

For math, we started a geography unit last week. This week we will be talking about using geometric words to describe, we will learn about the term perimeter, area, and we will be doing some problem solving skills. We finished all of the 4^th grade drops in a bucket review series. We are going to start doing the 5^th grade drops in a bucket now. What is nice about that is that it starts by reviewing the 4^th grade material. It is such a great program to keep math concepts always in their brain.

 

Due to the Iowa Assessments, we won’t be starting our science unit on Fossils, until Friday.

 

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.k12.ia.us

Mallen's Monday Memo March 3, 2014

Monday Memo

March 3, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! We enjoyed the Olympics Reading Incentive program that we had through the month of February. We made Olympic rings with the third graders, and we played Bingo with the Olympic athletes names, throughout the month. It was a tough month, due to the absences, the late starts, early outs… The nice thing was that it did give them a lot more time to read at home. I will let you know next week how many students in our class received the gold, the silver, and the bronze. The bronze expectations were exactly what our monthly expectations are. That is to pass two reading counts quizzes a month. To get the silver, they had to pass 3 and to get the gold they had to pass 4. It was great how many did that!! I am having them all read two books of their own choice through the month of March. The books have to be reading counts books, however.

 

I will be having some surgery up at Mayo Clinic, in March. I will need to take some time off, so I am planning to be only gone for three weeks. It is my hope that is all I need to miss. I put the kids in the wonderful hands of Mrs .Lovgren. She does a great job!! The biggest problem with my absence is that it coincides with conferences. I will be here on Tuesday, March 11. I will be staying until 8:00 that night and try to get most of the conferences scheduled for that night. I will also be calling others to have conferences with me on Wednesday, March 12^th. I will stay as long as I need to that night. I have a prior commitment on that Monday night, so I will be trying to get the conferences in on March 11-12. So, if you get a call/email from me, that will probably be what I am going to be asking you. Otherwise, you will get the usual red note letting you know your conference time on that Tuesday. Just remember, I am going until 8:00 that night, whereas everyone else is going until 6:00. I just want to avoid any confusion… thank-you for your flexibility in scheduling!!

 

We are starting a new story today entitled “Sing to the Stars”. We will be working on vocabulary, comprehension, and using a graphic organize to summarize a story. Our grammar lessons this week are continuing our discussion on adjectives, except now we are comparing with them. The spelling words for this week are attached to this memo. Our hope is to test on those words, Friday.  We also have the SRA lab this week, so we will be spending some time with those stories as well.

 

In Math, we are on our division chapter. We will be working on writing a number sentence, learning the divisibility rules, finding averages, dividing by multiples of 10, and dividing with two digit divisors. It will be a busy week in Math this week!! Knowing their math facts have greatly helped them succeed with this chapter!! Thank-you for all the time and effort you put into helping your child know them!!

 

We are working on Science this week. We are starting on our Earth Science unit. This week and last we are working on earthquakes and volcanoes. I hope to be able to send home a study guide Thursday night, with a test on Friday. Things don’t always work out as planned, but it is the plan for now.

 

I want to thank our wonderful room mothers for the awesome party they put on for us for Valentine’s Day!! Thanks to Mrs. Dockstader, Mrs. Willms and Mrs. Meyer for their time and effort! The kids had a great time!!

 

 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 February 3, 2014

Monday Memo (

February 3, 2014

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! Last week we didn’t get to everything we wanted with our late start, but we did get our social studies test in and the results were handed back with the students on Wednesday. They did a great job on the tests!! I still have a couple students that need to pass their RC book entitled The Secret School. I have given the students a new book which is a biography of either Helen Keller, Rosa Parks or Harriet Tubman. These are all people that have overcome obstacles in their life and are perfect for a problem solvers theme. The books need to be read by February 17^th since the 15^th is on a Friday. Jacobson Elementary has a great plan for the month of February. It is the Winter Olympics, so we are going to have a reading incentive entitled “Going for the Gold”. The students are to have read and passed two RC book quizzes, by the end of February in order to receive the Bronze award. If they pass 3 RC quizzes they will receive the Silver award. If they pass 4 quizzes they will receive the Gold award. We will be having some activities with the third graders throughout the month of February. We will also have an assembly on Friday. We all look forward to a fun month of activities to celebrate the Olympics and reading!! So, their biography will be one of the books they need to have read and the 17^th I will be giving them another book to have read. After they have read and passed those quizzes, they can go to the library and read books of their choice if they want to go for the silver and gold. There will be prizes so we hope that is a good incentive for them. You won’t have to sign anything verifying if they have read such and such minutes, beyond the daily planner where you sign it if they read 15 minutes a night. We will be able to get onto the reading counts quizzes and verify how many quizzes they passed in the month of February.

 

We are taking our reading test today over the “My Name is Maria Isabel” story. Starting tomorrow, we will be reading a story entitled “Marvin and the Great North Woods”. It is a story about a boy who has a problem knowing what to do when he has to spend time at a lumber camp a long ways from home. We will be working on the following skills with this story:  Comprehension, vocabulary, and note taking. Our grammar skills this week are over irregular verbs and our spelling test will be next Monday.

 

In Math, we tested today and will be starting on Chapter 7 tomorrow. We will be working on the following skills in math:  Using Patterns to Divide Mentally, Estimating Quotients, Dividing with remainders, and two digit quotients. We will continue working on our daily reviews and our problem solving packets.

 

We are still on our Southwestern Region unit in Social Studies. We will be spending the week talking about the economics and natural resources found in this region.

 

The kids enjoyed the online typing computer program. Unfortunately the computer lab will be in use the next three and half weeks for Map Testing. When that is completed (we do it in two weeks), we will resume going every other day with Successmaker and the typing program.

 

 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!

 

Congratulations to the first and second place winners of the KC Spelling Bee Contest, who both came from our class!! In second place was Madison Roberts and the fourth grade winner was Cooper Sifert!! Great job everyone for participating!!

 

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