Dear Parents,
     WOW!! What a week we have had.  It started out great with bowling on Monday.  It was a very fun day!!  I feel that the kids really enjoyed it.  Then Tuesday came and brought an early out.  Wednesday no school, and Thursday 2 hour delay, when are we to get any work done????  Well, we are back at it ready to roll.  Today started with a CRS (Constructed Response Supplement) assessment.  It is a another assessment used to assess their ability to read and comprehend.  They read a small 8 paragraph story on Wolves, and then answered 8 questions.  These were not true/false or multiple choice.  They had to write out answers to questions.  Students all over the Diocese are taking these tests this week.

Language Arts - Due to our lack of a full week of school, our story that is to happen this week will have to carry over into next week.  We will not be taking an end of the week or spelling post test until next Tuesday or Wednesday.  This works because this was the last story in Unit 4 and we would be taking a Unit test next week.  This test will happen on Friday.  The story this week is Sacagawea.  Tomorrow we will dig in with this story and spend most of the morning on it.  Spelling words are all centered around the pattern VCCV, which is vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel.  We will spend a day picking out those patterns.  Grammar this week is easy and great to cover.  It is over abbreviations.  The need to upper case and also end with a period are major rules for abbreviations that we are covering.  I will keep you posted on how things are progressing and when for sure the post test and end of week test will be.

Math- We are moving along in math.  We had a lesson on Tuesday on problem-solving skill: Try, check, and revise.  We practiced this strategy in class and then they were to apply their learning to a worksheet.  We will cover "Choosing a Computation Method" tomorrow and then have a diagnostic checkpoint to make sure we are understanding all we have learned in this section.  If there were some struggles I may reteach a section.  If not we move on.  We will be coming to a test over this chapter in next week or so.  I hope the weather is on our side to allow it!!  Double-digit multiplication is coming!! Practice those facts!

Social Studies - Well, project due dates have arrived.  The first two came in today.  Kids are very excited about sharing them.  I love this time also.  Again I hope the weather allows this to go smoothly.  We talked a little about explorers this wee.  We learned about the founding of St. Augustine, Florida, and how it got it's name.  We also learned who first saw the Mississippi River and who first traveled all the way down the Mississippi River.

Just a note:  I have two parents, Nicole Adamson and April Evans, who are working on the 4th grade auction item.  I think this item is going to be different from a traditional "basket".  I will let you know more when I know more.  Please send any monetary donations to school to me and I will get to them.  Also, I would like a $2 donation from each student to create a scrapbook page of themselves for the book. Also any stickers or things you might have, please send to help us be creative.

Remember there is NO SCHOOL on Monday, Feb. 10th.  It is teacher Professional Development Day.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels