Hello Parents,
I hope everyone had a blessed Easter! I had a great time with my family in Waterloo!!!! I do wish we could have had it a little warmer! Spring temps can show up any time!

Reading- This week they are reading a story called The Birchbark House. It is about a Native American who is walking home and meets up with some bear cubs. She feeds them berries until their mom shows up! We talked about the theme of this story is learning to think before you act. Their grammar this week is present, past , and future perfect tense verbs. They are using the words has, had, have, and will in front of their verbs. Their verbs also need to be in the correct tense. They will take a test on Friday over this story as well as their spelling test.

Next week we won't be doing a story during Iowa Assessment week. We will go again with another story the week of April 16.

Math- This week we focused on simplest form of fractions and finding a common denominator. They continue to work on identifying equivalent fractions. They are catching on pretty quickly.

Religion- This week they continued to watch the movie The Ten Commandments. On Wednesday, I gave them the ACRE test. This is a standardized religion test given to 5th and 8th graders every year. It is to see what they are remembering from their religion classes.

Permission Form-- In your child's folder is a permission form from our school nurse. This is for our Growth Talk -- we discussed this at conferences. I have the date set for 2:00 on April 18. I will break the news to the kids before handing out the folders. :)  Please fill out the form and return by April 16.  Thanks!!!! 

Iowa Assessment Week- We should be done testing by Thursday afternoon.  As always it is helpful if your kids get a good night's sleep each night along with a good breakfast (if they are breakfast people).  The PTO will supply a snack for them each day. We won't take any tests on Wednesday.  We will only test in the morning unless your child is gone and needs to make them up. I always try to get them to relax and not stress. The point is to do your best. Try your hardest.  They should always have a book to read when not taking the tests. I will remind them of this as well. If they are done with their book report book, they will need another one. They will still have their specials. 

I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I would love to say, "Enjoy the temps!", but I have a feeling that isn't going to happen. I am supposed to be going back to Waterloo. My niece is going to her boyfriend's prom on Saturday. We will see if the weather allows me to do that! 

God Bless, 
Miss Surma