Hello Parents! How many days until Christmas break???? I know the kids are counting...they may even be counting minutes!  

Celebrate Christmas with the Teachers! The teachers are going to do some dress up days just before Christmas break! We are inviting the kids to join us! They don't have to, but it sure would be fun! 

Dec. 17- wear the color red

Dec. 18- wear the color green

Dec. 21- wear something with the Christmas Spirit

Dec. 22- Ugly Christmas Sweater

Sack Lunch Needed- The kids will need a sack lunch and drink on Tuesday , Dec. 22.

We won't be able to eat lunch with our Angels, but we are still going to do a sack lunch.

They will meet up with their angels after lunch to sing Christmas carols. We won't be in the gym. 

We have a plan for the hallways to be used. They will be wearing their masks during our 

sing-a-long. 

Reading- This week we are reading a story about King George. He was an interesting King. He was 

the one who created the tax on tea. Our story is a nonfiction piece,but it's written with more of a 

humorous twist. He thought because he was King, that meant he was good. He thought colonists 

should just accept his rules because he was king and was doing this because he cared for them. 

When he was 50 years old, he became really sick. After that people thought he had gone mad. He 

didn't. His illness had affected his mind. It was a real sickness, but back then they didn't know about 

it.  He loved that people prayed for him, had huge parties with fireworks for him. He had his own zoo.

In grammar this week we are talking about the different tenses of verbs. Present, past, and future. The 

trick is knowing that some words change the spelling totally from present to past.  We talked about the

word : buy or buys...the past tense of that is bought, the future tense is will buy. You just have to love

 the English language for all of its rules!  

We also talked about figurative language. We talked about similes, metaphors, and idioms. I gave 

each kid an idiom on Wednesday. They had to draw what was written on their paper. We talked about

"It's raining cats and dogs--which really means that it is pouring rain. They had to draw a picture of it 

really raining cats and dogs.  Did you know in Africa they say, "It's raining old women and bats." 

I also taught them about the phrase-- he bought the farm! They didn't know that it meant someone 

died. Their faces were funny. I am excited to see their pictures! 

They will test on Friday over spelling and the story. Next week, we won't do another story. I think we 

will begin our next writing project. We will work on it again when we get back from break for those 3 days. 

Math- So I took that small worksheet and broke it down into about 5 days. I worked in small groups to

watch them divide. They also had to check by multiplying. Today was the last day of that! I told them 

tomorrow they would all get to divide on their own! I am breaking this worksheet down into 2 days as

well. It might be more for my sanity than theirs! 😁

Religion- This week we are starting to work on the Sacrament of Baptism.  We probably won't finish 

this chapter before we leave for break. 

Angel Gifts- your kids talked about getting Christmas gifts for their angels. I told them it is NOT required

but if they do to not spend a lot of money and get something their angels can easily carry. One year 

I had 5th graders buy giant stuffed animals that were as big as their partner. ( Not kidding). That child

had to get on the bus that night. That is just too much for them to handle. Please don't feel like you have

to buy them anything! 

As soon as the Christmas program link is out... it will get shared! 

I don't plan on writing a blog next week. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Enjoy the 

holidays however you spend them! Stay safe and healthy.  See you on January 6! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

Hello Parents, 

How was your Thanksgiving??? I hope it was still full of great food and family. It was quiet here, but I did get to Zoom call with my siblings and some nieces and nephews. It was good to see their faces again. I am really hoping Christmas can be in person, but I doubt it. 

Reading- This week are taking the unit 2 test. On Friday I am going to go over the next book report with them. Actually, I am going to take them to the library so I can show them the books I am talking about. Their book will have to be a Newbery winner or honor book. We have quite a few in the library. I will show them and help them choose their book-- even the online kids! I will check out their book for them if they find one. If we don't have what they want, they can look at the library or online of course. They just have to each have their own book.  Typically, this is one of my favorites because they are forced to get out of their comfort zones and pick something they may not have heard of before. Usually they end up really loving the book, not always, but most times. The actual project won't be due until February because I am trying to put it at the end of our next unit. I also have to work around Christmas break.

Our next unit is 5 stories that cover people from the Revolutionary War. This is my favorite unit because I have learned so much about that war and time period. Plus, I will introduce some of them to Hamilton!  Just to let you know, I have the edited version of the CDs. I know there is a lot of swearing in the original. I would like to apologize now IF your child comes home singing Hamilton, but I just can't! 😉😂

Math- We are taking it slow this week with finding compatible numbers with division. This is how they will estimate with division-- no rounding!  For example the problem might be 5345 divided by 67. We'd round 67 to 70. Then we look at the first two numbers in 5345 (53). Now on their multiplication table they will look at the row of 7's and find two numbers close to 53. I would choose 49 and 56. So now they divide 4900 by 70 and 5600 by 70.  It's all mental math...they don't have to work anything out. Thursday will be the first attempt with it as actual homework. Next week we will do the actual dividing. I expect to go slow and probably even slower since there are kids online. I know some will be super frustrated. I expect that to happen. There might be tears, BUT they will get it! I promise you! We will take it slow! If that means only a few problems for homework...then that is what I will do.  

I also taught them how to check their division using multiplication this week! So, once they are dividing on their own...they WILL check their own work to see if they got it right. I told them this will be a great thing and fewer of them will have to correct homework because they will know for themselves. 

Religion- They tested this week on the Beatitudes. We will start a chapter on Advent next! They had reconciliation today. I didn't have the online kids do it because I couldn't figure out how to make it private for them without handing out different Google meet links. 

Mass- Next week Tuesday, Dec. 8, is a holy day of obligation...the Immaculate Conception. We are having mass on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. So they need to dress up on Tuesday. They will also do Advent Angels on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they will have music with Mrs. Stoner. 

Our prayers continue to go out for Mrs. Taylor. As I am writing this, there is no change. She is on a ventilator and they are working to lower the oxygen level so that she can get off of it. She is at Methodist in Des Moines. The kids made Get Well cards for her. We will eventually deliver those to her house when she gets home. I know her recovery will be a slow one. We are so thankful that Mrs. Stoner is able to come back and help with music classes, but she is still recovering as well so band will be postponed for awhile. 

Our prayers also go out to the Wieland family. They lost two loved ones last weekend. May God continue to hold them up during this difficult time. 

I also wanted to let you know that I am really proud of all the 5th graders for being so flexible. The kids online are working hard and we can't wait for them to return. The kids in the room are patient and let me help those online kids when needed. It's a team effort. 

Have a great weekend. Stay safe and healthy.

God Bless,

Miss Surma