Hello Families! I hope everyone had a great weekend! My sister and I made it to 12 different book stores in eastern Iowa. I really loved seeing towns like Bellevue and Fort Madison. They are right on the Mississippi River! So so pretty. 

Calendar Dates

Sept. 6- Spirit Day Hats and/or Sweats for $1

Sept. 9-FAST Testing begins /Field Trip to Green Valley

Sept. 25- 5th grade mass

Field Trip- Please make sure you return the green and white permission slips for the field trip to Green Valley by Friday. If you haven't paid the $5, please do so. Thank you!   Don't forget they will need a sack lunch that day with a drink. They also need to wear clothes and shoes they can get dirty. I am saying no sandals. I think tennis shoes will be easier for them to get around and safer. 

Reading- We have read the story about Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. It is a narrative nonfiction story about Henry and Thomas' inventions, but also the things that didn't work! The lesson Henry learns from Thomas is to never give up on his ideas! Due to our field trip on Monday, they will test over this story on Tuesday. They will also have their spelling post test on Tuesday. 

Grammar- this week they are learning about writing complete sentences.  On Tuesday, we picked apart sentences to figure out if they were complete, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and comma splice sentences. 

Math- we are working on writing numbers in standard, written, and expanded form through the millions.  Standard- 8,879   Written- eight thousand, eight hundred seventy-eight  Expanded- (8 x 1,000) + (8 x 100) + (7 x 10) + (9 x 1). I find that the kids can say the number or read it to me, but when they have to break down the number by place value that is where they stumble. We will get there! 

Religion- They are working on the first story in the Bible. Genesis tells us the story of Creation. We work on learning about that and what God truly wanted for us. He created all things and thought of them as  "good". 

Spirit Day- Tomorrow is our celebration of the Cy-Hawk Game this weekend! They can wear their gear and a hat and or sweatpants for $1. They don't have to wear Cy-Hawk gear.  I won't be wearing that! I'm a UNI girl.  If they want to wear their Creston Panther gear- they can ! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! My sister and I are meeting in Des Moines  on Friday night to meet the author Jodi Picoult! I am so excited! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma