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