Hello Parents, Happy Thursday! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! I had a great time in Doon and was able to put up my mom's Christmas tree for her along with some decorations outside! They 16 inches of snow they had the weekend before was pretty much gone. It looks like they got another round this past Monday!

Math- I was really pleased with the tests over division. I know there some correcting, but the mistakes came mostly from not paying attention to or misunderstanding what they were asking them to find for the answer. We have moved on to decimals! This can be confusing. They started right away with thousandths, but I think I may need to do some background work to understand the place value names better. I try to relate decimals most often to money, but we did talk about how athletes may need to use decimals when they measure their event in time. One of the hardest things to understand is that the more you work to the right of the decimal, the lesser the value. Thousandths is much different than thousands. 

Reading- This week their story was a narrative nonfiction story based on King George and his reign during the Revolutionary War. Through our readings we did discuss that he thought of himself as a father to the Americans. He considered them his disobedient children. We also discussed that every time he made a decision, the American people would fight back in some way. He couldn't seem to understand that because he thought he was a "good king". He liked the perks of being a king, but at the same time wanted to be treated normally. We also went through the story and listed some of the facts and opinions we found in it. This was a key skill for this story. We had to discuss how we can prove facts, but opinions are things we feel or think. We can't look those things up in a book or online. In grammar, they were learning the tenses of verbs: present, past, and future. We also discussed how you need to make sure that your verb tense stays the same. For example, you don't want a future tense verb being used when you are talking about something you did yesterday. Another vocabulary skill that we worked on this week was the use of figurative language. We focused on similes, metaphors, and idioms. Similes compare two different things using the words like or as. Metaphors also compare two different things, but they usually say that one thing is the other. Idioms are sentences or phrases that we can't take literally. It's raining cats and dogs. We went over quite a few of them and discussed what they meant. He bought the farm was probably the most surprising to them! On Thursday, they will get their own idiom and then they will have to draw and color a picture to match the idiom. In this case, they will draw what it would mean "literally". 

The new Book-It Calendars for December have been handed out. The goal increased to 700 minutes. I told them that this can be a hard hit month with Christmas break. I suggested they really focus their reading before break if they think they won't do much reading over the break. These calendars will be due when they get back from Christmas. 

Religion- We are wrapping up a chapter this week. I don't think I will be testing them over this one because of our break from Thanksgiving. This chapter did focus on the sacrament of baptism. They had the story of John the Baptist baptising Jesus. They also heard the story of Nicodemus and his discussion with Jesus about receiving the sacrament of baptism before going to the Kingdom. Our next chapter will be covering the liturgical calendar and the Advent Season. 

Mass- Next Tuesday we will have mass at school because it is a Holy Day of Obligation. We will NOT have mass on Wednesday. There will be another opportunity to donate money to our adopted families as well at mass. We will do another noisy collection on Tuesday. They will need to dress up on Tuesday!

Geography Bee- The 2nd round will take place at 9:15 on Wednesday. 

Congrats to Adam and Cassie Randall and the birth of their daughter, Mosley Ann! We are very happy for you! 

Our prayers continue to go out towards Ann and Kirk Levine and their family. 

Shout out to the 4th and 5th graders- they helped set up the tables and chairs for our pizza lunch on Monday for TJ and Nate Frey. They were a BIG help!!! 

Just to let you know in case your child says something, I am moving next week, but only to a different apartment in town. I am not moving out of Creston. :) Have a great weekend! I heard 50s were in the forecast! 

God Bless, Miss Surma