Hello Parents! I hope you're having a GREAT week! We are down to 4 Mondays! I cannot believe that! 

Calendar Dates: 

April 26- Spirit Day/ Earth Day

April 30 Back Up Day for Clean Up Day

May 2- Glow Run Lap-A-Thon

May 3- Public School Band Experience/ Spirit Day

May 8-12  Archery Nationals

May 15-  Final Book Report Due/ 5th Mass Day

May 17- 8th grade graduation

May 24-Last Day of School

Glow Run- The kids will have their lap-a-thon on May 2 during their PE time. If they have shorts or T-shirts that glow in the dark have them wear them! Extra fun! They should return their donation papers that went home in their take home folders before May 2. Remember for every $50 they raise, they get a can of Silly String

Reading- This week they read 2 stories. One was on Rita Moreno. She had to deal with a lot of discrimination in her acting and singing career. I did show them a scene of her singing and dancing in West Side Story.  I gave them a short little explanation of that movie. Some wanted to watch it.  Then we read about Louis Armstrong. His story was told from the point of view of his cornet. His start was in New Orleans, but then later moved to Chicago.  We did listen to a couple of his songs. In grammar they are working on adverbs. Words that describe the verb in the sentence. They can answer the questions - how? when? where? and how often? They are trickier because normally the kids want to pick out the verbs. They will test over this story next week. The spelling post test will be on Tuesday, April 30. 

They will need to bring their book report costumes on May 15! 

Math- They are adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators this week.  I have shown them about simplifying, but that isn't our focus just yet. The focus right now is to pick the smallest common denominator and renaming before they can add and subtract. We will also be getting into adding and subtracting mixed numbers! 

Religion- We are working on understanding the Gifts of the Holy Spirit as it pertains to when they get confirmed. We are also talking about the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. We talked a lot about Fortitude (courage) and our saints who became martyrs. They showed lots of courage because they were willing to die for their faith.  We did talk on Tuesday about the 4 steps the Catholic church takes to name someone a saint. 

Spirit Day on Friday! Sweats for $1. It is also Clean Up Day. Bring rakes and gloves! Donate $1 to the school for us to purchase flowers for outside our doors. The rain delay date is set for Tuesday, April 30.

Permission Slips- If you have not returned the permission slip that was sent home last week about going to the public school for band...please do so as soon as possible. Thank you! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am heading to Waterloo. My niece Olivia is in her high school's  spring musical so I am going to go watch her perform! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 

Hello Parents! What a wild week of weather! We did enjoy listening to the thunder on Tuesday morning ! 

Calendar Dates: 

April 18- Spend It or Save It Assembly for 5th-8th graders

April 19- No School / PD Day

April 24- Puberty Video 

April 26- Spirit Day/ Earth Day

May 2- Glow Run Lap-A-Thon

May 3- Public School Band Experience/ Spirit Day

May 15-  Final Book Report Due

May 17- 8th grade graduation

Reading- This week we finished up our story on The Gates. They had their spelling test and weekly test on Wednesday.  On Thursday, we have our spelling pretest and start our next story. This one is about two artists. They will read a short biography on Rita Moreno, the singer and actress. You may know her from West Side Story.  We will also be reading a fictionalized biography on Louis Armstrong.  That is a biography about a person's life, but it has some made up parts in it. I plan on showing the kids some of their performances.  I am excited to read about them. I know their work, but not a lot about their journey. In grammar we are moving on to adverbs. 

Religion- We finished up our Easter chapter with the focus being on The Road to Emmaus story. We are in a new chapter now. We read about the story of Saul and how he was against Christianity. We read a little about St. Stephen and how he taught about Jesus, but then was stoned to death for this. We learned that Saul was there at the time. He didn't participate in the death of Stephen, but he agreed with the people who were against Stephen. It wasn't until Saul lost his sight after his conversation with Jesus and then healed by Ananias that he had his conversion and later became Paul. I was so excited  when I asked the kids who Paul was and they told me...he wrote the Letter to the Corinthians and wrote letters from jail! YES! YES! YES!!! 

Math- We are working on FRACTIONS!! We started by estimating fractions to the nearest 0, 1/2 or 1. Next we are renaming fractions so they have the same denominator. Our next step will be to rename these fractions and then add them.  On Tuesday, we talked about always writing fraction in the simplest form which means one of those numbers has to be a prime number. So, I started the process of teaching them how to simplify using division. As always some get it quickly while others take a little longer, but I think they are happy we aren't doing long division!!! 

Permission Slip- In your child's folder is a permission slip from Mrs. Warner. She would like to take the 5th graders on Friday, May 3, to the public school so they can watch and listen to their 6th grade band. We talked and decided to take all the kids- not just the band kids. I figured the others would enjoy the experience as well! They will need to be at school early that morning and will travel over on the trolley. They will be back by 9 am. They should definitely eat breakfast at home! They won't be able to eat it at school. Please return the papers as soon as you can. Thank you!!! 

Friday, April 19- No School! It is a PD Day for us! We usually take a PD day to do some act of service. This year we are helping out Mark O'Riley fill the food bags at the Food Shelf. Then we are coming back to school and cleaning certain rooms.  Enjoy the extra day on your weekend! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  Mrs. Sickels, Mrs. Burg, and I finished our LETRs class on Tuesday night so I won't have that homework! I may actually be able to read for fun! 

I plan on going to mass on Sunday so I can listen to the children's choir!

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

Dear Parents, I hope this week has been a good one! Watching the eclipse on Monday was really cool. I can't imagine the total blackout that some people were able to experience. My sister in Maine and my nephew in Ohio had quite the show ! 

Calendar Dates: 

April 18- Spend It or Save It Assembly for 5th-8th graders

April 19- No School / PD Day

April 26- Spirit Day/ Earth Day

Reading- We have been mostly testing this week so we haven't had a lot of reading class time. We are continuing to work on our story called The Gates when we get the opportunity. 

Math- We are starting our fractions chapter. 

Religion- we are working through our Easter chapter. Soon we will be adding our Guidance book to our religion class time. Just a reminder- the guidance book focuses more on relationships with family, friends, and God.  We will do this alongside religion classes. I won't replace it. 

April 19- No School! It is a PD day for the teachers! Enjoy your longer weekend! 

Permission Slip- There will be a form in your child's folder. I will be showing a puberty video to the boys and one to the girls on April 24. Before Covid the public school nurses would do this for me. Since Covid, I show the video in class. We separate the boys and girls so no one is uncomfortable! It really doesn't go into major details. Its a video of kids explaining how their bodies are changing and will change in the next few years. The girls' video does talk to them about their periods.  Please sign the slip and return as soon as possible.  When your child isn't watching the video, they will be in the kindergarten room helping kindergartners with whatever they are working on. Mrs. Chesling said she would be happy for the extra help! I plan on showing one video in the morning and the other in the afternoon on April 24.

ISASP- We will be done with testing on Thursday!  Then we can back to some normalcy with our schedule! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather!!! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents, I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! I had a great time with my family in Waterloo and Waverly. 

Calendar Dates

April 5- Spirit Day

April 8- Eclipse Day

Apr. 8-12 ISASP Week

Apr. 19- No School/  PD Day

Apr.26- Earth Day Cleanup/ Spirit Day

Reading- We started a new module on Monday. This unit will be all about different kinds of art.  On Tuesday, we read the story The Gates.  It is a story about a couple of artists that worked for 26 years to get New York City to say "yes" to their art construction idea for Central Park. They finally agreed to it and made them sign a 43 page contract! It cost them 26 million dollars to create the art piece and erect it throughout Central Park! Then it was only up for 2 weeks in 2005.  We were all in shock by the the persistence of them to not give up! The 5th graders couldn't understand why it was up for only 2 weeks, but we inferred it was part of the contract deal they signed! https://images.app.goo.gl/4d6DxsqpxAugu8Cg8  Click here if you want to see a picture of the art piece! It went all throughout the park.  The grammar for this story will be adjectives. On Tuesday, we found adjectives in sentences and then figured out if they answered- how many? what kind? or origin?  Their spelling list this week is covering words that drop the final-y before adding their endings....-ier -ies  -ied  -iest

Math- On Tuesday, they started their practice test which was finished on Wednesday. They will go over it on Thursday with me. The real test will be on Friday. 

Religion- We are finishing up the movie we started last week. Once that is done we will work on the Easter chapter in our book. 

Spirit Day is this Friday! Sweats and/or a hat for $1!!! 

ISASPs- On Wednesday, I started giving the 5th graders practice tests for the ISASPs. This year they will have one extra test to take. They will take a test in science. That is a test for the 5th and 8th graders.  Next Monday we will start testing. My plan is to do one a day. They will have their tests in the mornings on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. On Wednesday, we will do one after their recess. I think our morning time will be too short after practicing mass and then going to  it.  I always tell the kids to try to get a good night's sleep, eat a good breakfast ( if they are breakfast people, and then just do their best). They aren't really timed anymore so they don't have that added pressure. I will try to keep the room quiet and relaxed during the tests. 

Dollars for Scholars Essays- The 3 winners from our class are Presley, Harlow, and Harper! One of these three will win the scholarship. We usually don't know who that is until May. Congrats!!! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Hopefully there will be some nice temperatures so that we can all be outside! I see tulips blooming in my yard! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma