Hello Parents! I hope you are having a great week! The weather is certainly great for December! 


Religion- The 5th graders are working on the liturgical calendar. On Monday we discussed the different parts of the year the church recognizes as well as the colors and symbols that go with each. We are also discussing the Advent season. 

Mrs. Levine asked for my help with the 1st grade mass next week. I also nominated the 5th graders to help! They are very excited to help out Mrs. Levine and her students.  I am pairing the 5th graders with a 1st grader. They will help them during mass with the microphone,etc. We will also be sitting with them. The first grade class is having a reception afterwards for their parents and grandparents. Some of the 5th graders will be working there too. They will help with the serving of the beverages and snacks.   This is a great learning opportunity for them to see how we help others in times of need. You are always welcome to attend! 

Math- We started working on our decimals this week. They started with learning about the thousandths. They have also learned about how to write decimals in standard, written, and expanded form. They also learned about rounding decimals to the nearest whole number, tenths, and hundredths. We have begun adding and subtracting decimals by using Base 10 blocks. This also shows them how they can regroup their hundredths into tenths or their tenths into ones.  They have really caught on quickly! They are doing a great job!

Reading- This week they read the story of Molly Pitcher. She was a woman who also helped during the Revolutionary War.  She worked alongside her husband on the battlefield. She found a pitcher and brought the men water to help them during the battle. The men would call out to her, "Molly--pitcher!" She also helped fire a cannon when another man had been injured by the gunfire. This story also described the conditions the soldiers had to live with during the winter. They also learned how the British had a very formal way of dressing for battle and the actual fighting, but that the American men didn't always follow those ways due to the extreme heat in their summer battles.  We also discussed how different the battles were fought compared to today. I heard many of them say they really liked the story.  Their grammar this week is dealing with the tenses of verbs--past, present, and future. We discussed regular and irregular verbs. Irregular verbs are verbs that change their spelling when they move from different tenses. Write to wrote to has written or fly to flew to have flown would be examples of irregular verbs. They were also doing more work with synonyms. 

This week's test will be the 3rd week of this unit, that means they will have a cold read and 10 more questions to answer. 

Music program-- I know some of the kids won't be there on Sunday. Please make sure you write a note, call , or email Mrs. Mullin to let her know. I will see the kids on Sunday at the high school! We will be going on Friday to practice. 

Thank you for the help with the St. Nicholas Project as well as the Noisy Change Collection and the Door Contest. I know that seems like you are having to put forth extra money or your kids are, but all three things were great causes. I think it is a great lesson for them to remember others during this Advent Season.

I have been moving slowly this week after work to my new apartment, but the big stuff will happen this weekend.  I hope you have a great weekend! See you on Sunday for the Christmas program! 
God Bless, Miss Surma