Hello Parents, I hope you are enjoying this wonderful weather we are having this week! Thank you so much for making it to our play last week! I am so proud of them! They did a terrific job! I hope they had as much fun performing it for you as they did eating the cake afterwards! HaHa!

Reading- We started our book this week. We have read about 3 chapters so far. Each day they do some vocabulary and comprehension questions based on the chapter. We are having a good discussion as well. So far, Matt and his father moved from Maine to Massachusetts. Matt's dad got some land there. He and Matt built the cabin for their family and planted their first crop of corn. Matt's dad left to go back to Maine to get Matt's mom, sister, and the new baby. Matt is in charge of taking care of the cabin and the crops until he returns. Matt is discovering there aren't really enough hours in the day to do everything! We just met a man named Ben who pretty much made himself welcome in Matt's cabin for the night. Matt awakened the next day to find Ben gone...along with the gun his dad had left him. On Wednesday, they had to create a WANTED poster for Ben. They have been really good about going back into the story to find the proof they need for their answers! 

Math- They are continuing to subtract mixed numbers this week, but now they have to do renaming. The first thing they have to remember is that they need to have common denominators. I taught them 2 different ways to do the subtraction-- either through renaming or creating improper fractions before they subtract. Most of them thought the creating improper fractions was the easier of the two, but now through more practice, I see many of them using renaming!!! I have to agree... I grew up learning the improper fraction way, but the renaming is actually easier and faster. We don't have much more to this chapter. I think they could be testing over it next week. I will move on to the next chapter, which I believe will be multiplying fractions, but I doubt we finish it before the end of the year. 

Field Trip--In your child's folder is the permission form for their field trip on the 14th. Please fill it out and return it to me by May 11. Thank you! 

Book Reports- Just a reminder that they are due next Friday! They should come to school with their project and their costume on the 8th. I will do my best to get all presentations done that day. If not, they will have to finish the next Monday.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma