Happy Thursday Everyone! I hope you are having a good week. It looks like you get a long weekend too. I hope you are able to take some time and enjoy it!

Just a reminder-- No School on Friday. We will be attending the 21st Century Learning at the high school. The public school is also off on Friday. We also don't have school on Monday. We (staff) will be going to Des Moines for some faith professional development as well as some meetings with the other teachers in the diocese. The public school will be holding classes on Monday. 


Math- I feel like every time I tell you what we are going to do be doing, I can't follow through with it! So this week we are working with the Order of Operations. That took a bit longer. On Tuesday and Wednesday we added more to that by calling it Grouping Symbols. They were given expressions to solve that were within parentheses and then brackets and finally braces. They seemed to like this a lot more! I did hear a student say more than once,"This is fun! It is liking solving a puzzle!" YES!!!!! We will be doing a little more work with that today. Next week we will be working on a chapter review. I have the test set for Thursday at the moment. If we need to finish it up on Friday-- we will do that. One day at a time. :)

Reading- This week we read an information piece on tree kangaroos. We read about a team that goes to Papa New Guinea to locate them and then put a tracking device on them so they can do more research on the animals. We learned the word "elusive" because that is what they consider these animals!  We also discussed some aspects in the story to identify the cause and effect. On Tuesday, I worked with a small group on different situations and they had to create the cause and the effect. For example, "Sharon's mom buys cookies, but hides them."  The causes were many, but the one I enjoyed the most was that she was hiding them for herself! We then had to come up with what the possible effect would be from hiding them. They will be testing over the story and the spelling words today.

Unit test scores are in your child's take home folder. I don't need that copy back. I made that one for you. This was a Benchmark test which means there were more stories to read and only about 7 questions to answer per story.  They only did about 2 stories a day and were given about an hour to do them in, but many were finished much sooner. I do think the questions can be challenging, but I also believe they can go back and find the answers. I have done that when I look them over while checking. I can show you the actual test at conferences in November.

Religion- They have been doing the rosary as well as learning their prayers. Some have already passed both the Apostle's Creed and Hail Holy Queen. You might ask your child over the long weekend if they have passed. They could practice it with you at home,

All School Mass- Next week is an All School Mass. Your child might have a part. IF they do, they will have a note in their take home folder telling you what the job is and if they have a speaking part, that will be attached to practice.

Service- The 5th graders helped out during their recess on Wednesday at the Rectory Rerun. A truck arrived that needed to be loaded. Usually the middle school kids help out with this, but they were eating lunch at the time. The 5th graders were more than willing to help out! They were most excited to tell me they loaded a Christmas tree! I was proud of them for stepping in during their recess time!

I sure love your kids! They are a great bunch! Have a great weekend! Enjoy your extra couple of days. I am heading to Doon on Friday after our meetings.
God Bless,
Miss Surma