Mallen's Monday Memo December 9, 2013

Monday Memo

December 9, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! The students had a great time bowling last week! This week we will be spending some time preparing for Thursday night’s Christmas concert. We will also have a dress rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon. We are also so very fortunate to have the opportunity to visit the Belmond Rehabilitation Center on Friday at 2:00. We are going to read them Christmas stories. We look forward to our visits with our new friends!

 

In reading this week, we are starting a new story entitled Cendrillion. We will be working on the following skills this week:  Comprehension, vocabulary, using a venn diagram, discussing fairy tales and the difference between realism and fantasy. Our grammar lessons will be over using main verbs and helping verbs as well as identifying verbs. Our spelling words for the week are attached to this memo.

 

In Math we will be multiplying 3 digit times 2 digit numbers. Now I think the students realize why it was such a big deal to learn those multiplication facts!! It makes this process so much easier. The students will also talk about how to choose a computation method. We will also be multiplying money amounts this week. It will be a busy week in math, when you add our daily reviews and fact sheets!! Again, knowing those multiplication facts is really helping them now, so I thank-you for taking the time to make sure they learned them!! We are down to only 3 people that haven’t passed our 100 point 5 minute multiplication quiz at 100%! That is awesome!!

 

We have been talking about the systems of the body. We have covered the skeletal, muscular, circulatory and respiratory systems. This week we will spend time on the nervous and digestive systems and we will continue reviewing about the above systems.

 

I am just sending home this as a reminder:

 

As I mentioned in my last memo, I have a few projects in mind for the class this December. We have been talking about being good citizens. With that, I would like to do the following:  Our school is going to be sending home bags of food to people who may not have any on the weekends, after school, holiday time… If you are able, I would love for our class to help with this project. If you can send some taxable type of items such as toilet paper, soap, shampoo, the list goes on, that you could have your child bring by December 15^th, I will put all in a box and give it as a donation from our class towards going home in those food bags. I appreciate your time and effort in doing that. I would also like to ask that if you are able, if you could send $2.00 with your child, I would match what the kids bring and we will use that money towards the cheer fund. If you could send that money by the 15^th of December also, I will get it to the Cheer Fund. Thank-you for that.

 

Just a reminder that with the snow, the students are required to wear their snowpants and boots. It is also so cold that it makes recess a lot more comfortable for them with all of that on!

 

 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 December 2, 2013

Monday Memo

December 2, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving break!! It is always nice to spend time with family and friends! We enjoyed our time at the Belmond Care Center and loved the geography Jingo that we played!! The kids did a great job with their new friends and we rewarded with such nice prizes and a treat when they left. We appreciate all the care center does for us throughout the year!! Thank-you also for the props for the play we put on, last Tuesday! They were the directors, stars, and prop people for the play. Some of them learned that when you promise your team to bring something and then you don’t, you let them down. Always a good lesson to learn…

 

In reading this week, we are starting a new unit entitled “Amazing Stories”.  Our first story is from the wonderful author of Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburg. It is entitled The Stranger. We are working on the following skills this week:  Comprehension, Vocabulary, Noting Details, Structural Analysis:  Compound Words and we will be reading some Autumn poems. Our grammar lessons this week are over action verbs and our spelling words, which are attached to this memo, are compound words. We also have the SRA kits this week.

 

In Math we will be starting on Chapter 5. We are finally in multiplication. All of that hard work learning their multiplication facts, we start to pay off!!. Speaking of that, we are down to everyone but 2 people (who are almost there), having received 100 percent on their multiplication timed tests and being members of the “Never Again Club”!!!  Our new chapter this week will have us working on multiplying multiples of 10,1,000 or 10,000, estimating products, doing some mental multiplication problems, and being introduced to using arrays to multiply.

 

We tested over our plant adaptation chapter last week. The results were sent home with your child. It was a short chapter. Our next chapter introduces the students to the different systems of the body. We will start this week by working on the skeletal, muscular,circulatory and respiratory systems.

 

As I mentioned in my last memo, I have a few projects in mind for the class this December. We have been talking about being good citizens. With that, I would like to do the following:  Our school is going to be sending home bags of food to people who may not have any on the weekends, after school, holiday time… If you are able, I would love for our class to help with this project. If you can send some taxable type of items such as toilet paper, soap, shampoo, the list goes on, that you could have your child bring by December 15^th, I will put all in a box and give it as a donation from our class towards going home in those food bags. I appreciate your time and effort in doing that. I would also like to ask that if you are able, if you could send $2.00 with your child, I would match what the kids bring and we will use that money towards the cheer fund. If you could send that money by the 15^th of December also, I will get it to the Cheer Fund. Thank-you for that.

 

Just a reminder that with the snow, the students are required to wear their snowpants and boots. It is also so cold that it makes recess a lot more comfortable for them with all of that on!

 

 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, 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