Hello Parents, I hope you're enjoying our fall temperatures!!! I know I am! 

FAST- In your child's folder you will find their score sheet from our fall testing. It will show their score and the benchmark score we want them to reach. This will go up in the winter of course. 

Religion- We have ended our chapter. They will be taking a test over it on Friday. October is next week. That means it is the month of the rosary. The 5th graders will be focusing on that. They will have 2 prayers to learn as well as all the mysteries of the rosary. We will be saying a decade of the rosary in class each day. On Fridays I usually take the class to the chapel and we say the entire rosary.  There is going to be a prayer service next Wednesday because Father Halbur will be gone. The 8th graders will also be praying the rosary beforehand at 9:15. You are welcome to join us! 

Reading- This week they read a story called Elisa's Diary. It is about a young girl who moves from Puerto Rico to the USA. She isn't too happy about it because she will have to start at a new school and she has a difficult time speaking the English language. She can write it though. She meets a boy who is from Guatemala. He can speak English, but has a hard time writing it. They end up helping each other out. In the end we see that she has graduated from college and has become a teacher. She tries to teach her students about not giving up and getting help from others. In grammar we are working on making nouns plural and how we write them out. The lovely rules our English language has can sometimes be confusing-- you can't just add an -s or -es to all nouns.  On Wednesday they also worked in small groups and were given short passages to read and figure out the theme or lesson to be learned in that story. Then I made them get in smaller groups with other kids. They each had to retell their story and explain the theme of their story. We will be doing this again. Some didn't really pay much attention to the stories so they couldn't retell it very well or explain why they had chosen that theme. 

Next week will be a unit test week. They will not have any spelling tests. This test is a bit long so I will break it up over the week. I will also be talking to them about their first book report. They will get a packet with book report options to choose from. I also talk about writing a Halloween story. They will write rough drafts and their final copies will be typed here at school on their Chromebooks. 

Math- We are working on multiplication! On Thursday we will begin multiplying by double digits. I'm not sure how much they did that last year. The trick of course is remembering to drop the zero.  They are also working on estimating the products. 

Food Pantry- They will go back to work on Friday, October 5. 

Coin Wars- Starting on Monday we are having our challenge of collecting money for the high school fundraiser to send the veterans on an honor flight. Kids can bring in cash or coins. The class with the highest amount collected wins a prize. I told your kids that if they were thinking of bringing in big amounts they had to get permission from you FIRST! It is a worthy cause. That will run from Monday to Friday. 

Book It-- This will start on Monday. I will give them a calendar to record their minutes on. The goal for October is 600 minutes, which is about 20 minutes a day. You will need to sign it at the end of the month and have them return it so they can get their Pizza Ranch or Pizza Hut coupon. Pizza Ranch changed theirs to be $4 off a student buffet. At the end of the 6 months, I usually give prizes out to those who read 5 or 6 months of the challenge. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am heading to Waterloo and Dubuque. My niece plays soccer on the Loras college team. I am going to go watch her. Hopefully the rain will stay away. 
God Bless,
Miss Surma

The homecoming float lineup starts at 1:00. Parade starts at 1:30. Our spot is #22 on the corner of Prairie and Sycamore. Students can be picked up at Holy Spirit Church.

Hi Parents, Happy Wednesday! I hope you are having a great week!  The kids and teachers are enjoying the new building this week that is for sure! I also have my room pretty much back in shape since all the water issues. I am just waiting on a new cupboard. Feels so good to be complete again.

Reading- This week we read a story about a group of girls in New York who are on a double Dutch jump rope team. They had a teacher who created the group and then took them to different competitions. The story is our first one in this unit that is nonfiction, which means you read it differently. We are looking for information and facts. We also talked about dialogue and that in stories that means--people talking. The clue would be the use of quotation marks around the things that are being said. We talked about how the coach is talking in this to give us the best idea of how things went when the girls started. That firsthand knowledge is BEST! We also focused on the skill of sequencing events.  Our grammar this week was working on picking out nouns in sentences. They also had to clarify whether they were common or proper nouns. If they were proper, they had to be capitalized. A new one for them is acronyms: letters that stand for something. I gave them the example of our DEAR time. It means "Drop Everything And Read".

FAST Testing- We started this week on these reading tests. We should be done by Monday. Just a reminder this a test on their fluency. The aReading test they do is a test on comprehension. We use this information to figure out which of my kiddos I need to work with in small group time on their reading skills. 

Religion- This week we really focused on practicing for mass. I have to say they did an AWESOME job too!!! I was so proud of them. They will be working on a chapter review and taking a test over their first chapter next week.

Math- We are halfway through our chapter. We just worked on using multiplication and exponents. They will be working on multiplication now. They will start by multiplying by a single digit, but we will move into bigger numbers. 

Homecoming- They can wear sweatpants on Friday for $1. They can also wear their red and black to support the Panthers. We will have a Pep Rally sometime that morning. Remember they are getting dismissed at 12:40 on Friday. Please let me know if there are special or different pick up plans for your child that day. Thank you!

Food Pantry- Mark contacted Mrs. Sickels because he needs help on Thursday (tomorrow). I said the 5th could go help out. That is our plan for tomorrow as long as it isn't raining. 

Art- We had our first 4th/5th art class today in the ART ROOM!!!! WOW! After 22 years of doing it in my own room, that was a big event. I know so many past teachers who are probably so excited for us and that room! Today we talked about Andy Warhol with the kids and his creation of POP art. We did our own little spin on it with fall. They will continue to work on it next week. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Enjoy the homecoming festivities too! I am heading to Des Moines on Saturday to watch my niece Olivia play some soccer at the James Cownie Field.  Maybe I will see you on Sunday at the Color Run! I will be that person walking! 
God Bless,
Miss Surma

Book Order- I forgot to add this in my blog. I am sending home a book order form if you would like to purchase any books for your child. Any orders are due back by Sept. 21. Write checks to Scholastic or me. I also have had parents order them online. You can use my code to do that. The code is DVT3G.  You will pay them online. It's pretty easy! 

Dear Parents, 
I hope you are enjoying the sunny and dry weather for a change!!! I know I love having a dry room again! 

Reading- This week we read a story called Off and Running. This is a story about two kids who are running for class president. The hold a debate with the entire grade listening. We discussed in class that Miata uses more formal language with her speech and really wants to improve the looks of the school. Rudy uses more informal language and wants things like longer recesses and ice cream every day. They filled out a Venn diagram on the characters in pairs on Tuesday. We were looking for more than Miata is a girl, Rudy is a boy kind of information. In grammar they are working on the subject and predicate parts of sentences. On Wednesday, they worked in pairs using Scrabble tiles to find out which of their spelling words was worth the most in points. They are also breaking up words based on the VCCV pattern. 
This is week 3 in our unit. That means that on Friday they will have an extra story to read and 10 comprehension questions to answer based on that story. They will still be asked the questions from our regular story as well. This test will be worth 50 points. 

Math- This week they are working on the properties of addition and multiplication. The focus is really on Distributive property, but they also work on commutative and associative. I am not sure they have a handle on it yet, so we may work some more before moving on. If you want to help out at home...work on their multiplication facts. I have noticed many of them don't have them down very well and spend time thinking. It wouldn't hurt them to work on those a little more. 

Religion- They performed their commercials on Tuesday. I hope you watched them on our Facebook page. They had a lot of fun doing those. We are also working on the Blessed Trinity. They will be drawing a picture of that for me.  I will explain more later! 

On Tuesday, during our class meeting, I presented to them a Mindset activity. Mindset means getting them to change the idea of , "This is too hard or I can't do this to I can't do this...yet." YET is a big statement. Many of them I have noticed shut down or get really negative when things get hard for them.  

So I made them work alone to draw a sketch and then they worked in groups. They were given 12 recipe cards, 20 dot stickers and a scissors. They were to create the tallest tower they could using those items. I took pictures and will post on Facebook. Sorry, but a couple of them collapsed BEFORE I got a picture. Next week they will get back with their groups and try to rebuild, but make the changes they think will help them create their tower. This also turned out to be frustrating for some because theirs didn't work and they kept saying... I don't know what to do differently. We talked as a class about how that happens sometimes in real life, but you can't walk away. You have to try again. I was really pleased with them. There wasn't a lot of negativity throughout the entire thing.I know it isn't easy, but there is no reward in the end for the tallest one. It is just to see how tall you can get it to be for YOUR group. It also forces them to think outside the box a little which can be difficult. 

Mass- They will get their mass parts on Friday. You are welcome to join us for mass next Wednesday. 

Homecoming Dismissal- Just making sure you understand we are having an earlier out than usual. The kids will be dismissed at 12:40 next Friday. 

Volunteers needed this Friday at 4pm. We will be moving the classrooms into the new building! So exciting! Mrs. Simmons gave the teachers a sneak peek tour the other day after school. It is so nice!  I can't wait to use that hallway to get to the other building! It is still hard to believe that I was parking back there a year ago! :)

Have a great Balloon Days weekend! Hopefully the balloons will lift off many times! 
God Bless, Miss Surma

Tomorrow is our first Spirit Day! Students may wear their sweatpants for $1. It is also Cy-Hawk weekend...they can wear their favorite team shirt!!! (It doesn't have to be Cy or Hawk)! 

Hello Parents, I hope you enjoyed your long weekend! I had a really nice visit in Arkansas. I much prefer our hilly drives compared to their winding roads! Due to the amount of rain we've been getting, my classroom received a lot of water over the weekend at different times. The 5th graders have been really good about being flexible on having to move to the gym on Wednesday. They have helped me move stuff out of the way of the water as well! Right now there is a temporary wall outside my window. They will be putting in gutters when the rain ends! That will divert the water.

Reading- Even though this is a short week, we are still reading a story. They read a play this week that is a modernized version of  The Princess and the Pea . This story has a bit of a mystery to it and as they read  the ending... Owen's face was fantastic! That Home Alone moment of shock!  In grammar we are focusing on the four kinds of sentences. I have them using their composition notebook to take notes in to remember things as we go along. They will have a posttest on Friday of their spelling words. I have started to enter scores on Powerschool, but in your child's folder you will find their reading scores from last week.

Math- We are going slowly on our 2nd lesson. They are writing large numbers in standard, word, and expanded form. The expanded form has changed, but this one has always been hardest for the kids to understand. For example: 1,235 (standard form) , one thousand two hundred thirty-five (word form),
(1x1,000)+ (2x100) + (3x10)+ (5x1) (expanded form). We are dealing with numbers in the millions and billions.

Religion- We are focusing our first chapter on God's creation. They are also going to be talking about being a good steward.  I am going to have them work in groups to create an ad that would show up in a magazine or a TV commercial to show being a good steward and how we need to be responsible for taking care of God's creation.

Your kids are learning how things are different in 5th grade and my expectations. We have had to go over bathroom behavior a couple of times now. They are also finding that they are so busy talking to their neighbors that they are missing out on directions or how to do the assignment. I have found myself repeating myself a lot. Some of them just can't stop the visiting. They are also realizing that STOP means STOP when doing their work. They like to keep working when they are supposed to be transitioning to the next thing. We are working on that. I know they will get there, but the beginning is always a time of learning that Miss Surma may do things a little differently from Mrs. Sickels.  Some need to work on using their free time to do their work. Many should go home without anything in their bag...if they are using their time. That doesn't mean there won't be days that we just couldn't do all of it at school. We are all learning. Please don't feel like you need to email me to find out if I am talking about your child. If I am ... I would email you first! :) We are just beginning to learn-- it is normal.

Art- If you're in the building next week, make sure to walk down the hall once I have the posters up in the hallway. They are drawing pictures of themselves. Will you be able to pick out your child??? That's the fun part!

I hope you have a great weekend! I hope to see you at the Food Fair here on Sunday! I will be working the dessert booth! I am heading to Waterloo on Friday to see my niece. It is her school's homecoming.

God Bless,
Miss Surma