Mallen's Monday Memo September 28, 2015

Monday Memo

September 28, 2015

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We enjoyed wearing different themes each day to celebrate Homecoming week! The students enjoyed the parade on Friday and the outdoor assembly on Monday. That was a lot of fun!! Just a reminder to let me know, via email, text, phone call, or planner if you would be interested in being a room mother for one or more of our 3 parties. Thank-you in advance for your time with that!!

 

We are continuing our review of skills this week as well as working on the genre:  Mysteries. The students are listening to the story Encyclopedia Brown:  Boy Detective. With that, they are doing a variety of skills and activities. We are writing a mystery story and working on solving a few mysteries as well. We do a daily SRA as well, that is at their reading level. If they get a 90% or better, they get a sticker for their SRA chart. Once they fill a row, they get a prize!! Next week we will be beginning our new theme for reading! We do have a spelling list for this review week, with the spelling test being on Thursday. Our grammar lessons are all review of the previously learned concepts. The students RC book is due on Wednesday. (They are due the 15^th and end of each month). Most of them have quizzed over at least one Encyclopedia Brown book and are either reading a second one or they are reading from another mystery series.  Thank-you for having them read at least 15 minutes each night!! I will be giving them their new book if they have passed their September 30^th RC quiz. Their new book is Bound For Oregon. This is a book that I will read a chapter each day and assign a chapter to be read each night. It may not take them 15 minutes to read a chapter each night and if they have something else they want to read, great, otherwise I am just assigning them to read a chapter each night and really know it. If you need to read it to them or read a page and they read a page, I know that will be better for some of the readers. It is a great book though, that I really want them to experience regardless of their reading level!

 

For math this week, we will be continuing with rounding of numbers but now without the number line. We will be using numbers up to a million to round off. We also have our daily review and our daily fact sheet. Math is a busy time for us!!

 

We will be continuing on our plant behaviors and adaptations lessons. The students will bring home a study guide on Thursday, with the test on Friday!! Thanks for making sure they are studying those study guides as it really help them with their test scores!!

 

As always, please call with any questions or concerns!! Have a great week!

 

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

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

 

 

 

 

Mallen's Monday Memo September 21, 2015

Monday Memo

September 21, 2015

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend!! We had another busy week last week. We completed our second Science test. I have the tests in their files for conferences. You can ask them their score as they know what it is. There were some really awesome tests!! We enjoyed our time at the Belmond Health Care Center!! They are always so good to us and playing Bingo with new friends is always fun!! I encourage the kids to continue their relationships with their new friends and stop by and say hi when they can. We will be going there one time a month this year!! This week is Homecoming week. We will be watching the parade on Friday!

 

We will be finishing our Laura Ingalls Wilder story. They are reading an excerpt from the book By the Shores of Silver Lake. This week we will be working on noting details and completing some comprehension activities. The test over this story will be tomorrow. We will start a two week chapter on the genre of mysteries. The students will be listening to the story Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective. We will be doing activities over this story. We will be learning some special mystery words and writing a mystery story for our writing activity. Our spelling words will be sent home with their pre-test on Wednesday. The grammar lessons are all review for the next two weeks, going over subjects and predicates, kinds of sentences, nouns, and compound subjects. A lot of comprehension will be worked on throughout these two weeks as well.

 

For Science, we will be talking about plant adaptations. It is a very interesting chapter that the students really seem to enjoy. Once we finish this chapter, we will be starting Social Studies, where we talk about the regions of the United States. More information to follow in our Monday Memo.

 

With math, I want to continue to emphasize the importance of working on their multiplication facts. It will truly help them with their common core math. We will be working on rounding off numbers this week. I typically like to do the homework here at school so I can catch them if they are making any errors. However, some lessons I will send home as homework as I feel they understand exactly what they need to do. The homework is exactly like the problem set and exit ticket that I send home. If they have questions, you can refer to those two pages for help. They should be able to do it on their own. If not, we will be reviewing it during class. They just need to try.

 

On the back of this Monday Memo is an invitation to sign up to be a room parent. I appreciate in advance any help you can give me with this. I thank-you for your time and effort!!

 

Homecoming Week Attire:

Monday:  4^th graders wear yellow

Tuesday:  Spirit Day

Wednesday:  PJ Day

Thursday: Throwback Thursday (choose a decade and dress from that)

Friday:  White Out

 

As always, please call with any questions/concerns!!

Chris Mallen

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

If you would be interested in serving as a room mother in any of the following capacities, just let me know and I will get the list put together and sent home with your child, who is doing what. Once you have names and numbers, you can contact each other. I have my email on the bottom and you can email me what you would be interested in or give me a call, or just write me a note. THANK-YOU!!!

 

Fall Party: October 30^th (Parade starts at 2:00)

Winter Party:  December 18^th (2:30)

Valentine’s Party:  February 12 (2:30)

 

Thank-you again!!!

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

 

 

Mallen's Monday Memo September 14, 2015

Monday Memo

September 14, 2015

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We had a busy week last week! The students have really settled into their routine and the talking has gone way down! We had Counselor Johnson last week for the first time. She spent some time just reminding the students of her role in our school… It also seemed so different having had Monday off. I am excited that we get to go to the care center on Friday! We will be going at the end of the day. We love going there and meeting our new friends. We will be visiting them once a month. It is always something the students look forward to and our friends at the care center do as well!

 

This week in reading, we are going to be finishing our unit on the Titanic. We will be working on the skills of comprehension, vocabulary, syllabication, and working on the thesaurus. Tomorrow will be the test over this story and the spelling test. We will start a new story on Wednesday that is an excerpt taken from the Laura Ingalls Wilder book “By the Shores of Silver Lake”. We will be working on vocabulary, comprehension, and noting details this week. We do an SRA daily. I love these as it lets the students move at their level, independently. The SRAs consist of a story and then vocabulary and comprehension questions as well as different reading and grammar skills for each story. The stories are literature rich and the students like them. We also have grammar lessons each day. This week our grammar is over common nouns. I will also be sending the new spelling words home with the students on Wednesday, attached to their pre-test.

 

In Math we are working on place value, the value of numbers and this week we get into greater than and less than. Each day we independently work on our daily reviews. I love these because they help the students work on skills that they will see on their Iowa Assessments. Daily multiplication fact sheets are also done each day. Again, I thank-you so much for working with your children each night on these important facts!! Especially down the road, knowing these facts will help them enormously in Math!!

 

We are working on behavior adaptions this week and focusing on the vocabulary of the chapter. We will be doing a study guide on Thursday, with the test on Friday. Thank-you for going through the study guide with them, as it helps enormously on the test! I will keep these tests until we have conferences. I will send them home from then on.

 

Tomorrow, (the 15^th) the students are to have their first RC book quizzed on. This time they did a Judy Blume book. Once they pass that test (they get 3 times), they will get their new book. The new book is an Encyclopedia Brown book. I am having them read from the mystery genre. This book is to be read by Sept. 30^th. If they pass the quiz before the 30^th, I will give them another Encyclopedia Brown book. The books are pretty short and so I look forward to some of them reading more than just 1 in two weeks!!

 

Thank-you for signing their planner each night verifying they read for 15 minutes the night before!!

As always, please call/email with any questions/concerns!!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Monday Memo

Tuesday, September 8, 2015)

 

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone enjoyed our long weekend!! We were very busy last week! The students took their first science test that I sent home with them on Friday. We had our first reading and spelling tests as well. The results of those were sent home on Monday. The students are really starting to understand the routine of 4^th grade and I am pleased with how well it is going. Again, I want to thank you for making sure they read each night and for signing their planners to verify that. I have them stay in 15 minutes of their recess if they forgot to read the night before. I also appreciate you taking the time to work on their multiplication facts each night for at leefore ast 5 minutes. The payoff for the time spent doing that will be huge! They do daily fact sheets. I have been letting them use a multiplication table these first three weeks, but the table is going away after this week.

 

In Reading this week, we will be testing over our Grandfather’s Journey story. We will be starting our new story this week as well. This next story is also a favorite of the kids entitled Titanic:  Lost and Found. We will be working on a variety of reading skills throughout the week including:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Outlining, Syllibication, and using a thesaurus. Our grammar lessons are over compound sentences. The spelling words will be attached to their pretest for now on, so you can be looking for that. We also will be working on non fiction through the use of our Scholastic News magazine. We also enjoy our Storyworks magazine that your contributions at the book fair help our class have a subscription of.

 

In Math we are continuing our place value lessons. We are also learning to read and write multi-digit numbers using base ten numerals, number names, and expanded form. We do a daily review each day. The first one I went through with the kids, but they will be starting to do these independently beginning this week. As I stated above, a fact sheet is also part of their daily routine. Using a multiplication table has been of great help to them, but after this week, they will no longer have them to use. So, again I thank-you for taking the time to go through those with them at least 5 minutes each night!!

 

As I said above, we took our first science test. This week we are starting on a new chapter over animal behaviors and characteristics. The students typically love this chapter because they love talking about animals!!

 

I have really enjoyed getting to know your children!! They are very talkative, but they are also very creative and pick up on new learnings very easily! Thank-you for sharing them with me this year!! As always, if you have any questions/concerns please feel free to email/call me!! As I said at before school conferences, I don’t always see what’s going on or they don’t tell me… So, if something happens that you think I should know about, please feel free to. I like to “nip things in the bud”  when possible and as soon as possible.

 

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Chris Mallen

 

Phone:   (Home)  641-444-3093   School:   641-444-4300 ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday August 31st

Monday Memo

August 31, 2015

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a relaxing weekend! We have one week under our belts! I am truly enjoying getting to know your children!! They are very inquisitive and keep me on my feet!! We have been learning a lot of different things and I know it can be an overload! I think that as time goes, things will get easier for them.

 

In Reading this week, we will be finishing up on our story “Akiak” that we began last week. It is a great story about a dog that is an important member of an Idiatrod race. I think the students enjoyed it very much. We worked on a variety of skills including comprehension, vocabulary, predicting outcomes, and cause and effect. The plan is to test over the story tomorrow. We will start a new story this week entitled “Grandfather’s Journey”. It is a great story about a man who was born in Japan and then moved to the United States, and moved back and forth due to the love of both countries. Our first unit in Reading is entitled “Journey”. All of the stories the students will be reading will involve some type of journey. It is a fun way to start our reading for the year! We will be working on a variety of skills with this story including:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Writing in a response journal and using a word web. Our spelling words this week are words with short and long i and o. Grammar this week will be over subjects and predicates. Last week we learned about the different kinds of sentences. We also will be working on SRA which are great little stories with questions and skills that are at the student’s reading level.

 

We are working on place value with our New York Engaged Math program. I have a huge favor to ask of you. We will be doing a multiplication fact sheet every day. The students really need to learn these facts! If you can work with your child 5 minutes each day on those, it will really pay off for them. If they don’t complete the fact sheet, it will be in their yellow folder to complete and return. We also work on a daily review each day. This review helps the kids retain skills in all areas of math! If they don’t finish that in the allotted time,that may be something you will see in their yellow folder that needs to be completed and returned. Everything we do for New York Engaged Math, will be completed at school! I will send home the completed sheets for you to look at. Again, PLEASE try to come up with 5 minutes a night to focus on multiplication facts!! The pay off towards learning them, will be huge in the future!!! Thanks for your part in helping your child with their math skills!!

 

We alternate science and social studies. We are doing science right now. Our first area of science is life science. We are talking about classification of living things. We have talked about the 5 kingdoms of living things and how we classify the different types of animals and plants that we have. We will have our first science test next week at some point. I will let you know details via next week’s Monday Memo which you will receive next Tuesday!

 

Every day we devote a period of time to computer skills. We will also do some interactive science activities during that time. Our librarian is going to come monthly and work with the kids on some resource based websites. We are excited for this opportunity for the kids. We will also have our Counselor Johnson time two times a month. She is still working on her schedule.

 

Thank-you for your help in making sure your child reads each night. By signing your planner, you are verifying that they read for their allotted time. If it isn’t signed, I have them read for 15 minutes during recess to make sure that they read every day. I truly appreciate you helping them with that and with their multiplication facts!!

 

Thank-you for sharing your child with me this school year!! I look forward to the learning opportunities that await all of us this year!! As always, PLEASE call with any questions/concerns you may have!! I like to really tackle any problems right away and I don’t always see everything that is going on…

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

 

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

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo May 18, 2015

Monday Memo

May 18, 2015

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! This will be the last Monday Memo for the year. I have tried to include all the information I could think of in this note. We enjoyed Amy Bates  visiting us from the library and talking about the wonderful library program that will be held there!! I encourage everyone to sign up for it! Thank-you to our friends at the Belmond Care Center for treating us to a fabulous lunch on Friday!! That is so awesome that they do that for us every year!! This week we are looking forward to our track meet that will be at 9:00 on Thursday!! We are busy!!

This week in Reading, we will be working on the book Harriet the Spy. It is such a fun book and a great way to end our year. The afternoon of the last day of school, we will be watching the video over this great story!! Our week will have us listening to the story, reading the story, and doing activities over the story. I gave everyone their last RC book of the year, on Friday. Those are due the last day of school, and we will test over them that day, unless they read it sooner, in which case they can quiz early!! I still have a few that need some good scores from their RC quizzes!

In Math, we are going to finally finish module 3! We will be testing over this module this week as well. It will be our final week of math as we will be on our field trip on Tuesday and watching our movie on the last day.

I will be sending home a study guide over our fossils unit  on Thursday, with the test on Friday. It will be our final science grade for the year.

The last day of school, my plan is for the students to bring their own lunch. We will eat in our classroom, do the movie… They can bring whatever you would like for them to bring for their lunch. I thank-you for that!

It has been a pleasure having your children this year! They are all such kind, caring students! I wish them all the best in fifth grade!! I thank-you for sharing them with me!!

Reminders:

May 21:  9:00 Track Meet

May 26^th:  Field Trip to Music Man Square

May 27^th:  Last Day of School. The students are to bring a sack lunch that day.

As always, if you have any questions/concerns, please feel free to give me a call!

Have a great week!
Chris Mallen

Phone:  515-444-3093 (Home)   515-444-4300 ext. 326 (School)

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo May 7, 2015

Monday Memo

May 4, 2015

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We enjoyed our visit from Dirk Vanderlinden. He talked to the kids about what makes a good ad. We thank him for his time with us! We will be spending some time preparing for our fine arts festival which will be held Thursday night. We have counselor time two times this week due to her not being able to meet with the kids last month because of our testing. We also get to go fishing on Monday morning! It will be an eventful week for us!!

This week in Reading, we have finished all of the themes in our reading series!! Great accomplishment!! Our spelling will look a little different this week. We will be working on some spelling skills over a poem entitled “Ode to Spring”. So there won’t be a spelling “list” anymore this week.  Our grammar this week will consist of us doing grammar sentences which review the concepts we have learned all year long. We will also continue with our DOL (Daily Oral Language). For reading time this week we will be working on creating and publishing our ads for the Belmond Independent. The students chose their library books last week and those will be due on May 15^th.

In Math, we are going to be continue to work on interpreting division word problems as a number of groups of a known and unknown size and interpreting and finding whole number quotients and remainders to solve one step division word problems. I still have a few students who truly need to work on memorizing their multiplication facts! That will make division so much easier for them! We also work on a daily division sheet along with our daily reviews.

Three of our Science days this week will be spent with Counselor Johnson. On Thursday,  I will be sending home a study guide for the Science test that will be on Friday.

As always, if you have any questions/concerns, please feel free to give me a call!

Reminders for the week:

May 7:  Fine Arts Festival

May 8:  Fishing with Mrs. Kern

Have a great week!
Chris Mallen

Phone:  515-444-3093 (Home)   515-444-4300 ext. 326 (School)

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org