Happy Thursday Everyone! This week seems to flying by for some reason! I hope you are having a great week!
Mass- Just a reminder that the 5th graders will be doing the mass next week. You are more than welcome to come!!! I will assign them their parts on Friday. In the beginning of the year, they filled out a card for me with their first 3 mass job preferences. I am trying to stick to it, unless I just can't because more than one signed up for it. Hopefully, they will get to do that job at a later mass.
Reading- This week we read a story called Dangerous Crossing. It's an historical fiction story with John Adams and his son Johnny. They are on a boat ride to France. In our small group center time, we read an historical fiction story on the Boston Tea Party. While both stories are fiction, we had some great discussions on what life was like back for the adults and the kids. We are also focusing on cause and effect again. Our grammar lessons have been about subject pronouns and object pronouns and their antecedents.
Math- We have started the decimal chapter, but we are only two lessons in. We have covered discussing what decimals are and their places behind the decimal. We have talked about when we use decimals in real life-- money, when I am looking for a percentage, times being taken in a swim meet, track meet, or even racing cars. On Wednesday, they learned how to write the number in standard form, written form, and expanded form. The expanded form was different than the way I have taught it in the past, but I must admit!I really liked it better today! It gave them a better picture of what it actually means. 4.268= 4x1+ 2x(1/10)+ 6x (1/100) + 8 x (1/1000). The old way just consisted of us adding the decimals together 4+ 0.2 +0.06 + 0.008. That could be just as confusing because of all the zeros.
Book Reports- Will need to be picked up by Friday. Mrs. Sickels will let you or your child know when they can take the social studies project home.
Next week I don't plan on doing another reading story in 3 days. My plan is to do some work with grammar and some writing activities. The first round of the geography bee will be next Wednesday after mass.
I don't plan on blogging next week. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you are traveling, have a safe trip. Enjoy the break and time with your families. We will continue our prayers for the Frey family as the one year anniversary is the 30th.
I will be going to Mom's house for the weekend. I think we will be with my sister and her family and in-laws in Madison, SD on Thanksgiving.
I hope you have a great weekend! Hopefully, it will warm up! These January temps in November... I am not enjoying at all!!!
God Bless,
Miss Surma
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Happy Thursday Everyone!!!! I hope you are having a great week!
Book Reports- These are due on Friday!!!! They won't all share them on Friday. I am going to do a few a day so we can keep going with the other things we need to do.
Reading - This week they read a story called Cougars. This was another nonfiction story that shared information about cougars. I think we all found it pretty interesting. Our grammar this week dealt with quotation marks and where we place them in different situations. We did this together rather than assigning it because I think it can be a difficult task. On Friday's test, they will be given 4 sentences with quotations, commas, and interjection words. They will have to pick out the sentence that is written correctly. This is the final story in this unit. That means next week we will be using the week to do book reports and a unit test. There won't be any spelling next week.
Math-This week we worked on the standard algorithm in division again, but with double digit divisors. They also worked on story problems and figuring out what do you do with that remainder? They learned that the remainder can be written as a fraction in some situations. They also learned that sometimes that fraction causes you to add another number to your quotient, but it depends on what is leftover. For example, if I am dividing my kids up to go in cars and I have 2 kids left out..does that mean they don't get to go along? No, that means I need one more car so they can go along. We are nearing the end of this chapter. They could also be testing in this next week. Our next chapter deals with decimals--adding, subtracting, multiplying, and probably dividing decimals.
Religion- This week is Vocations Awareness . We did a couple of lessons on vocations and realizing what our gifts and talents are and how we can use them in our vocations. We now have a wall in the classroom that states what they consider to be their talents and gifts. I used that in our class meeting on Wednesday as well. They were to write down a talent or gift of each person. I will be making signs for us to have in the classroom with their descriptions.
Social Studies -Their Iowa History project and paper are due on Monday!!! They did a great job with their counties!!! The state of Iowa is now posted in the hallway. It looks awesome! It is fun to see all the kids in grades 3-5 stop and check it out.
Spaghetti Supper is Saturday!!! Civics Club will have games in the classrooms!
Book Fair-- It will be going on during conferences. Please check it out! I won't be sending home any book orders this month because we have the book fair.
Have a great weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma
Book Reports- These are due on Friday!!!! They won't all share them on Friday. I am going to do a few a day so we can keep going with the other things we need to do.
Reading - This week they read a story called Cougars. This was another nonfiction story that shared information about cougars. I think we all found it pretty interesting. Our grammar this week dealt with quotation marks and where we place them in different situations. We did this together rather than assigning it because I think it can be a difficult task. On Friday's test, they will be given 4 sentences with quotations, commas, and interjection words. They will have to pick out the sentence that is written correctly. This is the final story in this unit. That means next week we will be using the week to do book reports and a unit test. There won't be any spelling next week.
Math-This week we worked on the standard algorithm in division again, but with double digit divisors. They also worked on story problems and figuring out what do you do with that remainder? They learned that the remainder can be written as a fraction in some situations. They also learned that sometimes that fraction causes you to add another number to your quotient, but it depends on what is leftover. For example, if I am dividing my kids up to go in cars and I have 2 kids left out..does that mean they don't get to go along? No, that means I need one more car so they can go along. We are nearing the end of this chapter. They could also be testing in this next week. Our next chapter deals with decimals--adding, subtracting, multiplying, and probably dividing decimals.
Religion- This week is Vocations Awareness . We did a couple of lessons on vocations and realizing what our gifts and talents are and how we can use them in our vocations. We now have a wall in the classroom that states what they consider to be their talents and gifts. I used that in our class meeting on Wednesday as well. They were to write down a talent or gift of each person. I will be making signs for us to have in the classroom with their descriptions.
Social Studies -Their Iowa History project and paper are due on Monday!!! They did a great job with their counties!!! The state of Iowa is now posted in the hallway. It looks awesome! It is fun to see all the kids in grades 3-5 stop and check it out.
Spaghetti Supper is Saturday!!! Civics Club will have games in the classrooms!
Book Fair-- It will be going on during conferences. Please check it out! I won't be sending home any book orders this month because we have the book fair.
Have a great weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma
Monday, November 3, 2014
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Hello Parents!!! Where did October go??? WOW! I cannot believe the time has gone by so quickly!
Halloween- We will do our regular Halloween activities tomorrow on Halloween.The students should bring their costume to school that day. The parade of costumes will be at 2:30 in the gym. You are more than welcome to join us! If you are going to take your child home afterwards, please let me know before you leave. Thanks!
Reading-- This week we read a story called Storm Warriors. It takes place in the 1800s. It is about a boy named Nathan who wants to become a surfman. That is someone who would rescue people from accidents on the water. I think nowadays we call that the Coast Guard! In their center time this week, I had 3 groups reading different stories. Each story dealt with the weather somehow. One group had tsunamis, another had a blizzard, and the final group dealt with rain and flooding. After they read their stories that had to pick out details and draw a conclusion from that. They were given a question to focus their answers on. The spelling list was fun to give on Monday! I gave them the hint that is was compound words, but also had to add that some are written as one word, some are two words, and others are separated with hyphens! They didn't that was so easy after they heard that I wasn't going to tell them which was which. :)
Math-- We have moved on to estimating quotients this week using compatible numbers. This is something I have done every year. It is a good way to get them to begin the process of the standard algorithm that you know from your childhood. I know partial quotients made you uncomfortable because it wasn't what you were taught. We were taught a shortcut, but remember this is just one more strategy for your children to have in their pockets. In reality, when they are adults they will grab a calculator to do their division, but I still want them to know all the different ways to solve a problem. Partial quotients may have seemed like a longer process because we started by taking groups of 10 out of the dividend. But once they realized they didn't just have to do 10s, some were taking out 20s or 15s and a bigger chunk of that dividend was taken away each time. I want our kids to grow up with more choices. I think it's important to keep an open mind and realize that even the standard algorithm will cause kids pain. I have been teaching it for 19 years now, I know this to be true. It also forces us to step out of our comfort zone and try something new. If your child is struggling at home, please have them come in to see me in the morning. We can work on it together.
Religion- We are wrapping up our Rosary section. Next week is Vocation Awareness Week. I will be doing a lesson or two on that in class.
Don't forget to set your clocks back this weekend!
I am heading home this weekend. Have a great Halloween and weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma
Halloween- We will do our regular Halloween activities tomorrow on Halloween.The students should bring their costume to school that day. The parade of costumes will be at 2:30 in the gym. You are more than welcome to join us! If you are going to take your child home afterwards, please let me know before you leave. Thanks!
Reading-- This week we read a story called Storm Warriors. It takes place in the 1800s. It is about a boy named Nathan who wants to become a surfman. That is someone who would rescue people from accidents on the water. I think nowadays we call that the Coast Guard! In their center time this week, I had 3 groups reading different stories. Each story dealt with the weather somehow. One group had tsunamis, another had a blizzard, and the final group dealt with rain and flooding. After they read their stories that had to pick out details and draw a conclusion from that. They were given a question to focus their answers on. The spelling list was fun to give on Monday! I gave them the hint that is was compound words, but also had to add that some are written as one word, some are two words, and others are separated with hyphens! They didn't that was so easy after they heard that I wasn't going to tell them which was which. :)
Math-- We have moved on to estimating quotients this week using compatible numbers. This is something I have done every year. It is a good way to get them to begin the process of the standard algorithm that you know from your childhood. I know partial quotients made you uncomfortable because it wasn't what you were taught. We were taught a shortcut, but remember this is just one more strategy for your children to have in their pockets. In reality, when they are adults they will grab a calculator to do their division, but I still want them to know all the different ways to solve a problem. Partial quotients may have seemed like a longer process because we started by taking groups of 10 out of the dividend. But once they realized they didn't just have to do 10s, some were taking out 20s or 15s and a bigger chunk of that dividend was taken away each time. I want our kids to grow up with more choices. I think it's important to keep an open mind and realize that even the standard algorithm will cause kids pain. I have been teaching it for 19 years now, I know this to be true. It also forces us to step out of our comfort zone and try something new. If your child is struggling at home, please have them come in to see me in the morning. We can work on it together.
Religion- We are wrapping up our Rosary section. Next week is Vocation Awareness Week. I will be doing a lesson or two on that in class.
Don't forget to set your clocks back this weekend!
I am heading home this weekend. Have a great Halloween and weekend! God Bless, Miss Surma
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Hello Parents, I hope you are having a good week!
Halloween- We will do our regular Halloween activities on Halloween.The students should bring their costume to school that day. The parade of costumes will be at 2:30 in the gym. You are more than welcome to join us! If you are going to take your child home afterwards, please let me know before you leave. Thanks!
Math- This week we worked some more on division with single digits, but then we moved into a new strategy. It is called Partial Quotients. I know Mrs. Sickels taught partial products last year when they were doing multiplication. I did warn your kids that this strategy would most likely be new to you! They are still dividing, multiplying, and subtracting. This works with double digit divisors pretty easily. It eliminates a lot of the guess work because they are using 10s. I will make sure to put an example in your child's folder, so you can see what I mean. This doesn't mean we won't go back to the old strategy to divide with double digits. This is just another way of doing it, and for some kids it may be easier. It really gets rid of try, check, and revise your work. I learned this strategy a few years ago when Mrs. Meisenheimer and I took all those math classes over 3 years. I find this one a lot of fun. It really does test them on their subtraction skills.
Reading-- You will find their scores aren't as great as the week before. This was mainly due to the testing on Adages and Proverbs and Indirect Objects. We will be doing more of that work throughout the year. In my opinion, the test should give them some context to try and figure out what the meaning is of that proverb or adage. This week's story is about trying to restore the Everglades in Florida. It is a nonfiction piece with some domain specific vocabulary. The spelling test was fun to give on Monday because it was over homophones. They really had to listen to the context of the sentence. They were hoping for easy words like whole and hole or dear and deer. :)
Religion- This week they are playing a matching game of the all 20 decades of the rosary. They have to match them to the correct mystery. Today they are taking a quiz on the Sorrowful Mystery.
In your folder you will find a letter about Mobymax.com. This is something they work on in technology time, as well as Type to Learn. Mobymax can be done from home too. It is games and activities in math and language arts.
We have had a few share their Halloween stories. I will be hanging them in the hallway. If you are here and want to read some, please do!
Book Reports- This is just a reminder that book report projects are due November 7. They have about 2 more weeks to complete the book and their project.
Our continued prayers go out to Kirk Levine who is having a difficult battle with cancer.
I hope you have a great weekend! I am actually staying in town! God Bless, Miss Surma
Halloween- We will do our regular Halloween activities on Halloween.The students should bring their costume to school that day. The parade of costumes will be at 2:30 in the gym. You are more than welcome to join us! If you are going to take your child home afterwards, please let me know before you leave. Thanks!
Math- This week we worked some more on division with single digits, but then we moved into a new strategy. It is called Partial Quotients. I know Mrs. Sickels taught partial products last year when they were doing multiplication. I did warn your kids that this strategy would most likely be new to you! They are still dividing, multiplying, and subtracting. This works with double digit divisors pretty easily. It eliminates a lot of the guess work because they are using 10s. I will make sure to put an example in your child's folder, so you can see what I mean. This doesn't mean we won't go back to the old strategy to divide with double digits. This is just another way of doing it, and for some kids it may be easier. It really gets rid of try, check, and revise your work. I learned this strategy a few years ago when Mrs. Meisenheimer and I took all those math classes over 3 years. I find this one a lot of fun. It really does test them on their subtraction skills.
Reading-- You will find their scores aren't as great as the week before. This was mainly due to the testing on Adages and Proverbs and Indirect Objects. We will be doing more of that work throughout the year. In my opinion, the test should give them some context to try and figure out what the meaning is of that proverb or adage. This week's story is about trying to restore the Everglades in Florida. It is a nonfiction piece with some domain specific vocabulary. The spelling test was fun to give on Monday because it was over homophones. They really had to listen to the context of the sentence. They were hoping for easy words like whole and hole or dear and deer. :)
Religion- This week they are playing a matching game of the all 20 decades of the rosary. They have to match them to the correct mystery. Today they are taking a quiz on the Sorrowful Mystery.
In your folder you will find a letter about Mobymax.com. This is something they work on in technology time, as well as Type to Learn. Mobymax can be done from home too. It is games and activities in math and language arts.
We have had a few share their Halloween stories. I will be hanging them in the hallway. If you are here and want to read some, please do!
Book Reports- This is just a reminder that book report projects are due November 7. They have about 2 more weeks to complete the book and their project.
Our continued prayers go out to Kirk Levine who is having a difficult battle with cancer.
I hope you have a great weekend! I am actually staying in town! God Bless, Miss Surma
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Hello Parents! Hopefully your week is going well for you!
Reading-- Please take a look at your child's reading test score from last week! Overall, these were the highest scores I have seen yet! I was so excited and proud of them! I thought the test questions were a little harder, but I guess that shows you what I know! HA! This week we read an excerpt from Old Yeller. We are talking about how the two boys in the story react to the situation, trying to pick up on similarities and differences.We also talked about the dialect. The story takes place in Texas many years ago! I told them this is a classic and was made into a movie. One of the other things we are focusing on are Adages and Proverbs. What is that you ask??? Haste makes waste. All good things must come to an end. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Do any of those sound familiar? We worked on those in our center times. Many of them hadn't heard of them before, while others said, "My mom says that all the time!" Feel free to replace "mom" with dad, grandma, or grandpa!;)
Math-- We have started division! We are only dividing by one digit so far. I really want them to understand the process before we move on. There will be other division strategies they will learn in this chapter. Just like in the last chapter, when they told me they couldn't divide, and I reminded them they know the Divisibility Property now! That is a strategy they can use to divide. It wouldn't hurt to quiz them on their math facts at home, or while you're out running errands, or on a car ride somewhere. I am still working on corrections with some of the kids and their math tests. Sorry for the wait, but I usually have to wait for some free time to be able to sit down with them.
Halloween Stories-- I am also near the end of editing the stories. Some of the kids have gotten their story back and are supposed to type it up. I gave them a week to do that. I let them know their due date as well. Due dates are different depending on what day they get it back. If you are having computer problems, please email me and we can set up some time before and/or after school time. They can work in the library to get it typed up.
Religion- This week they are looking up the mysteries of the rosary in the Bible. All of these mysteries stem from something that happened to Mary or Jesus. They are finding those stories now before they have to really learn or memorize them.
Book Orders- Just a reminder that I sent home the order forms last week. They are due on Friday. You can also place your order online instead of turning in the money and order slip to me.
Book Reports-- These are due November 7,2014. That is 3 weeks from Friday.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. I head to Doon again on Friday. This should be the last time I HAVE to go. I think my sister should be driving next week. God Bless, Miss Surma
Reading-- Please take a look at your child's reading test score from last week! Overall, these were the highest scores I have seen yet! I was so excited and proud of them! I thought the test questions were a little harder, but I guess that shows you what I know! HA! This week we read an excerpt from Old Yeller. We are talking about how the two boys in the story react to the situation, trying to pick up on similarities and differences.We also talked about the dialect. The story takes place in Texas many years ago! I told them this is a classic and was made into a movie. One of the other things we are focusing on are Adages and Proverbs. What is that you ask??? Haste makes waste. All good things must come to an end. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Do any of those sound familiar? We worked on those in our center times. Many of them hadn't heard of them before, while others said, "My mom says that all the time!" Feel free to replace "mom" with dad, grandma, or grandpa!;)
Math-- We have started division! We are only dividing by one digit so far. I really want them to understand the process before we move on. There will be other division strategies they will learn in this chapter. Just like in the last chapter, when they told me they couldn't divide, and I reminded them they know the Divisibility Property now! That is a strategy they can use to divide. It wouldn't hurt to quiz them on their math facts at home, or while you're out running errands, or on a car ride somewhere. I am still working on corrections with some of the kids and their math tests. Sorry for the wait, but I usually have to wait for some free time to be able to sit down with them.
Halloween Stories-- I am also near the end of editing the stories. Some of the kids have gotten their story back and are supposed to type it up. I gave them a week to do that. I let them know their due date as well. Due dates are different depending on what day they get it back. If you are having computer problems, please email me and we can set up some time before and/or after school time. They can work in the library to get it typed up.
Religion- This week they are looking up the mysteries of the rosary in the Bible. All of these mysteries stem from something that happened to Mary or Jesus. They are finding those stories now before they have to really learn or memorize them.
Book Orders- Just a reminder that I sent home the order forms last week. They are due on Friday. You can also place your order online instead of turning in the money and order slip to me.
Book Reports-- These are due November 7,2014. That is 3 weeks from Friday.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. I head to Doon again on Friday. This should be the last time I HAVE to go. I think my sister should be driving next week. God Bless, Miss Surma
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