Hello Families! It's always a little hard and shocking to see the closet in my classroom fill up with coats and sweatshirts! I can take the cool weather. The white stuff can stay away a little while longer. 

Calendar Dates: 

Oct. 27-30 Parent Teacher Conferences

Oct. 29- Halloween Parade at 2:15 pm 

Oct. 30- No School/Conferences

Oct. 31- No School 

Nov. 1- Holy Day of Obligation/ All Saints' Day

Nov. 12- Book Reports Due/ Advent Activity Night at STM

Nov. 14- Biz Town Day

Reading- We are reading our fantasy story called Airborn. This story take place in the past and is the story of a cabin boy and a young girl reading the journals of Captain Benjamin Malloy and his travels in his hot air balloon.  He journals about seeing some kind of animal that looks similar to a bat and a panther. It flies in the sky around him. The question in the story is whether what he was seeing was real or imagined. His granddaughter believes they are real, while the cabin boy thinks he was delirious.  We also talked about the time period because women and girl were wearing long dresses. Kate, the granddaughter, also had to have a chaperone in her presence at all times. We discussed what that meant for girls during that time period. It sounded like their conversation with Mrs. Sickels in social studies was similar when she was going over the rules for teachers back in the 1800s.  They will test over this story next week. We will be able to start a new story when we get back in November. 

Book Reports are due in 3 weeks!  If your child needs white paper or poster paper they can see me! I will also print off anything for them if you need me to. 

Spelling Posttest will be on Tuesday! 

Math- We are working on multiplying two digits x two digits this week. Dropping the 0 is the tricky part to remember for some. Today they multiplied two digits x three digits. That added another layer for some confusion for some. We are going to continue this and adding some 0's in the numbers to see what happens when we have zeroes in our problems. 

Religion- We are finishing up our work with the Rosary this week. We will be getting back into our books and starting a new chapter starting on Friday. 

Book Fair- We have a new company this year! The book fair will be open during conferences. The 5th graders filled out their wish lists during library time. I am putting a flyer in their Take Home Folders that you can check out. 

Wednesday, October 29- It is a mass day, but they DON"T have to dress up.  They can wear their normal clothes that day. They should make sure their Halloween costume is in their bag for later that afternoon. The middle school is going to supply activities again in the afternoon and the parade is at 2:15. You are welcome to come to the parade. You can also take your child home afterwards, but make sure to let me know  before you leave. 

Mass on October 29 will be the first graders and kindergarten class. Some of the 5th graders will be helping out by holding the mic. 

I won't be sending out a blog next week since I will see you at conferences. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am making a trip back home to Doon on Saturday. I will take down the flowers at my parents' cemetery plot and leave them a Christmas wreath.  It will be a long day on the road, but that is okay! It will be nice to see Doon. It's good thing I have a book I can listen to on my drive! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 I hope everyone is having a great week! I am enjoying these fall temps. Mrs. Sickels keeps telling me about how cold our winter is supposed to be. Shush! I am not ready for that kind of talk yet! 

Calendar Dates: 

Oct. 17- Spirit Day

Oct. 20- Flu Shots at school 

Oct. 27-30 Parent Teacher Conferences

Oct. 29- Halloween Parade at 2:15 pm 

Oct. 31- No School 

Nov. 1- Holy Day of Obligation/ All Saints' Day

Math- We are starting our multiplication chapter.  With the first lesson I let them use a calculator to solve the problems. They were working on noticing the patterns when we multiply by 10s 100s and 1000s. We brought back exponents too!  Our next lesson was on estimating factors to find their product using mental math. 20 x 200=?   It is a good chance to review rounding.  The next lesson should be review because they will be multiplying by a single digit. I know they did that in 4th grade.  Our real focus of this chapter will be multiplying by double digits. 48 x 87 and bigger like 312 x 98. We will also work on multiplying with 0's.  Now, I do tell them if they don't know their facts they can use their multiplication table in their composition books.  I don't want them sitting there using their fingers to find 8 x 9 while trying to get their assignment done. Feel free to do flashcards at home or in the car! 

Reading- They have taken their first Module test ( unit test). I have a few to check tonight, but overall I was pleased with the scores. They were better than I thought they would be! I will show you their actual test at conferences.  Today I gave them a spelling pretest for our new story.  Our next story is another fantasy story. This one has a bit of a mystery to solve. It is also one of the longer stories- I think it is 18-19 pages.  In grammar we will be focusing on what a common noun is and what a proper noun is. I think street names and acronyms and some groups and official titles get confusing. 

Religion- We are working on our booklets for the mysteries. We are reading short verses from the Bible and then summarizing them . I plan on showing you those at conferences as well. 

Halloween Parade will be on October 29 at 2:15 in the gym. Students should come to school with their costume in their bag. You are welcome to attend!  If you plan on taking your child home afterwards, make sure to stop in the room and check out with me so that I know they are gone!  No weapons or anything close to a weapon for the costume are allowed. It is also a mass day, but they DON'T have to wear mass clothes that day.  It isn't a spirit day so they cannot wear sweatpants, but jeans or shorts (depending on temps) are okay. 

Conferences- Have you gone into JMC and  picked your day and time?? Please do so ASAP.

Spirit Day on Friday! Sweats and/or hat for $1!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Big plans? Whatever you're doing- have fun! Be safe! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents, Happy Wednesday! My niece's wedding was beautiful last weekend!  We (my siblings) had a great time together . We were able to go to my niece Olivia's soccer game on Saturday! They won 5-0. Olivia played for the last 8 minutes of the game! That was fun! 

Calendar Dates: 

Oct. 15- Mass/ Noisy Change Collection

Oct. 17- Spirit Day

Oct. 20- Flu Shots at school 

Oct. 27-30 Parent Teacher Conferences

Oct. 29- Halloween Parade at 2:15 pm 

Reading- We are finishing up our story this week. We will take the Module 1 (unit ) Test next week Monday. I was planning on doing it Friday, but I had to rearrange some things. They took their post test in spelling today. 

I also finally score their last test after they corrected it. Now, we did those corrections together. Next time, I will have them correct on their own. I wanted them to see that some of those answers are right in the story- they have to go back and look things up. I think that is a bigger problem because they don't want to take the time to find the answer.  Making corrections definitely helped their scores. 

Spelling Pretest- Some of the kids received notes on the last pretest that I would be adding bonus/ challenge words to their next pretest. I base that on who does well on pretests because that means they know how to spell the word already without any studying or prep work. Who knows- I may add some more to that list later. 

Math- They are adding and subtracting decimals. We won't be testing over this chapter. The only tricky thing is remembering that they may need to do some borrowing . For example: 0-9=9 is not correct. 8-9= 1 is not right either... they forget they have to borrow from the number next to it.  They also need to remember to line up the decimals when they are adding or subtracting in the problem. Place value numbers need to line up. I can't take away my ones from my tens. 

Religion- Last Friday they were assigned one of the mysteries of the Rosary. They are drawing posters to represent them. They will share those on Thursday and we will hang them up in the hallway. When you are here- you can check them out! They are also filling out little books about each one. You can see those at conferences.  I only have a few people that need to pass their last prayer! That will happen tomorrow. 

Noisy Change Collection on Wednesday, October 15 at mass! 

Rosary- On Friday afternoon, we will be going outside to draw and color their prayer petition with chalk on the sidewalk. The MS students will be drawing a rosary around the flag pole as well as doing their own petitions.  5th graders are going to start their pictures by Father's old house down the sidewalk. 3rd and 4th will be drawing theirs as well. Hopefully the rain stays away for a little while so we can enjoy them. I told the 5th graders they need to think about who or what they want to pray for on their sidewalk square. 

I hope everyone has a GREAT weekend! I am heading to Altoona on Saturday morning for the ALS Walk. Looks to be nice weather! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hi Families! It says October on the calendar, but it sure doesn't feel like it. 

Calendar Dates: 

Oct. 1- 5th Grade Leads Rosary /No mass

Oct. 2- Starting to test prayers in religion

Oct. 3- Spirit Day/ Miss Surma gone

Oct. 6- No School/ PD Day

Substitute- I am going to be gone on Friday. I am heading to Dubuque. My niece Gracelyn is getting married Friday afternoon.  I am also responsible for getting my sister Penny to the wedding so I am leaving Thursday after school. Her sister Olivia has a soccer game at Loras on Saturday. It will be a busy weekend. Mary Brown will be in the room with them.  If there are any changes to your child's end of the day plans, please contact Mrs. Levine in the office because I won't be checking emails. 

Book Report- I assigned the first book report on Monday. They have a purple packet in their folders with ideas for what the different projects look like.  They have to choose a chapter book and show it to me before they start reading it. Some more found their book at the library today.  The project will be due on Wednesday, November 12. It gives them 6 weeks to read the book and complete the project.  A lot of the project work can be done at school in their free time. 

Reading- Last week they took their weekly test on paper instead of computer. I am sorry I am so slow in getting their scores back to you, but I decided since scores weren't the greatest this gave us an opportunity to correct them. When they do them on their computers, there isn't the opportunity to correct them because it shows them the right answer. I will get the scores back to you, but I can't say for sure when that will be.  

We are reading our new story which is a fantasy. Captain Arsenio leaves a diary of his inventions for trying to build something that can fly! Ask your kids the three different attempts we read about! This story is kind of funny and a great break from the nonfiction they have been doing.  In grammar we are focusing more on sentence structure. 

Rosary- The 5th graders did a terrific job with the Rosary today! So proud of them. The 6-8 even gave them a small cheer in the hallway on the way back from the library! 

Book It Calendars- It starts today!!! The goal for October is 600 minutes. That is about 20 minutes a day.  You will sign the calendar at the end of the month and they will turn it in to me. I am giving them the Dilly Bar coupons from last year. Pizza Ranch no longer participates. 

Math- we are working on adding and subtracting decimals in this chapter. We don't do every lesson in this one. I want them to get the main parts down, but then we will move on. I don't know that they will test over this chapter either.  We are working on rounding some more. That was hit hard on their little pretest at the beginning of the chapter. 

Spirit Day on Friday! I know the weather isn't really sweatpants weather. 

Monday, October 6 is a PD Day for us! No School for the kiddos! Enjoy your 3 day weekend! 

Lots of things in their Take Home Folders tomorrow- make sure to check them out. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma