Mallen's Monday Memo January 11, 2016

Monday Memo

January 11, 2016

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We are back into the swing of things. The students enjoyed the Star Lab that was set up here last week! It is always a neat experience for the students to have the opportunity to view a glimpse of our solar system! This week we have our counselor time on Wednesday. We will also be dismissing at 12:30 on Friday, for the teachers to get their grades finished for second quarter and end of semester. It is also “National Hat Day”, so we are encouraging the kids to wear hats on Friday!!

 

We are starting today on a new unit in reading entitled “Problem Solvers”. This unit is about people who had a problem to solve and the process they used to solve that problem. Our first story is entitled “My Name is Maria Isabel” and it is about a girl who is very shy and has a problem that her teacher doesn’t pronounce her name correctly. This story is about how she handles this situation. We will be working on the following skills this week:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Predicting Outcomes, and Making Inferences.  Our grammar this week is about the verb be. Our spelling words are attached to this memo.

 

Our social studies this week is the next chapter over the Southeast Region. I will be sending home a study guide on Thursday, with the test on Friday.

 

For Math, we are now officially beginning our multiplication unit. The students really need to have those facts memorized, so please encourage them to work on them at home. The program uses the idea of area and perimeter to help understand the concept of multiplication, within problem solving. Again, they really need to know their facts for success to occur. We also continue to work on our daily review and our multiplication page.

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns!

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo January 4, 2016

Monday Memo

January  4, 2016

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a very relaxing Christmas break! I want to thank our awesome room parents for the terrific Christmas party they put on for us:  Amy Bates, Amber Hill, and Christine Johnson. I truly appreciate their time and effort in putting a party together for us!! That week we also got to play Bingo at the Care Center with our friends. As always, that was a great deal of fun!! I encourage the kids to stop over and visit their new friends if they have a chance! They love their company!!They are so very good to us!! Just a reminder that this week we dismiss at 1:00 on Wednesday for our inservice time. We enjoyed our movies on Friday, as well as the games and cocoa that we had during our specials time. It was a fun day!!

 

Here we go, back into it. We are starting a review over our “Amazing Stories” theme. We will be reading two short excerpts. Each of the excerpts come from fun “amazing” stories. We will be reviewing our grammar and spelling skills as well as reviewing the skills we learned during our reading time. Our spelling list is attached to this memo.

We are working on our second module in Math. This module has us working on conversions using the metric system. We also do a daily review and a multiplication sheet each day. Keep working on those important facts each night.

 

Our social studies this week is the next chapter over the Southeast Region. Hopefully, we will be able to test over this chapter by the end of next week.Just a reminder that on Mondays, the students will be bringing home DOGS (Daily Oral Geography) that will be due on Friday. They can use any resource to answer the few geography questions. Those that hand it in on time, have their names on it, and get it perfect, will be in a drawing for a prize each Friday. Thanks for looking for that and helping with that!

 

For Math, we are now officially beginning our multiplication unit. The students really need to have those facts memorized, so please encourage them to work on them at home. Most are there, but I need all of them there! It will be so much easier for them if they have that done!! We finished our second module. It had a lot of problem solving of up to 3 step problems. It was tough for them. Mostly, once they took the time to read it and think about it, they found success!

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns!

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo December 7, 2015

Monday Memo

December 7, 2015

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

Last week was sure a fast week with no school on Monday, late start Tuesday, early out Wednesday and dress rehearsal on Thursday. Within that, we had a few extra music practices to prepare for the concert, so we didn’t get very far on what I had planned for last week. So, this week we will be doing a lot of last week’s work. Thanks for attending the Christmas concert! The students did a great job!!

 

We will be finishing up on our Cendrillon story this week. We will also begin a new story that we will finish next week entitled Heat Wave. This story is also one of our “amazing” stories about the effects of a heat wave on a farm. We will be working on the following skills with this story:  Fantasy/Realism, the comparing/contrasting, and reading a diagram,  as well as vocabulary and comprehension. We will be finishing this story next week. Our grammar skills with this story are on using past tense verbs. The spelling list will be sent home with Wednesday, with the spelling test next Tuesday.

 

We are working on our second module in Math. This module has us working on conversions using the metric system. We also do a daily review and a multiplication sheet each day. Keep working on those important facts each night.

 

Social Studies is what we will be working on this week! We will be working on the Southeastern Region of the United States. As always, if you have any artifacts or brochures from that area, please feel free to send it with your child and they can share it with us!

 

Just a reminder that on Mondays, the students will be bringing home DOGS (Daily Oral Geography) that will be due on Friday. They can use any resource to answer the few geography questions. Those that hand it in on time, have their names on it, and get it perfect, will be in a drawing for a prize each Friday. Thanks for looking for that and helping with that!

 

As it is Christmas, the giving time of year, I would like to do a few things. First, I would love for the students to “Pay it Forward” and do something nice for someone. Maybe shovel someone’s sidewalk, deliver cookies to an elderly neighbor, read a story to an elderly neighbor, visit the care center and talk with some of our new friends… the list is endless. If they do that, I am going to have them share what they have done with the class. I love hearing of the awesome things they do!!  Hopefully that will inspire them to do even more!! If possible, can you also send $2.00 with the students? I would like to do a cheer fund ornament from the class. Thank-you for all of that!!

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns!

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Monday Memo

November 30, 2015

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great holiday!! We had a busy two days last week! We went to the care center and made holiday placemats with them and then played cards. We worked on a variety of Thanksgiving activities! On Tuesday, we took our Science test. The results were sent home with your child. Clown faces were put on the kids during art class on Monday. This week will be about preparing for the Christmas program on Thursday. Reminder that it is at 7:00 at the high school, on Thursday.

 

We are continuing on our “That’s Amazing” theme in reading this week. Our story this week is another version of the classic Cinderella tale. This version is entitled “Cendrillon”. I will be reading a lot of versions of Cinderella throughout this week. We will also be working on the following skills:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, using a Venn Diagram, working with the suffix –able, and fantasy and realism. Our grammar skills this week are over the use of main and helping verbs. As always, we will continue to work on a daily SRA. Our spelling list for the week is attached to this memo.

 

We are working on our second module in Math. This module has us working on conversions using the metric system. We also do a daily review and a multiplication sheet each day. Keep working on those important facts each night.

 

Social Studies is what we will be starting on this week! We will be working on the Southeastern Region of the United States. As always, if you have any artifacts or brochures from that area, please feel free to send it with your child and they can share it with us!

 

Just a reminder that on Mondays, the students will be bringing home DOGS (Daily Oral Geography) that will be due on Friday. They can use any resource to answer the few geography questions. Those that hand it in on time, have their names on it, and get it perfect, will be in a drawing for a prize each Friday. Thanks for looking for that and helping with that!

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns!

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Monday Memo

November 9, 2015

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Last week went by quickly! We were busy with our MAP testing last week. It took a lot of our math time up and with the early out, it didn’t give us a lot of time for our math lessons. This week we had Counselor Johnson today and our library teacher Mrs. Streigel, tomorrow. She is doing a great job of teaching different things on the computer! 

 

We will be reviewing reading skills this week through the reading the following stories:  Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride and Duke Ellington. We will be working on comprehension and vocabulary with these stories and we will be reviewing previously learned skills throughout the week. Our grammar lessons are reviewing nouns, singular nouns, plural nouns, common nouns, proper nouns, and possessive pronouns. Our spelling list is attached to this list. We will also be writing a personal narrative this week, taking this writing piece through the edited and publishing process.

 

We didn’t get very far in math last week. We had our early out, and we worked on the MAP tests two days. So, this week we will be continuing our focus on problem solving subtraction problems, both one and two step problems. Again, keep working with your children on their multiplication facts! There are some students who are doing a great job and others that need to keep practicing them. Once they have them, they will have them!!

 

We took our social studies test on Friday, and I sent the results home with them. We will be starting Science again, working on the body systems. This chapter just talks the basic about each of our body’s systems and the main organ in each.

 

Just a reminder that on Mondays, the students will be bringing home DOGS (Daily Oral Geography) that will be due on Friday. They can use any resource to answer the few geography questions. Those that hand it in on time, have their names on it, and get it perfect, will be in a drawing for a prize each Friday. Thanks for looking for that and helping with that!

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns!

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo November 2, 2015

Monday Memo

November 2, 2015

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! What a busy week we had last week! We didn’t get through our Social Studies chapter  so our test will be this week, with a study guide coming home with them Tuesday and the test being on Wednesday.  Last week we went to the care center on Monday with our computers and made door signs through the use of the software, Inspiration. We also paraded our Halloween costumes there on Friday. We paired up with the first graders and did a computer activity with them. We printed that out for them as well as for our care center friends. We had an anti-bullying assembly on Monday. We were treated to some 6^th graders putting on three Reader’s Theatre plays for us!! We had our Halloween party on Friday and thank our room parents: Norma Gonzalez, Jon Swenson, and Holly Dirksen for the wonderful party they put on for the kids! We also finished our Oct. 30^th RC book and quizzed on that. The students received their new books on Friday. Thanks for having them read for 20 minutes a night!!

 

We will be starting a story this week, entitled A Very Important Day. This is a great story about a few families celebrating the day that they became American citizens! We will be working on the following skills this week:  Vocabulary, Comprehension, Multiple Meaning Words, Journal Writing, and Newspaper article writing. Our grammar skill this week is working on possessive singular and plural nouns. Our spelling words for this week are attached to this memo. We continue working on SRA each day as well. They are great for all reading skills the students need.

 

We are getting closer to the end of our first module in math. We will continue working this week on subtracting and regrouping numbers. We also will continue to work on our daily reviews and our daily multiplication page. Thanks, again, for having your child work on those each night! We are starting to do weekly timed tests for multiplication, so working on them is going to start paying off for them!

 

We didn’t get to this last week but we will this week:  On Mondays, the students will be bringing home DOGS (Daily Oral Geography) that will be due on Friday. They can use any resource to answer the few geography questions. Those that hand it in on time, have their names on it, and get it perfect, will be in a drawing for a prize each Friday. Thanks for looking for that and helping with that! Finally, a normal week for us to work on these! As I said above, I will send home the study guide Tuesday, with the test being on Friday.

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns!

 

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org

Mallen's Monday Memo October 26, 2015

Monday Memo

October 26, 2015

 

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! This is a busy week for us! It is our Anti-Bullying Week! Many activities are planned. I will include a few. You will also be receiving and have received some information about some of the plans. Today, the students are going over to the care center with their laptop computers. The idea is for each class to do a service project. For our project, they are going to do an activity with a resident. The site is called wordel and the kids will be making a wordel with them and we will bring them back to be printed and laminated. We will then present them with them at a later date. I thought the residents might get a kick out of working on the computer. We are also pairing with a first grade class this week and we will do the same activity for the first graders. It should be fun being a role model for them!

 

Our RC book The Jacket is due on Friday. I will be giving them another book on Friday  that will be due on November 15^th. Thanks for having them read each night and watching that they are truly reading, not just looking around… Many have already passed this book and are reading another and that is fantastic!!

 

We will be starting a story this week, entitled Boss of the Plains. This is a great story about how the Stetson hat was made and the story behind that.  We will be working on the following skills this week:  Comprehension, Vocabulary, Writing a business letter, Making inferences, and some compare/contrast. Our grammar this week will be over plural nouns. Our spelling words have the  ir and ar sounds in them and are attached to this memo. We also do a daily SRA that you see come home each day. As I said at conferences, you want to see 80% on them. If they have a 90% or better, they get a sticker on their chart.

 

We will be continuing to work with standard algorithms in Math this week. We will be adding and subtracting numbers. We will also be doing our daily reviews and a fact sheet each day. Thanks for working with your children on knowing those facts as they will really appreciate that when we get to that unit!!

 

We are going to be  finishing up on the second chapter over the Northeastern Region of the United States in Social Studies this week.  We will be talking about the Iroquois Indian tribe that made their home in this region. We didn’t get to this last week but we will this week:  On Mondays, the students will be bringing home DOGS (Daily Oral Geography) that will be due on Friday. They can use any resource to answer the few geography questions. Those that hand it in on time, have their names on it, and get it perfect, will be in a drawing for a prize each Friday. Thanks for looking for that and helping with that!

 

We also get to watch a Reader’s Theatre put on by a 6^th grade class, on Tuesday! We have our service project at the care center on Monday. We are going to be with the first graders for half an hour on Tuesday. The students are to wear the color orange on Wednesday. Thursday is our Random Acts of Kindness day (refer to letter sent by Counselor Johnson). We will be parading to the care center with our costumes on, on Friday at 1:40 and then we will come back here for the 2:00 parade. Our party will be from 2:15-3:00. Thank you in advance to our room parents for the Halloween Party and for their time and talent!! The room parents for this party are:  Jon Swenson, Holly Dirksen and Norma Gonzalez is sending treats and drinks.

 

As always, please feel free to call me with any questions/concerns! I look forward to meeting with you at our conference time!!

Have a great week!

Chris Mallen

Phone:  Home:  444-3093   School:  444-4300 Ext. 336

Email:  chris.mallen@bkcsd.org