Hello Parents, I hope you are having a great week! The sun is such a huge help! 

Cross Walk- Just a reminder that I need your child's permission form returned before they can go on the walk. They need to wear a white shirt or polo that day for our group picture. I am recommending they at least have a sweatshirt or hoodie for the walk looking at the temps for Thursday.  They will also need a sack lunch and drink that day. 

Friday- No school for the kids. We will have PD that day. Happy Good Friday! 

Math- This week we finished up the chapter with word problems. There were many steps for them on some of the problems. They had to add and subtract. They even had to work with sales tax a little bit! We will be doing our dress rehearsal for the math test this week. It looks like they will take the test on Monday or Tuesday. 

Reading- This week they are reading a historical fiction story called Tuck's Travels. This story takes place roughly in the 1800s. Tuck is 15 and on his own trying to survive when he comes across two other kids whose parents died due to cholera. The three of them are now on the run from the Comancheros. If caught, there is a chance they will be sold into slavery. 

In grammar this week they are focusing on the verb forms of BE and HAVE as well as verb phrases.  They will test over this story on Thursday since we don't have school on Friday. That also means their spelling test will be on Thursday. 

Book Reports- They are busy working on these! Many have finished reading their book and taking notes. They are busy working on their Google Slides. 

Religion- They are testing over this chapter on Thursday. They have been learning about the Sacraments of Healing-- Penance and Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick. 

My plan next week is to show them the old movie The Ten Commandments. I usually show it during Holy Week, but with our chapter ending, I didn't want the interruption. 

Mass- They 5th graders will be doing mass on April 7. The kids who had parts in the 4th grade mass, will not have a part this time. I have given the parts out so they should be practicing at home with you. 

Growth Talk Video- Just to let you know I did watch the video over spring break. It isn't the same one the kids have seen in the past. This one is not separated into two videos. I am just letting you know now...when I do show it...the girls will be hearing about boys and the boys will be hearing about girls. I will still separate them into two rooms so they don't have to watch together. I will also do this at the end of the day whenever I choose to show it. It just makes it a lot more comfortable for all the kids. 😌 They go home shortly after that. 

ISASP Testing- Just a reminder this is coming up in a couple of weeks. 

Have a terrific weekend and a blessed Easter! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents, I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break! I ended up going to Waterloo and seeing my siblings for a couple of days. It was so good to see family in person again! 

Reading- They are taking their unit test this week. On Friday, I am going to start our next story since next week is a 4 day week. That way I won't have to cram stuff into 4 days.  So they will have a spelling pretest on Friday. I haven't told them that yet.  I showed them the Google slides I made on my dad as an example for their future book report. We are going to go over specifics on Thursday. On Friday, we will pick out books. If they can't find one at school, they will need to look elsewhere. 

Math- We started our week with subtracting decimals. We then moved into figuring out which number comes next in a series of numbers. They had to figure out the rule of add or subtract and by how much. That was a little tricky for some of them. We have a couple of lessons left in this chapter and then we will be testing. I don't think the actual test will happen next week, I haven't mapped that out yet. 

Religion- We are working on our chapter of the Sacraments of Healing. Those would be Penance and Reconciliation as well as Anointing of the Sick. Both of these sacraments can be received more than once. They will test over this chapter next week. 

April 12- On the original school calendar we didn't have school on that day. That is now changed. Due to our snow days, we ARE going to be in school that day! Our last day of school is now May 28. 

Donations- We are still taking donations for the Food Shelf if you'd like to help out. We will deliver them next week on our Cross Walk. 

Paper Towels- I hate to ask for this, but I am out of these in the classroom. I don't want everyone to donate! I don't have the room for them, but I could use maybe 5 rolls. If you can help out, that would be so great! I am doing just great on the wipes! 

Cross Walk- Look in your child's Take Home Folder for information on the Cross Walk! 

No School on April 2, Good Friday. There is PD for teachers that day! 

The ISASP testing week is coming up the week of April 12. These are the new Iowa Assessments. These are different. They will not fill in bubble sheets. These tests are online. I am going to talk to the 5th graders about taking these seriously. We did the ACRE religion test before break, and I am not sure they understood that it was a test...even though Mrs. Simmons talked to them beforehand. I had quite a few kids just blurting out during the test and disrupting others. Their focus seemed to be on how many questions and NOT the actual questions. I don't want to see or hear that during the ISASP. They will need a book to read in-between tests. They all have to have head phones or ear buds. I know I have a handful of kids that I keep telling them they need to get new ones...with no luck. Please talk to your child and ask them if they have headphones or ear buds.  This is not something I will let them go to the hallway  to do so they don't disturb the others. They have to have them! Thank your for the help! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents! I hope your week is going well! The weather is helping so much with good moods! The countdown in on for spring break! I can feel it. 

Math- This week we are working on our checkbooks, deposit slips, and keeping a bank register for our checking account. They have so many questions...which has been GREAT! Each day we fill out a deposit slip or two and sometimes they ask for cash back. Then they have to record it in their bank register. They are busy writing out checks for different things. On Tuesday, they bought a new shirt for a little over $14. They thought that was so expensive! 😂 They  deposited a paycheck for $8. 48--something like that. Again...WHAT??? What is our job??? They are learning words like-- debit and credit. Some of the tasks they do talk about using their debit card. I think they will enjoy our mock Biz Town day. We will get back into our math book and continue our work with decimals. Last week they had to estimate sums and differences using rounding and benchmark numbers. I think many of them liked the benchmark numbers better than rounding. This means they had to round to the nearest 0, 0.25. 0.50, 0.75, or 1.00. 

Religion- We are in our Lenten chapter. On Monday we read about Jesus in the Temple. The only time we really see Jesus get mad in the Bible. I explained that he thought those people were making money the most important thing in the Temple. It would be like us...setting up tables inside the chapel or the church and selling our goods. I showed them a video clip of that scene from a movie. They were shocked. I heard many of them say, "Whoa, he is MAD!" 😁

On Tuesday, they will go through reconciliation with Father. Those that aren't Catholic will receive a blessing from him. 

Food Shelf- We are sending home a flyer this week for our Lenten almsgiving. We are collecting food items for Mark O'Riley's Food Shelf. Please look it over and if you can help...send items with your kids! Thank you!!! 

ACRE Test- I told the 5th graders that on Friday afternoon they will take a religion test on their chrome. Mrs. Simmons will be coming to help me get them on it. This is a multiple choice test that is given to 5th and 8th graders...to see what they have learned about our Catholic religion. I gave them some example questions. It isn't really anything they can study for. 

Reading- This week we read a story called Darnell Rock Reporting. It is a story about a boy named Darnell who is trying to persuade his city council to take a deteriorating basketball court and turn it into a community garden for the homeless in his town. Another girl wants them to turn it into a parking lot for the teachers. She says it will help them with their job. I did tell the kids that where I park my car...doesn't really change how I teach! 😉 Darnell lost to the city council, but another member of the community came up to him afterwards and offered a different plot of land  that they could use for the garden. So...he did win in a way too. 

This week we are working on pronouns. We have focused on indefinite and possessive so far. 

The kids were so excited to NOT wear a coat to recess today. I am trying to get them to take home snow pants, but keeping the boots around. We just have so much mud. Hopefully these warmer temps will dry them up! 

Shorts are back! They can wear them, but they aren't allowed to wear sweats over them or a pair of pants . We aren't taking time to change clothes. Just remind them that they have PE in the morning and it will be outside . The warm temps aren't until they go home typically. I see the 40s in next week's forecast. 

Have a great weekend! Enjoy the spring temps! I have noticed our daylight is lasting longer! YAY! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma