December 9th - 18th

Religion:
Memory for the week is only the Christmas parts that your kids are responsible for.  I sent home the sheet on Monday with the words printed on it.  We have also been working on it a lot in class together, but just in case you need them:

Shepherds view the starry night
And behold a wondrous sight:
Angels sing of Christ, the King;
Listen to their voices ring.

Math:
Today we started looking at measuring distances and lengths to the nearest quarter inch.  This is a difficult concept that combines rounding numbers, fractions, and measuring.  Be patient while your kids keep practicing this skill

Reading:
We will be looking at Christmas stories that leave Jesus out of them starting on Monday.  Our goal will be to complete a project that adds Jesus into these Christmas stories so that the characters will know the true meaning of Christmas.  This will be done in class and the end projects will be put on the blog over Christmas break.

Grammar:
We will be covering nouns until the end of 2nd quarter.  We have already covered common and proper nouns and are moving on to singular and plural nouns through next week.

Science:
Next week on Wednesday is our weather vocabulary quiz.  I will send home a review sheet on Friday.  The kids are also going to be creating their own weather maps and filming a weather forecast based off of the map they put together.  They will most likely need some time to work on it over the weekend, but a lot of in class time will be given tomorrow and Friday.  These weather maps need to be finished by Monday at the latest.

Cornerstone and Grades
I have been doing my best to get grades up on Cornerstone in time for you to see them before the quarter ends.  I will be putting more late and redone work into the gradebook this weekend.  If your child turned something in before this last Friday it should be in the computer.  If it was turned in this week, I should have it all up to date over the weekend.

Important Dates:

• Monday 12/14 - CCLS Advent Service @ 7 pm (Middle School/Concordia Sanctuary) 
• Please arrive in time to be seated with Mrs. Glackin no later than 6:55 pm.
• Please make sure your child has used the restroom before the service starts. 
• Dress for church in your Christmas outfits or Sunday best.  
• Friday 12/18 - Class Christmas Party @ 2 pm
• No School  12/21 - 1/1
• Classes Resume on Monday 1/4/16

Week of November 30th

Dear Parents, 

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break and are well rested.  I have had a couple of really great days with your kids and have enjoyed getting back into our normal routine.  Here's what you can expect for the next week or so: 

Santa's Workshop:

Tomorrow is our classes time to go shop at Santa's Workshop.  The envelopes were sent home before break.  If you plan to send money, Thursday is the day!

Religion:

We will be going through the book Voices of Christmas and discussing all of the characters from the Christmas story from their point of view.  Your kids have a book full of discussion guides that we are going through in class.  If they don't finish a page in class, it will need to be completed as homework.  This will take us all the way to Christmas break.  

Math

We are still working with money a lot and the word problems are beginning to be multiple steps.  Yesterday and today we learned about fractions using candy and money.  We will take a math test on Friday, so some review on word problems and time may be good.  

Reading:

We are reading a story called Author:A True Story that exposes kids to a real author's experience and story.  We are also working on deciphering an author's purpose for writing pieces: PIE= Persuade, Inform, Entertain.   

Grammar:

For the next 2 weeks we will be working with all different types of nouns.  They will need to identify, sort, and appropriately use the following types of nouns in their reading and writing: Common, Proper, Singular, Plural, and Irregular Plural. 

Writing:

Our writing for the next 2 weeks will integrate what we are learning about an author's purpose and nouns.  Your kids will accurately write a short paragraph for each letter of PIE and then identify and sort the types of nouns they used in those paragraphs.  A lot of this will be worked on in class, but if they don't finish a portion of it on a given day it will be homework.  This must be done in order to be able to do the activities I have planned for each day.  If they fall behind on this, it will be difficult to participate in class the next day. 

Science:

Yesterday we began our weather unit.  This will take us all the way to Christmas break.  I sent home a calendar for the unit yesterday.  This will be a lot less work intensive than our Thanksgiving unit.  However, it will require some homework and study time at home for a vocabulary test and short quiz next week.  Please see the calendar for specific dates.  

Help Fund Our Author Project

This is the flyer with the vouchers containing our ID. The ID #11731379 is unique to our school.  There will be copies of it at every register in case our supporters do not have a voucher, but they must initiate the request to have it credit CCLS.  They won't just automatically credit every sale to us.

The Book Fair date is Sat., Dec. 5 from 9:00-9:00 at West County Mall.  If anyone wants to order on line, they use the ID number as well.  Online orders can be applied from Dec. 5 through Dec. 10.  Everyone should know that purchases include everything that is available in the store including Nooks, books, magazines, games, CD's, and even food.

Book Fair Coupon Code - Use on December 5th (You must have the BookFair ID at checkout)