Hello Parents! Happy Thursday! It's hard to believe we are in the 3rd trimester already! Where has the year gone???

Reading-- This week they took the Unit 4 test. I will send home scores with your kids on Friday or next Monday. I am happy to say that the comprehension piece was GREAT! I think most kids either maintained their normal scores or they went up!  The lowest percentage was 71%!!! That is AWESOME! Next week they will start Unit 5. This means spelling test next week too.  Their book reports were awesome! I hope you took time to look at the pictures I posted! I will assign their final report in the weeks to come, but not for quite awhile. 

Math- We finished up chapter 5 this week. They will be taking the test on Friday. I will suggest they do the practice test in their small book. I will remind them to take that home tonight.  Next week we will start working with fractions! 

Religion- They took their test on Monday and we have started a chapter on Lent. 

Auction--Thank you so much for all the monetary donations for the auction items! They are very cool! Don't forget to get your tickets if you plan to attend! 

Bully Activity- This week the entire school has participated in activities dealing with bullying. On Monday, 3-5 gathered together and watched some movie clips that displayed bullying. We then discussed with them what they saw happening and they suggested ways to end the bullying.  On Wednesday, grades 3-8 got together in smaller groups. Each group was broken into 3 smaller groups. These groups were then given a bully situation and they had to create a skit based on that topic. On Friday, they will perform their skits  for grades K-2.

Puberty Video-- Thank you for returning those sheets so quickly! We have set the date for April 1, 2015. The school nurses will come in and present those videos to the boys and the girls.  Sorry kiddos-- this is NOT an April Fools joke! :)

I hope you have a great weekend! My mom will be attending the auction with me again! Hope to see you there! God Bless, Miss Surma

Last week in our class meeting the 5th graders came up with words to follow BE. These are things they decided they wanted to work on the remainder of the year. We tend to focus on how not to act . I really wanted to reinforce how they should be acting towards others. I also loved how they picked up on being themselves and not what they think others want them to be like.  Today they cut out the words, and we created this wall collage. 

The final project was done by Halle Evans. She chose to make the cartoon. Her book was Island of the Blue Dolphins!

I was really pleased with all of the books! I hope they enjoyed getting out of their comfort zone and reading a Newbery Honor or Newbery winner book!!! 

Briley made a diorama based on the book Maniac Magee!

A couple of the book reports that we heard on Thursday were Aliyah's Old Yeller and Jacob Coke's Hoot.   Aliyah did the Book in the Bag project while Jacob chose the Diorama. They turned out great! I will post the others when they are done! Nice job, Aliyah and Jacob!

Here is the table for the auction!!!! I love it!!!! It looks beautiful!!!!! This is for the Live Auction! 

Hello Parents-- One more addition to the Blog this week! The school nurse just gave me a permission form for you to sign. There is no specific date set yet. This is the slip that gives them permission to show them a short video and have a discussion on their bodies starting to change! This is such a fun time!! If you are okay with it or not sign and return the form. I will let you know the date as soon as I know it! Just a reminder-- the boys will have their own video and the girls will have their own. They won't be in the room together! :) I have not shared the news with them yet, but I will!  Miss Surma

Happy Thursday Parents! I hope this week has been a good one for you! It seems winter is still here...sigh.

Reading- This week they read an excerpt from The Black Stallion. The piece we read was about the boy trying to tame the horse somewhat so they could work together to survive on the island. I have not read the actual book, but one of the 5th graders said they had read it. We found it kind of odd that the author kept referring to the horse as either the Black stallion or Black.  Maybe if I read the actual book I will learn that Alec gives him a name.?
Our skill this week was filling out the story map on this story. We had to figure out the conflict, characters, setting, and then we went through and picked out major events that led up to the resolution of the story. Giving the spelling test on Monday was kind of fun. I usually try to give them a hint of what kinds of words they are going to be tested over. This week the hint was: words from another language! hee hee   They thought they were going to have to spell foreign languages! The new favorite word was probably :dungarees! 
In grammar they are learning how to correctly punctuate or write titles of things. For example, books, newspaper, magazines, play titles get underlined or they are italicized. Songs, TV shows, poems, short stories get written with quotation marks.

Math- Well, they are really beginning to learn to divide decimals with whole numbers and decimals. The tricky part is remembering to move that decimal in the divisor and dividend before you begin your work. On Wednesday they were learning to add a zero to the dividend if they had a remainder. I told them that usually when dividing decimals you work it out until there is a 0 remainder, but sometimes it will just continue on and on and on. That is the time you usually round to the nearest tenth or hundredth depending on what the question is asking. They didn't have any situations like that to deal with today.  Moving the decimal is a bit harder. I remember having a hard time with that concept when I was their age. 

Religion- They will be having a chapter test on Friday over the Sacraments of Penance and Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick. I plan on doing a chapter over Lent next week. They wrote out their promises this week. Father Halbur did explain to them, which was new to me.  If you have given up something like cake and are eating dinner at a friend's house and they made a cake. You can kindly turn it down, but if they insist--it is okay to have a small piece. If you gave up TV, but are at a friend's house-- you can watch it . It is better to just be polite rather than ask them to shut it off due to your Lenten promise. 

Lenten Angels- We will begin Lenten Angels the week of March 4. Next week we are going to be doing some bullying activities throughout the week as a school. 

Auction-- Thank you for helping out with donations to our auction items. Remember you can still donate if you haven't!!!! 

FYI- I gave up Facebook for Lent. If you need to reach me you will have to call the school or email me. I can no longer message through Facebook since I deactivated my account. 

Have a good weekend! My sister and brother-in-law are bringing my mom to Creston on Saturday. She will be here with me until spring break! I am excited for the company! 
God Bless, Miss Surma

Hello Parents, I hope you are having a great week! Happy early Valentine's Day! 

Creston Wrestling-- The public school won't be having school next Wednesday, Feb, 18 due to team duals in Des Moines. St. Malachy will be having school. If you are taking your child to the tournament, please let me know so I can get them their homework on Tuesday. Thank you. 

Lent-- Ash Wednesday is next week. This marks the beginning of Lent. I will be asking the 5th graders to write down their Lenten promise on Monday. That is something they should be thinking about over the weekend. 

Reading- This week we read a story about a boy who wrote an article trying to persuade his town to take an old basketball court on the school property and turn it into a garden for the homeless. He had to even present it at the town council meeting. The 5th graders had a GREAT discussion on Monday when we first read the story. There was another girl who was proposing it be turned into a parking lot for the school teachers.  Your kids saw right through her! They decided she was just trying to butter up the teachers. We discussed whether a new parking lot would help them in their education?? The answer was a definite NO! They did recognize that the town council had some good arguments too. It was just a very impressive discussion! 

Math- This week they worked on estimating decimals and quotients using compatible numbers. This was pretty much review for them from our division chapter, but some had forgotten it, so it was good to go over again. They also started dividing decimals by whole numbers. 

Auction- Thank you again to my drivers on Wednesday to Old Market. They had a great time. When the table is brought in next week I will post a picture on here to let everyone see it! Don't forget any monetary donations are due by next Friday. Thanks again for your support. 

Book Reports- These are due next Thursday!!! We won't start sharing until Friday, but I want them brought in the day before. 

Have a great weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma

These are pictures of our time at Old Market today! They had a great time painting their auction boards! The table is going to be dropped off next week for them to see! Nellie was so sweet--she even treated them to ice cream!

Hello Parents, Well, I guess it really is winter! This week is crazy with our weather! Last week's CSW was a lot of fun! I always love that week, but I am exhausted by the end! LOL

Letter-- Please pay attention to the letter and permission slip I have put in your child's folder. I need that form returned by Monday, February 9. Thank you!!!!

Reading- This week we read a story called The Dog Newspaper by Peg Kehret. This was an autobiography. She wrote about how she created her own newspaper as a child. Her stories dealt with her dog, It didn't do very well because she ran out of good stories to tell. We also focused a large part on coming up with facts and opinions in the story.  In grammar this week we are working on prepositions and identifying prepositional phrases. This is the 3rd story in our unit so that means on Friday, they will have another story to read and ten more questions about it.
Last week's scores are in their folders. They did GREAT!

Math- We are begining our dividing of decimals. On Tuesday they worked on seeing how the decimal moves when you divide by 10, 100, or 1000. On Wednesday they used Base 10 Blocks to work out the division problem. They worked in small groups. I walked around and they had to explain to me how they started the problem and what they did to solve it. They had to do a lot of regrouping with their tenths and hundredths. It was a lot of work! They really had a great time with it though! We are continuing that today.  I also made sure that each child was able to tell me what they were doing and there wasn't one speaker for the entire group.

Mass- They did a terrific job with mass today! I was a little worried because we didn't get our normal practice time on Monday or Tuesday! They just did a super job! Next week will be a prayer service because Father is going to be gone. On February 18 it is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. They should start thinking now about what they want to do this Lenten season. I have already made my decision which is a change up from what I usually do.

Book Reports-- Just a reminder that their 2nd book report is due on Thursday, February 19.

I hope everyone has a good weekend! I am heading to Waterloo this weekend. My sister's ex-husband passed away suddenly on Sunday. The funeral is on Saturday. I want to be there for her and my nieces, and Doug was part of our family more than he wasn't . God Bless, Miss Surma