Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!!  Well, what will today bring.  We have had a nice couple of days, as a matter of fact a little teaser to Spring.  Now, I am not sure the meteorologists even know what it's really going to do today.  One channel says 1.3 inches another says 1-3 inches, and the radio this morning said 4-5 inches.  So take your pick.  We will get whatever Mother Nature decides to give us.  I am just thankful we are not in school until June!!  Ms. Surma has a sister-in-law who is looking at June 9th as last day for students.  I am definitely thankful this is not us!!  So keep praying for Spring.

Conferences - Well, these are coming quickly.  As a parent, I am happy to say my 5th grader, Molly, was chosen to participate in honor choir.  As a teacher, I am frustrated because that happens on March 11, which is the Tuesday of conferences.  I will need to make some changes in the schedule.  I will be calling all those who have conferences on Tuesday evening to see if I can accommodate you.  I have some openings on Thursday night, I may be able to do my first few on Tuesday, but I definitely can fill in some Monday or Wednesday.  I just wanted you to know this was coming.  I will work on making those calls next week.

Language Arts - What a crazy week we had last week for language arts.  We finished up week 20 lesson, and took a unit 4 test!!  We were busy.  This week we are back to normal with week 21 lesson.  The story is called  The World According to Humphrey. It is cute story from the point of view of a classroom hamster.  Humphrey goes home with a student every weekend for a visit. Plus, the student must clean the cage Sunday and bring back Monday.  The house Humphrey visits is a family that spends most of their time watching T.V.  There is a definite theme to this story.  The kids were able to pick it out.  Ask them about it.  We are talking about comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs this week for grammar.  This is adding -er or -est to the end of words.  Students are learning when it is appropriate to use -er or when it should be -est.  If those two suffixes don't make sense then they put "more" or "most" in front of the word. Your child can tell you how to tell the difference and which to use.  Spelling this week, we worked on a VCV pattern, which is vowel-consonant-vowel.  We also looked at decoding these patterns and breaking into syllables.

Math- We are finishing up our chapter on single digit multiplication.  We will be taking a test next week, if the weather holds for us.  We will be doing the last lesson in the chapter tomorrow.  On Monday, we will do review, check the review on Tuesday, and test on Wednesday.  Then we will dive right into the double-digit chapter.  This one may be a little more difficult!!  Work those flash cards.

Social Studies - We are on the last lesson in this chapter also.  We will finish it up next week and be taking a test also.  This test will not be til maybe Thursday.  Then Friday we will choose our new states for the next round of projects.  These projects will be due in first week of April.  They are all ready asking when they can choose.  I love it!!  They are very enthusiastic about doing these projects.  There may be a few that don't appreciate them!!  Keep up the excellent work!!

Auction-  Thank you, Thank you, thank you for all the donations towards the scrapbook and the trunk!!  I am so happy with our results!  We finished our scrapbook pages today and they are ready to be placed in the book when it arrives.  Kids did a great job.  It took us a lot longer.  These kids were very creative.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels