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