Dear Parents, Happy Wednesday! I hope you are having a good week. I was just outside and I wish that temperature was going to stick around! I am ready for spring!

January Blues- I am not sure but in the last 3 days, I have handed out 6 late slips and given 2 detentions due to not getting those kinds of things done. I don't know if we are just in a funk, or if the extra day off just made kids forget that they had work to do. I have talked to them about this. I just don't want this to be the  start of a pattern. They have been doing so well! 

Reading- This week we are doing the story in 4 days due to our snow day last week. They will have a test on Friday. This week we read a story called James Forten. He was an African American who did his part for the Revolutionary War. He worked on a ship during some of the battles. For him there was the danger of their ship being taken over because he could have easily been taken captive and sent back to be a slave, even though he was actually a free man. In grammar we are working on commas and semicolons. The commas usually aren't too difficult for them. The semicolons are the difficult part. Today we focused on putting semicolons where there are already commas. For example, if there are already commas in the sentences separating cites and states, then we add the semicolons to really separate them out. 

Book Reports- I had planned for the kids to share their reports last Friday because I had a good chunk of time to do so. Well, now I am just getting them in when we have the time. I'm hoping by the end of the day on Friday, they will have all shared! They really did some great work on their projects! 

Math- We are doing the "dress rehearsal" for the test. I have a feeling they won't actually do the test until Monday. It is taking longer than I had planned, but I'd rather they take their time and do well! I did change it so that their test is not going to be 25 word problems. I am using the chapter review/test in their book as the test because it is a nice combination of problems with some word problems. The funny part I have noticed is that when they get to the word problems... I lost count on how many came up to ask me if all the word problems were division. I told them I wouldn't tell them because I figured out they were just looking at the numbers and not the situation being given. Some of those questions are looking for something more specific than the quotient. 

Religion- They did well on their tests! Right now we are working on Valentines cards. I am sending them to my friend back home. She will include them in the care packages she is mailing out to the soldiers working overseas. 

Spirit Day on Friday! Sweats for $1!!!

In your take home folder, you will find two letters from Mrs. Sickels and myself. One is about our basket for the auction. The other is for our kick off mass for Catholic Schools Week. Please take some time to read both and do what you can to help us out! Thanks so much!

I am still looking for a parent to take over the Silent Auction item! Please shoot me an email if you can take charge of this one! 

Have a great weekend! I am seeing more weather in forecast. I really hope not! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents! Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's! I enjoyed a ZOOM call with my siblings.  I am gone on Thursday for a doctor appointment. Mrs. Struble will be my sub. If there is something you need, email Mrs. Lane or Mrs. Sickels or Burg. 

Reading- This week we are reading a story about Molly Pitcher. Her real name is Mary Hays, but people called her Molly as a nickname. She fought alongside her husband  in the Revolutionary War. First, she was running to a stream to get water in a pitcher. She would run that to the men on the battlefield, it was a very humid day in June.  When her husband was injured, she took over shooting the cannon for him! George Washington named her a Sergeant because of her actions.

In grammar we are working on regular and irregular verbs. We are dealing with past and present tense. For example-- walk/walked, cry/cried, jump/jumped, carry/carried- these would be regular verbs

go/went, think/thought, forget/forgot- these would be considered irregular verbs

They will test on Friday on their spelling words. We will also test on the story. This is our 3rd story in the unit which means they will also get a cold read story to be tested on. 

Book Reports due on Friday! 📚📚📚

Math- Well, my plan for this week went out the window. I forget how this last worksheet stumps them.  We spent 3 days on this one. The issue with this one is that many times, their first number in the quotient is often wrong and they have to adjust. That is the whole point of this assignment. They don't like it. They want to get it done, understandably. This one really forces them to slow down, which isn't a bad thing. Many also were getting frustrated because they had to check by multiplying and that didn't always work out. Common errors I found were they multiplied wrong when dividing, they subtracted wrong, they forgot to add the remainder, they didn't drop a 0, or they multiplied wrong when checking. On Friday, we are going to start our  "dress rehearsal" for the test. I am doing a different test with fewer word problems. We will see how far we get on Friday. They will have a test next week over this chapter. The next chapter will be working with decimals. They will enjoy the break! So will I! 😊

Seeking Donations for Newspaper Insert and Radio Commercials:

Our 8th-grade class is writing articles for a large insert in the Creston News Advertiser and our 6th-grade class is preparing 15-second commercials to be broadcast 5 times each on KSIB radio. The insert will be distributed and the ads broadcast during Catholic Schools Week. The cost for the insert and ads will be approximately $1700. We need your help to fund these great pieces about our school.  If you are interested in helping, please click the link here: https://hsse.churchcenter.com/giving/to/school-marketing

 If you plan to help please let Mrs. Lane know by January 19th so we can place your name on our donor list. Thank you! slane@crestonstmalachy.org

Religion- They will have a test on Friday! 

Auction Basket- The auction is happening, but it will be online! We are doing baskets. This year it will be a 4th and 5th grade basket. Mrs. Sickels and I decided that we will take care of putting it together. The value of the basket cannot be any more than $300. We decided we'd like to do a Pampered Chef basket. If you are able to help with the cost, please send your donation to school with your child. We'd like donations to be in by February 5 so we can get our order in to PC. 

We will also do a silent auction item from our 5th grade class. I am looking for parent volunteer or volunteers to help get this done!  Please let me know if you can help out with this! Part of your donation for the basket would also go towards this item. Thank you so much!!!! 

Catholic Schools Week is coming up at the end of the month! Keep an eye out for details! We definitely made some changes, but I think it will be fun! 

Sounds like we are going to feel more like winter on Thursday and Friday! Is it to early to countdown the days until spring?

Have a great weekend! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

Hello Parents! How many days until Christmas break???? I know the kids are counting...they may even be counting minutes!  

Celebrate Christmas with the Teachers! The teachers are going to do some dress up days just before Christmas break! We are inviting the kids to join us! They don't have to, but it sure would be fun! 

Dec. 17- wear the color red

Dec. 18- wear the color green

Dec. 21- wear something with the Christmas Spirit

Dec. 22- Ugly Christmas Sweater

Sack Lunch Needed- The kids will need a sack lunch and drink on Tuesday , Dec. 22.

We won't be able to eat lunch with our Angels, but we are still going to do a sack lunch.

They will meet up with their angels after lunch to sing Christmas carols. We won't be in the gym. 

We have a plan for the hallways to be used. They will be wearing their masks during our 

sing-a-long. 

Reading- This week we are reading a story about King George. He was an interesting King. He was 

the one who created the tax on tea. Our story is a nonfiction piece,but it's written with more of a 

humorous twist. He thought because he was King, that meant he was good. He thought colonists 

should just accept his rules because he was king and was doing this because he cared for them. 

When he was 50 years old, he became really sick. After that people thought he had gone mad. He 

didn't. His illness had affected his mind. It was a real sickness, but back then they didn't know about 

it.  He loved that people prayed for him, had huge parties with fireworks for him. He had his own zoo.

In grammar this week we are talking about the different tenses of verbs. Present, past, and future. The 

trick is knowing that some words change the spelling totally from present to past.  We talked about the

word : buy or buys...the past tense of that is bought, the future tense is will buy. You just have to love

 the English language for all of its rules!  

We also talked about figurative language. We talked about similes, metaphors, and idioms. I gave 

each kid an idiom on Wednesday. They had to draw what was written on their paper. We talked about

"It's raining cats and dogs--which really means that it is pouring rain. They had to draw a picture of it 

really raining cats and dogs.  Did you know in Africa they say, "It's raining old women and bats." 

I also taught them about the phrase-- he bought the farm! They didn't know that it meant someone 

died. Their faces were funny. I am excited to see their pictures! 

They will test on Friday over spelling and the story. Next week, we won't do another story. I think we 

will begin our next writing project. We will work on it again when we get back from break for those 3 days. 

Math- So I took that small worksheet and broke it down into about 5 days. I worked in small groups to

watch them divide. They also had to check by multiplying. Today was the last day of that! I told them 

tomorrow they would all get to divide on their own! I am breaking this worksheet down into 2 days as

well. It might be more for my sanity than theirs! 😁

Religion- This week we are starting to work on the Sacrament of Baptism.  We probably won't finish 

this chapter before we leave for break. 

Angel Gifts- your kids talked about getting Christmas gifts for their angels. I told them it is NOT required

but if they do to not spend a lot of money and get something their angels can easily carry. One year 

I had 5th graders buy giant stuffed animals that were as big as their partner. ( Not kidding). That child

had to get on the bus that night. That is just too much for them to handle. Please don't feel like you have

to buy them anything! 

As soon as the Christmas program link is out... it will get shared! 

I don't plan on writing a blog next week. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Enjoy the 

holidays however you spend them! Stay safe and healthy.  See you on January 6! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

Hello Parents, 

How was your Thanksgiving??? I hope it was still full of great food and family. It was quiet here, but I did get to Zoom call with my siblings and some nieces and nephews. It was good to see their faces again. I am really hoping Christmas can be in person, but I doubt it. 

Reading- This week are taking the unit 2 test. On Friday I am going to go over the next book report with them. Actually, I am going to take them to the library so I can show them the books I am talking about. Their book will have to be a Newbery winner or honor book. We have quite a few in the library. I will show them and help them choose their book-- even the online kids! I will check out their book for them if they find one. If we don't have what they want, they can look at the library or online of course. They just have to each have their own book.  Typically, this is one of my favorites because they are forced to get out of their comfort zones and pick something they may not have heard of before. Usually they end up really loving the book, not always, but most times. The actual project won't be due until February because I am trying to put it at the end of our next unit. I also have to work around Christmas break.

Our next unit is 5 stories that cover people from the Revolutionary War. This is my favorite unit because I have learned so much about that war and time period. Plus, I will introduce some of them to Hamilton!  Just to let you know, I have the edited version of the CDs. I know there is a lot of swearing in the original. I would like to apologize now IF your child comes home singing Hamilton, but I just can't! 😉😂

Math- We are taking it slow this week with finding compatible numbers with division. This is how they will estimate with division-- no rounding!  For example the problem might be 5345 divided by 67. We'd round 67 to 70. Then we look at the first two numbers in 5345 (53). Now on their multiplication table they will look at the row of 7's and find two numbers close to 53. I would choose 49 and 56. So now they divide 4900 by 70 and 5600 by 70.  It's all mental math...they don't have to work anything out. Thursday will be the first attempt with it as actual homework. Next week we will do the actual dividing. I expect to go slow and probably even slower since there are kids online. I know some will be super frustrated. I expect that to happen. There might be tears, BUT they will get it! I promise you! We will take it slow! If that means only a few problems for homework...then that is what I will do.  

I also taught them how to check their division using multiplication this week! So, once they are dividing on their own...they WILL check their own work to see if they got it right. I told them this will be a great thing and fewer of them will have to correct homework because they will know for themselves. 

Religion- They tested this week on the Beatitudes. We will start a chapter on Advent next! They had reconciliation today. I didn't have the online kids do it because I couldn't figure out how to make it private for them without handing out different Google meet links. 

Mass- Next week Tuesday, Dec. 8, is a holy day of obligation...the Immaculate Conception. We are having mass on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. So they need to dress up on Tuesday. They will also do Advent Angels on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they will have music with Mrs. Stoner. 

Our prayers continue to go out for Mrs. Taylor. As I am writing this, there is no change. She is on a ventilator and they are working to lower the oxygen level so that she can get off of it. She is at Methodist in Des Moines. The kids made Get Well cards for her. We will eventually deliver those to her house when she gets home. I know her recovery will be a slow one. We are so thankful that Mrs. Stoner is able to come back and help with music classes, but she is still recovering as well so band will be postponed for awhile. 

Our prayers also go out to the Wieland family. They lost two loved ones last weekend. May God continue to hold them up during this difficult time. 

I also wanted to let you know that I am really proud of all the 5th graders for being so flexible. The kids online are working hard and we can't wait for them to return. The kids in the room are patient and let me help those online kids when needed. It's a team effort. 

Have a great weekend. Stay safe and healthy.

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents, 

How is your week going?? I hope you're able to find some peace and quiet moments in all this crazy!  For my online parents.. thank you for your patience as I am learning daily! 

Math- We have been working on division with a single digit divisor. Their dividends have varied from 2 to 4 digits. I think we have done enough groundwork to move back into the book. They will continue working on division with single digit divisors for a bit, but not much longer. We are going to move into two digit divisors most likely after Thanksgiving break. I will see how things are going. I have discovered that long division quiets down the kids! Who knew??? 😄

Religion- This week we are working more on the Beatitudes. We read a story about a young saint named Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. He died at the age of 24. He spent his youth having fun, but also doing kind acts of charity. He gave his own shoes to a boy that was at his door. When he graduated from school, he was given the choice of a car or money as a gift. He chose money. Then he gave that money away to help those in need. We are trying to discuss how we can live the Beatitudes on a daily basis. 

The kids did great at mass! Thank you to the 5th graders for being so flexible with getting jobs at the last minute due to kids having to go online! Hopefully we will ALL be together soon! 

Christmas Concert- We are going to tape the program on Monday, the 23rd. The kids should dress in mass clothes that day. We plan on walking to the church unless the weather isn't cooperative. 

Reading- This week we are reading a nonfiction story called Cougars. It is an interesting story. There is much to learn about this animal!  I think the kids were even surprised at some of the facts!  Our grammar this week is on quotation marks. This can be tricky.  We are mostly working on where they belong in a direct address. 

I am not sure we will do reading next week with only two days. When we get back from Thanksgiving we will do the Unit test. I don't like waiting, but I also don't want to cram it into two days. 

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I decided to play it safe and not go see my family. The risk is just to great in my opinion. I have plans for reading a good book or two and maybe get some Christmas decorations up! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

Hello Parents! I hope you are all safe and healthy! Hopefully you are having a great week! 

Math- Well, it has been a slow start learning division as I expected it would be. That's okay, I know it is a difficult procedure to figure out. I saw some light bulbs turning on on Tuesday during class. Most of them could walk me through solving a problem! We actually did an entire worksheet today on division! There were a few tough spots, but I heard the kids say, "The more I do it, the more I get it! " YAHOO! 

Reading- This week we are reading a historical fiction story called Storm Warriors. This story takes place in the 1800s in North Carolina. A group of men are assigned the task of saving a crew from their ship that has run aground.  My guess is that this group is really the first of the Coast Guard. Nathan is the main character and is a teenager who wants to join this group, but after witnessing what they must do, he doesn't think he is brave enough to really do it. In the end, his studying of medical books comes in very handy with some of the passengers on the ship.  Spelling- This week their list consists of compound words. Some are two words written together as one ( wildlife), then there are words that have a space in between ( home run), and finally there are words with dashes or hyphens ( up-to-date). Tricky tricky!! They will test over this story on Friday along with their spelling words. 

Book Report Projects are due on Friday! 

Religion- We started a new chapter on the Beatitudes. These are not really rules,but more like guidelines from Jesus. He said this is the way to find true happiness. I talked to the 5th graders about things we find happiness in...they told me... ATV's , video games, sports, dance. We also talked about how we buy new cars, phones, take trips,etc. Those things bring us happiness, but it can be short lived. They will really delve into finding ways we live these Beatitudes.

Christmas Program- We will be recording their songs for the program on November 23. Taping will either happen at the church or in the music room...depending on the weather. We do want the kids to dress up that day as though they would dress up for the actual concert night! Mass day attire! 

Mass- We have our mass next week. Not everyone will get a part due to the limited jobs. 

This the last week of the Read -A- Thon! I hope some of your kids are participating in this! 

The end of the trimester is on Friday. The 2nd trimester will start on Monday. Mrs. Simmons will let you know when our progress reports are done!  Monday will be a clean slate for lateslips! Actually, your kids did really well overall. 

Have a great, but safe weekend! Stay healthy! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

 

Hello Parents! Wow, we are actually doing a full week of school! I am not sure we will know what to do on Friday! 😊

Covid-19 Rules-  

FERPA stands for Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. This is very similar to the hospital's HIPAA laws.  I wanted to make sure you knew that I told your kids, I cannot, by law, tell any of them or you if a student in our room or school tests positive for Covid-19. It is natural that they ask me, but I tried to explain that I cannot give them this information. It is the job of Public Health  to contact trace and make notifications to families who are possibly exposed or have tested positive. The numbers are on the rise, there is no doubt about that. Families in our community are being affected. We are continuing our mitigation procedures at STM. Just know that we as teachers cannot give out any information. 

Religion- They have finished a new chapter. This one briefly discusses all 7 sacraments and sanctifying grace. They will be testing over it on Friday. Our class will be in charge of mass on November 18. 

 Book Reports will be due on November 13. I am not sure if we will be able to share all of them on that day, but I will sure try! 

Reading- This week they read a nonfiction story on the Florida Everglades. It is a difficult story to read and comprehend because there are a lot of vocabulary words in it that are difficult. One word that comes to mind is thermoregulation! Say that 5 times fast!  Plus they talk about the animals that live there and the plants that are native to the area. This week in grammar they are working on using conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.  Spelling is homophones! That is always a fun test to give just to see their faces. Ring and Wring! Lesson and Lessen! I did warn them that on the post test I mix them up so they need to pay attention to the sentence.  This is also our third story in the unit. That means they will get a cold read to do. They also have ten more questions. 

Math- Well, I think I have all the tests returned to me. All of them made improvements from their dress rehearsal test. I think next time, they will have to do the chapter review or test prep at home. I started this week with some division worksheets of basic facts. I wasn't letting them use their multiplication tables either just so I could see what they knew about their facts. On Thursday we will do an activity in class with division and remainders. On Friday, I plan to start the standard algorithm with them. They won't have to worry about remainders in that one. We will take it slow. I know this will throw some of them off. That's okay! We will get through it! 

Advent Angels- We weren't sure how to do this this year, but I think we have it figured out! I know this will make the kids really happy! This will start the first week of December. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Sounds like we should all enjoy the warm temps because they will be changing! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma