Hello Parents! Don't you just looooove this weather? NOT ME! I am so ready for spring. Actually as I put the calendar up on my blog, I couldn't believe I was already mentioning Spring Break. Where is this year going? I also thought about last year... we said good-bye at conferences and then didn't return! 

Reading- This week they are reading a realistic fiction story called Lunch Money.  Andrew Clements is the the author. This story is about a 6th grader named Greg who has created his own comic book that he is selling to his classmates for $0.25. He calls it Chunky Comics. He has created three characters to represent the past, present, and future.  His goal is to sell 100 of them. He does all work for them. He does the drawing, writing, printing, and binding of them. We talked about the setting of the story and I got distracted I think. I ended up telling them about the book I am reading. It takes place during the depression and the dust bowl. I was trying to tell them about the dust bowl. I found pictures online, I will have to show them. The stock market crashing is a bit difficult to explain and understand. 

In grammar we are working on adjectives. They answer the questions, what kind, which one, how many, and origin. We had to talk about origin being places in the world and that they would be capitalized so that makes them easier to pick out. These would be words like: American, Japanese, Asian, etc. The hard part for them is finding the noun first to figure out what word might be describing it. 

Their spelling this week are words that end in -ed or -ing. The trick there is that some of the consonants in the sentence have to be doubled...(beginning, grabbed)

Unit 3 test scores are in their folders this week. I can definitely tell some don't look back in the stories to find the answers. There is one in particular that sticks out. It asked them the background of the illustration. The picture is showing "It's raining cats and dogs". Many chose "fashion" as their answer. The answer was "weather". 

FAST Testing- This week we have been testing in reading and math. Mrs. Struble is here today for me so I can do the reading tests with them. They worked on the math and the other reading test on Monday and Tuesday.

Religion- They shared their saint reports. We also focused on the symbols used in baptism and confirmation. They will probably test early next week. Then we will get into Lent. I will have them make their Lenten promises on Tuesday. That might be a good conversation to have at home first just so you are aware of what their plan is. I know many take into account spring break. I always tell them that if they are giving up something, they shouldn't pick something that the family will wish they hadn't. Father Halbur always told about his friend who gave up coffee and then life was miserable for his wife. 😉

Auction- Thank you for the donations! We have the items ordered from Pampered Chef. I will share a picture when it is done! Tiffany Ossian is going to come in on Tuesday to work on the silent auction item with the kids. 

Valentines- Friday afternoon around 2 pm we will celebrate Valentines. If your child is passing them out, have them bring them on Friday. Thanks! 

Spirit Day- Friday is Spirit Day! Sweats for $1

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Stay warm and stay healthy! 

God Bless, 

Miss Surma

 Dear Parents, I hope you are enjoying the photos of CSW I am posting on Facebook. Friday will be our virtual parade with Father filming the kids. Look for that on Facebook. 

Book It- If your child made the goal for January, calendars are due by Friday! The February goal went up to 800 minutes. That is about 30 minutes a day since there are fewer days this month! 

Reading- This week they took Unit 3 test. This is a benchmark test and tends to be more difficult. Next we will begin our next unit. They will have a spelling test and test on Friday again. I will send home Unit 3 scores next week in the folders. 

Math- We started our chapter on decimals on Monday, but due to our CSW activities, our math class takes a hit almost every day so we probably get into it more next week! 

Religion- Since we are learning about the sacrament of confirmation , the kids picked out a saint and did some research on it. They are sharing their information with the class. They picked some saints I have never heard of so I am excited to learn more about them! 

Auction donations- Thank you so much to those who have helped! If you are still planning on donating, they are due on Friday! 

Thursday is Tie Dye day! IF they have tie dye sweats they can wear those too, hats, vests, headbands, etc. They have to be tie dye though. They also HAVE TO HAVE mittens and/or gloves for our snowman building tomorrow! They will most likely being doing the work. (Charlie will watch from the sidewalk).

Friday is CAMO day! I told them if they have any hunting clothing to wear that! 

Valentine's Day- We will celebrate this day next Friday, February 12. I have a parent donating drinks and a treat for the class. Thank you, Alisha!  IF your child would like to bring in Valentines to share with the class, they certainly may do that! If you need a class list, email me and I will get you one. I remember my mom always handing me the class picture as my "list". I had to write them out to 4-6th graders because we shared rooms and teachers. I thought it was the coolest thing. 😊 It is voluntary. They aren't required. 

I hope you have a great weekend! Stay warm. I am NOT excited about those temps they are giving us for this weekend and next week! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 Hello Parents. I hope you enjoyed the extended weekend and snow! I am good now...we don't need anymore. 😁

Reading- Due to the snow days, I am changing what we're doing. We won't have a spelling test or a test over the story. We will read the story and work on grammar and spelling, but I am not going to test over any of it. Our story this week is another nonfiction piece. We learn about two people who took part in the Revolutionary War. One of them happens to be a girl who does a run on horseback similar to Paul Revere. This is the last story in our unit, which means next week will be a unit test week. 

Math- We will start the math test on Wednesday or Thursday. I have to see how the schedule plays out on Wednesday.

Auction- I received a couple of donations for the basket last week. Thank you! I will still need more since some of this will go towards our silent auction item. Please do what you can to help out. Donations due by Friday, February 5.

Dress Up Days for CSW-

Monday- Google Meet Day- They need to dress up on top and sweats or pjs on the bottom. I told them they can wear slippers too. They will need to be ready for PE so they might want snowpants and boots! They will need a sack lunch and drink on this day! 

Tuesday- Dress up like a State Day. Hawaiian shirt for Hawaii? Farmer for Iowa or Nebaska? Cowboy for Texas? Cheesehead for Wisconsin? 

Wednesday- Mass attire. This is a 4th and 5th grade mass. It's at 9:15 and will be online.

Thursday-Dress up in Tie Dye. We hope to building snowmen that afternoon. They will need mittens and/or gloves! Many of the 5th graders don't wear them at recess. They HAVE to have them that day! 

Friday- Dress in CAMO day! We plan to do a drone parade for the grandparents and special guests. Look for it on Facebook. 

If your child doesn't have any of the above to wear- please ask friends or visit the Rerun. They aren't required to participate in the dress up days- except for mass day. If they don't want to dress up, I told them to dress like they normally would for a school day. They need to remember that they will still have PE outside and recess...so have the snow pants to keep them warm. 

Religion- we are discussing the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. The plan is for the kids to do some research on a saint of their choosing. In the Catholic church, confirmation students pick a saint to have as their own patron saint...one they can look to for guidance and someone to look up to as a role model. 

Sunday Mass- Mass at Holy Spirit is at 9 am. Bishop Joensen will be presiding this weekend at both masses. I am excited that he will finally be able to visit our church since his ordination last year. 

 T-shirts- Next week we are decorating our hallway to represent the 50 states. If you have traveled anywhere in the state and got a T-shirt from that state, could they bring it to school on Monday? We'd like to use them as part of our decorating. They could have the name of the state on it or somewhere they visited like the Colorado Rockies, Disneyland, etc.  We just want to hang them, so they won't be cut or written on. You will get them back. 

SOS- I have a student of service this semester. Molly Sickels (Mrs. Sickels' daughter) is coming in the room to help out every other day for about an hour or so. 

I hope you have a good weekend! I can't believe I'm already saying that! 

God Bless,

Miss Surma

 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