Hello Parents! I hope you are having a great week! It sounds like you enjoyed your 3 day weekend last week from what the kids told me! I was able to get to Waterloo to see my niece at her first homecoming. The school didn't have any formal activities due to Covid, but she and her friends made plans! 

Math- We are working on multiplication still. As I check papers, I can see they all have the process down. The mistakes I see are in the multiplication. I keep reminding them to use their assignment book for help with their basic facts. Some do, many do not. Many are having to go back and correct their work. I also see a few not dropping the 0, but not too many. The final mistake I see is they do all the work, but the last step- the addition. I also think a few might be rushing because math is at the end of the day and they don't want homework.  Next week we will be moving on in the chapter. This chapter is pretty lengthy. I believe there are 12 lessons. 

Reading- This week they read a story about a girl named Elisa. She moved from Puerto Rico to the USA as a child. She struggled with speaking English when she arrived, but she could write it easily. She met a boy name Jose who also came to the USA from Guatemala. He could speak it, but not write it. I shared the story with them about my own dad. He moved to the US in 1945 at the end of WWII. He came from Poland and didn't know any English. He learned from watching TV...mostly soap operas. We talked about how today they offer classes or you can learn online.  In grammar they are learning about the different rules to make a noun plural. Again they created a page of rules in their composition book. They can use this on the test on Friday. 

Religion- We finished our cards for the soldiers. I will get those mailed off. October is the month of the rosary. They will say that in class every day or at least a decade. This is my favorite part. The kids do such a great job of being prayerful. They also have to learn the two prayers- The Apostle's Creed and Hail Holy Queen. I gave them a paper to use to study from. On Friday, I will start quizzing them to see if they know it. Once they pass one prayer, they just need to do the other one. Right now, we won't be doing much with the religion book in their desk. 

Friday, October 2 is homecoming for Creston. There is a 3 hour early out. They won't be served lunch here that day. It is a Spirit Day if they'd like to wear sweats or a hat for $1. They can also wear their Panther gear that day  or black and red to support them.

FAST testing is being done. I have the reading completed now. There is a new math test they will do as well. That is all on their computer. 

I have been chatting with the 5th graders about making good choices because we've been having some issues with following the classroom rules- mostly respecting each other.  There is a definite feeling that if you do something and you get "told on"...it is the fault of the person who told.  Some of them have a hard time accepting their part in what happened. I am really trying to get them to be responsible for their own actions and words and understand that what they do or say can affect others feelings, but also their learning. If I have to spend half of my time on discipline..then they are not getting the opportunity to learn like they should. We have to grow into being 5th graders and with that comes more responsibility. 

 I also want you aware that if the water bottle becomes a toy for them-- I do put it on the counter top. They may still get a drink from it, but it no longer sits on their desk. For some it is a huge distraction and they can't seem to do their work. Each day we start fresh and try again. 

October 7- No Mass that day. Father will be gone. The kids do NOT have to dress up that day. We will plan on saying the rosary that day. 

Dreambox- I learned how to assign lessons. Some of the kids go above and beyond the 7 lessons for the week, which I love. I have others who don't even get 5 done, not because it is hard, but because they don't want to . I see the eye rolls when when I say, "Get on Dreambox". 😀 The other reason I am doing this is to close that gap on standards that should be completed by now. I assigned two lessons and they have a week to do them in. If they aren't done, I reassign them. We have to make some ground here due to Covid.  It was kind of funny. When they went in to do them today, I heard a lot of them say, "Wow, I haven't done this one before!" I think it is a good challenge for them! 

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! If you're going to homecoming pep rally or game...have a great time! I imagine I will be working this weekend,but I hope to get my fall stuff out at my house! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents! Happy Wednesday! I hope you're having a good week! 

Testing- We started our FAST testing on Tuesday. Today I had a substitute and did another portion of it today. I have to work with each kid individually. We still have one more round in reading to go and then onto the math portion.

Math- We are working on multiplication now. They started with single digits. My plan for Thursday is to multiply by double digits. We have also been working on corrections from a few other math assignments. 

Reading- They are reading a nonfiction story this week. It is about a group of girls from Islip, NY that are part of a jump rope team. They go to competitions to show their skills and stunts. The story works in a time order to show how rough they had it in the beginning and then how they practiced and ended up state champs! We also are working on nouns in grammar. The hard part seems to be remembering that proper nouns are upper cased and common nouns are not. They will have to figure out which sentence is written correctly on the test on Thursday. 

Next week will be the 5th story in this unit. That means the first full week in October will be a unit test. They won't have spelling that week. ( I can almost hear the cheers now as I type this! 😉 ) 

Religion- They did GREAT on their tests! They worked on the mailing labels I told you about a couple of weeks ago. They really came up with some great little messages to write on those!  In art they are working on their Christmas cards for them. Once they are done, I will take some pictures to show you. Then I will put them in the mail to Doon. I know my friend Tracy will be so appreciative. 

Homecoming- Next Friday is Creston's homecoming. It is a 3 hour early out! I don't know if our kids will receive lunch that day or not. I will let you know. They can wear their Creston gear that day! It is also a Spirit Day, so they can wear sweats or a hat for $1. 

Friday, September 25- No School for your kids! The teachers have PD at the high school that day! 

Ala Carte- Remember your kids can buy ala carte now at lunch for 50 cents. 

 Dear Parents, Happy Wednesday or Thursday! (depends on when you read it) 😊

I like this weather much better! We have been able to get outside for recess and doing some classwork! 

Math- We moved onto exponents this week after reviewing the properties again on Monday. Some of the kids really struggle with breaking up a number into 2 numbers. For example 51. I would break that into 50 +1. 107= 100+ 7. They want to do 5 and 1 or 1 and 7. They aren't thinking about their actual values. On Tuesday, I taught them about exponents...we did a bunch together and many of them said, "Oh, this is so easy." That didn't seem to hold true when they had to do the assignment. We did more work on Wednesday with them. That went much better I think. Getting them to multiply by 10s can be tricky. Plus if the exponent was 4, some thought there should be a 4 in their answer. We are also working our way into multiplication. This should be review because I know they did that last year. They may need some extra work on doing double digits  and multiplication. I don't know if they remember to drop that 0 when multiplying in the tens column. 

Religion- They are finishing up their chapter this week. They will do a study guide and right now it looks like the test will be next Monday. I will let you know if that changes. They did great at mass! I heard there were some technical issues for those watching so I am sorry if you missed out. I think the kids did great, but it is very odd only having two grades in there and then the cameras. I told them we had some kinks to work out, but that we can do that at our next mass. 

Reading- This week we read a story about two 5th graders running for class president. They had to give a speech to their class to persuade the votes. Miata gave a very formal speech. She also is planning things that will beautify the school. Rudy was very informal. Rudy wants more recess for the kids and ice cream every day! While the kids liked his choices best, they knew that probably wouldn't happen. Our grammar this week is complete subjects and complete predicate parts of a sentence. This is difficult. Kids just have a hard time finding the verb in a sentence and then are thrown even more if they put an adverb in front of it. They are also working on subject/verb agreement.  They will have their posttest on Friday in spelling. This is our third story in the unit so there will be a cold read they have to do which means 10 more questions. 

FAST testing will be starting up soon! This year they will doing that in reading and math. The math portion is all on their computers. 

No school next Friday. We have PD at the public school that day. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

 Dear Parents, WOW! Mother Nature has certainly turned around on us! I loved the temps we had on Labor Day! I am not sure I am ready for cold. 

Being Sick or Gone- Parents are asking questions so I thought I would make some clarifications. If you know you are going to be gone ( taking a trip, Beef Expo, etc) please let me know. I will gather homework for them or at least send their books with them. If you have WiFi while you are gone, you can have them join us for class on their Google Classroom. That way they get the instruction. If I know in advance, I can make paper copies to send home as well, but if not, they may have to do work on Google Classroom using KAMI or whatever the teacher uses. IF they join us online, then they don't get counted as absent either ( as long as they are with us for most of the day).  If you are keeping your child home because they are sick or you're getting them tested for Covid, they can still join us for class online and they won't be counted absent. If they are really sick, feeling horrible, puking, high temps, etc... they don't need to be online. They can get the rest they need. I can still pull together homework and have you come pick it up. If it's just a 24 hour flu they can pick up the work when they get back to school. Boy, is that clear as mud? I hope that makes sense. If not, email and ask me. 

I do have a student on vacation right now. I sent her books and some paper copies with her last Friday. She is getting online with each of us during the day to get the instruction. She is taking a break during specials, lunch and recess or if I just tell her...you don't need to be on right now. So  far so good. She emails me with questions on homework.  

Now if you don't have WiFi...then I would just send home the books and copies. We also will do catch up when you get back if we need to. These are definitely strange times! 😀

Reading- We read A Royal Mystery this week. This is actually a play with a mystery involved. The two main characters find out they are really cousins. ( Kind of like Parent Trap) Due to our shortened week, they only had to do 5 vocabulary words.  This week in grammar we are discussing the 4 kinds of sentences there are and how to punctuate them. I reminded them that if they don't punctuate on their worksheets it will be wrong because that is the whole point of the lesson. They will take their post test in spelling on Friday. 

Spirit Day- Friday is a Spirit Day! They can wear sweats or a hat for $1. It was supposed to be the Cy-Hawk game weekend as well. IF they want to wear their favorite team jersey, sweatshirt, t-shirt...go ahead! It doesn't have to be a Cyclone or Hawkeye. Sorry, you will never see me in those. I prefer purple and gold!

Math- So it took me a few days to get through all the corrections. Sometimes, I feel okay about just giving it to them to correct on their own. These first few assignments are a lot. Those were corrections  that I needed to do with them individually. On Wednesday we started working on the different properties in addition and multiplication. Those should really be review for them. The new one is Distributive Property. As I told them, it might stress them out a bit. There is a lot for them to take in and do . This lesson will take a few days to fully cover  as well. I told them for the first test, they will get a "cheat sheet" from me. They can use to remind them of all the different things we cover in this chapter. We are not near a test yet! 

Religion- After we are done with our first chapter, I am going to have the kids in 3-5 help me with a service project.  A friend of my mom's back home has a charity called SALUTE. She sends care packages to military men and women who are serving overseas a couple of times a year. The Christmas ones go out November 15. I am going to have the kids make Christmas cards to put in the packages.  They will also be writing positive notes like "Stay Safe" or "God Bless America" or whatever they come up with on a mailing label. She uses those labels on the ziploc baggies or  items she includes in the packages. I will take pictures and post them so you can see what I am talking about. That should happen in the next couple of weeks. 

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend! I ended up last Saturday watching my niece from Waterloo play soccer in Waukee. It was so nice to see family again! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 

September 2, 2020

 Hello Parents, Well, we are making it through week 2!!  I think we are getting a routine down, but I better not say that too quickly! 

Reading- This week we read a piece from The Wayside School is Falling Down. This story has some great humor and irony in it! The kids say that Mrs. Meisenheimer read them the book in 2nd grade. I think they understand the jokes a little more now that they are older. It cracks me up every time! Our grammar was on the parts of a sentence: simple subject and predicate, fragmented sentences and complete sentences. They will have their post test in spelling on Friday. I give them a list of their words on Mondays (or pretest days) so they can take that home to study their words. If they get 100% on the pretest, they don't have to take the post test on Fridays. 😀 

Math- We started our chapter on Tuesday! The first lesson is about place value and increasing their numbers by 10 or decreasing by 1/10. It was really about being able to multiply and divide mentally by 10. I did show them the pattern of gaining a 0 or losing a 0. We also pretended we were going to the bank to withdraw 1/10 of our savings. For some of the kids that didn't amount to much! Some walked out with $1! Next, we will be working on writing numbers in standard, expanded, and word form. They also have to be able to write the value of a digit in a number. For example: 2,876. The value of the 8 is 800. 

Religion- Their first activity was finding Bible verses and their titles. I created it on Google Slides for them to do. That took me a few times to get it assigned correctly! Our first chapter is on creation. We will have our mass with 4th grade in 2 weeks on Sept. 16. You can join us on the link on YouTube. There won't be as many people with jobs because we don't have all the normal jobs anymore. 

Picture Day is TOMORROW! 📸

No School on Monday! Labor Day! Enjoy the long weekend! 

Social Studies- I know they walked to the post office on Tuesday with Mrs. Sickels. They mailed their letters to their towns in Iowa. You will probably be getting some mail in the coming weeks! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Enjoy the long one! I will probably stick around and be here one day doing some work. 😃

God Bless,

Miss Surma