Dear Parents,
      Well....we are back!!  What a week to come back!! Between the weather and the flu this is not a good week.  Attendance for us has been great this week, we haven't had any flu issues. My house is not so lucky.  I had one wake up early this morning and has been sick feeling.  I made her stay home.   I am praying no one else gets it.  I will be here unless a fever starts on any of them then I will be staying home. I like to keep an eye on the fevers myself and I figure if they running fevers I don't need to be spreading anything here.  I am praying it will all happen over the weekend.  This weather is crazy!!  The winds and below zero temps are insane!! It is not nice outside.  We will keep the kids inside for recess unless the temperature including wind chill rises above 0 degrees.  Two big things we have no control over, weather and flu.  This does not make for a fun week.  I also understand that tomorrow is suppose to be colder than Wednesday morning.  UGH!!

Language Arts - We are reading a story called Ecology for Kids.  It is suppose to give kids information about what ecology is and how important this science is.  It also gives kids an idea of what they can do to help our environment.  This is not the most entertaining story at all.  We are discussing irregular verbs, the "be" verb and how it is used.  In spelling the list covers words that you would change the -y to -i and add -est, -es or -ed.  It was a difficult list for students even though we have covered this before.  Examples would be families, ladies, funniest, happiest, copied, and studied to name a few. Since we have missed a day our Friday schedule is now next Monday.  We will take a post test Monday and the test over the story will be on Monday.  If we would have another "wind chill" day tomorrow, we will bump all of that to Tuesday.  It works nicely that we can do this because this is the last story of Unit 3 and next week would be testing over Unit 3.  This is a benchmark test which is more difficult than the others.  We will spend the rest of next week completing that.  I am also working on a writing project for next week.

Math-  We have done some reviewing this week.  We had math centers on Monday where we had a group working on Flash Cards, a group playing with a 30 sided die to create math problems to practice partial product, then one other group that worked on white boards with me to show me they were mastering the partial product strategy.  We have now begun to learn the regrouping strategy, which is better known as the math you learned.  It is sometimes hard to change from one strategy to another.  I am working with them trying to point out all the mistakes that can easily be made.  The students have worked problems on the board so I can see what they are doing ad try to fix the errors they are making.  They have been assigned some problems for tonight for practice.  Tomorrow we will go over those and see if they are ready for the worksheet.  I want them to understand what they are doing before we move on. You can watch your child work them to see if they are understanding and if not help them learn the process.  Keep working on Flash cards also.

Social Studies - We have started a new lesson this week.  We are discussing the Northeast and its importance to the beginnings of the United States.  Nine of the first Thirteen Colonies were located in the Northeast.  We briefly talked about the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  When and where they were written.  We also talked about New York City being the first of our Nation's capitals.  That was only for a year.  Then Philadelphia became capital for 10 years.  Then we moved to Washington D.C. where it remains. This is our last chapter about the Northeast and then we will move on to the Southeast.  Which means new projects will be chosen and assigned.  That is coming up!!

I hope everyone has a nice weekend.  I pray that the weather gets better, and the flu stays away.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels