Hello Parents! I hope you are having a great week! I hope everyone enjoyed Balloon Days even though they never went up! I had a great time with my family in Waterloo and the Panthers won their game!

Reading- This week is our last story in this unit. That means next week will be our first big unit test. ding-It will cover all the skills we learned about during these past five stories. The benefit I see for the kids is that the opportunity to go back over the story and search for an answer is a possibility in the unit tests. They don't get that chance in our weekly tests. They need to use that little gift! The tests are not timed, so they should not rush through them.  This will mean NO spelling tests next week.

I will also talk to them about their first book report next week. We may also be starting their first big writing project. It will be a Halloween story. I like to start now because it does take time to write and edit. Plus the final draft has to be typed. I will give them due dates after editing, but I usually give them a week for typing. If you don't have a computer working at home, let me know. When that time arrives, we can make arrangements to use the computers in the library before or after school. If your printer is down, email me a copy of the story. I will print it off here. That will happen later though. We need to write them and get them edited first!

Math- We are nearing the end of our first chapter. I think I threw them a curve ball on Wednesday, so I may have to slow things down a bit with this lesson. I would think a test may happen towards the end of next week or the beginning of the next one. This is challenging stuff and some today were ready to call it quits. I told them to keep pushing at it and not give up! We can't have that negative "I can't" talk or we will be finished. I know they will get it! They just don't like the change from multiplication to division. It feels backwards to them. That's okay, we will work through it!

Religion- First, they did an AWESOME job at mass today! I was so proud of them! I know it is difficult getting up in front of your peers, but they were calm and collected. I loved that 3 of the girls were nervous, but sang the Psalm response anyway. Thank you, Mrs. Mullin, for working with them on that! They did great! Maybe some others will want to try it for our next mass??

The chapter we are working on now is over the Beatitudes. They are at the end of this one as well. They will be testing over it on Monday. Our next  piece won't be in the book. October is the month of the Rosary. The 5th graders have 2 prayers to learn as well as all the  decades. We will do that in class as well as say some of the Rosary each day. On Fridays during October, we will say the whole Rosary.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma