Dear Parents,
      Happy Thursday!!  Here we are again.  I feel like these weeks are moving by very quickly.  Today is the last day of April!! WOW!!  First of May tomorrow and only 26 days left and not all of those are spent in school!  I am looking forward to summer but not ready to be done yet.  This has been a fun year.  You have great kids! Thank you for sharing them with me.  This nice weather is making our days even better.  

Language Arts -  We are enjoying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!  We have read 15 chapters as of today.  We read together and they read in partners.  We have talked about Roald Dahl's overuse of adjectives and we have picked out some sentences that are a list of things that seems to go on an on forever!!  We discussed it being a run-on sentence, but also discussed why it is not.  We have been comparing characters, and talking a lot about our own feelings on things happening in the book.  I have some very level-headed kids in this class.  They definitely think of others.  They are working on a interview right now.  One student is the reporter and the other is role-playing Charlie Bucket.  He was the only winner of a golden ticket that we didn't get to read about his interview with newspaper, so the students are creating their own version of that interview.  They worked on it today, I will give them time tomorrow and then they are to present or act it out in front of the class on Monday.  This is always a fun one.  They have continued to work on their journals.  They have an entry for every chapter.  Some of their journals are GREAT!!  You may want to hang on to these.  Their pictures are very detailed and colorful.  Some of them have great written entries.  They answer the questions in full and explain themselves very well.  This is a fun unit.  I think everyone is enjoying it.  We will watch the 60"s movie with Gene Wilder in it.  I am not a fan of the new movie.  It is entertaining but a little too dark to show kids.  I am not a fan of the flashbacks and making Willy Wonka out to have a mental problem.  I can't wait until movie day!

Math- We have been working on finding the factors of numbers.  They all understand how to find the factors, it's the word problems that they struggle with.  They are not very confident in reading the word problems and knowing what they are to do.  These word problems are very long.  It also seems they have many "conditions" they need in the answer.  I have tried to talk them through them and explain why the "conditions" lead to you finding the factors or common factors.  They did the Mid-Chapter Checkpoint today.  I feel like they are at a good place in the chapter so far.  We only have 2 more lessons until the end of chapter 5.  It is about factors still but also brings in multiples.  We have to work on keeping these two items straight.  That will be the tough part.  Fractions are next!!

Social Studies - I have assigned their last project to them.  They know their states and they also know what project they are doing.  They need to start gathering their information now, because they will only have a couple weeks to complete this project.  Keep in mind it is the last one!  We are testing today over Chapter 9 and will begin chapter 10 tomorrow.  We will do chapter 10 over the Southwest then go to chapter 12 over the West.  I want to get at least two more chapters in before they end of the year.  We will also start practice testing for the states and capitals test.  They need to be able to put the them together.  On the practice tests they are not locating them on a map they are just putting the capital with the state or state with the capital.  They will have to locate and put the two together on the end of year test.  I have a full page map of the whole U.S. that they can practice on.  I will give that out to them shortly.  Their are lots of apps for ipods or ipads that are games dealing with locating the states.  You can get them on a regular computer too,  I just tried one out yesterday.  I put in United States quiz.  It will pop up several options.  They are kind of fun!

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend.  Hopefully we have great weather. 

Field Trip!  Well, it is that time of year to go on a field trip!! Our trip is linked to social studies.  One thing I teach in social studies is about transportation and all the ways in which people traveled.  We talk about what came first it's effect on the country and them the next one.  Railroads were a very important invention.  When the steam locomotive was invented the only form of transportation besides our feet, or horses was the steamboat.  It was good but couldn't get us places if they didn't have a waterway.  Train tracks could be built anywhere.  I also like our trip because Creston is a community built on the railroad and grew because of the railroad.  We travel to Boone, Iowa, and we ride the Boone Scenic Valley Railroad.  We are on the train about an hour and 45 minutes total.  We cross 2 bridges on our route.  One over the Des Moines River and one called the "High Bridge".  It is like 166 feet high and quite long.  Well, I think it's long.  I am sending home a paper today about the trip.  It will take place Friday, May 8th.  I am in need of drivers.  I have one driver right now that can hold 5 kids. It is a first come first serve basis. I only have so many seats reserved on the train so I can't take extras.  Email me or text me.  My email and number is on the sheet your child is bringing home.

God Bless, 
Mrs. Sickels

This is in Central Park.  You may recognize from movie Home Alone 2 Lost in New York.

This is the "Big Piano" from the Tom Hanks movie Big.  It is in F.A.O. Schwartz.  I was pleasantly surprised, the price of one is only $49.99.  It was too big to bring home to Molly but I sure wanted too.  I figured it was cost that much to ship it! 

This is a photo of the 911 Memorial Building taken from our ferry headed to the Statue of Liberty.  I braved the cold to take this picture.  The wind was terrible!

This is Ellis Island.  I was so excited to see this, but was very disappointed.  There was no tour guide to talk to us about it. Plus, Hurricane Sandy did some damage, and they have just reopened and none of their artifacts were back in the display cases.  BUMMER

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  What a great week!!  We are back on track after Iowa Assessments and working hard.  We are having fun in Language Arts and learning new things in Math.  The weather was great for the Lap-a-thon this morning and has been a great week to play outside.  I hope the sun continues to shine.  We are quickly approaching the last month of school!! I can't believe it! I am excited for summer break and softball games, but I am sad to lose this kids! I am so thankful you chose our school and allowed me to work with your child!  This year has been a good one!

Language Arts -  We are having a fun time reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We are reading a couple chapters a day.  We are making journal entries for every chapter.  There is a journal prompt for every chapter and they are required to draw a picture with it.  The book has been divided into sections.  They complete vocabulary words before each section and we discuss the definitions as we read.  At the end of each section their is a page of questions that they must answer.  Part of that is summarizing each chapter.  Today we talked about how Roald Dahl's writing is very "off the wall".  He doesn't follow rules.  He overuses adjectives and prepositions.  We found a sentence today with 6 prepositional phrases in a row!  I told the kids we would use things we have learned all year when reading this book.  Finding prepositional phrases is one of them.  We also have talked about what makes this a fantasy book.  The students will be writing their own fantasy story as we cover this book.  They are working on their setting right now.  Figuring out a setting, telling what it will look like and listing some adjectives that could be used in describing the setting. We will also be making Golden Tickets soon.  We read the chapter today about Golden Tickets and will create our own tomorrow or next week.  This is such a fun book and unit to teach.

Math - We have started Chapter 5 in math.  We are learning to find the factors of a number and tell whether it is a prime number or composite number.  We are also going to be discussing divisibility rules.  I have a poster in the room showing the divisibility rules for the numbers 1-10.  These items will help us when we get into fractions in the next chapter.  This is a short chapter with only 5 lessons.  We will not spend more than a couple weeks on this.  Then we will be testing again!

Social Studies - We are finishing up on the Midwest.  We just began the last lesson today. We will finish it tomorrow.  Next week we will have a study guide and test.  This means they need to be able to locate the state and name its capital.  We will pick states for out last project next week also.  I wanted to do this week but I was missing 3 kids today and 2 left early.  That is too many to be gone.   I plan to do one chapter in the Southwest and then one chapter in the West to finish the year.  We are working along very well in the subject area.  Considering we only have it 4 days a week we are really getting a lot covered.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!  Dance stage blocking and soccer for us! A busy time.  I feel I am running out photos to share that you might be interested in, but here a few more.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

We stood right outside.  There was nothing exciting happening though,

One of 7 pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in Wizard of Oz.  These are in the Smithsonian.

Time Square looking at where the ball drops on New Year's Eve.  Pole is up towards top in front of the black square.

Jami, Josie and I on top of the Rockefeller Center.  Empire State building in the background and the 911 Memorial building in the far background.

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  What a nice week this has been.  Weather has been very nice for us to get outside!  Weekend doesn't look very good.  I am so bummed since it is Prom.  I will be glad when this is over.  What a stressful time.  Plus, I am times 2!!!  We have had a good week in the classroom also.  No absences this week, so Iowa Assessments are finished! The snacks the kids had were awesome!  They enjoyed them.  Yesterday we enjoyed some read aloud time outside in the courtyard.  I hope our final weeks are all this nice!

Language Arts -  This week was Iowa Assessment week.  We haven't done anything in this subject yet except those tests related to language arts.  There was a reading comprehension, written expression, vocabulary, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation test.  Tomorrow we will start our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit.  The students are really pumped about this, as am I.  I have never been able to do this as a full unit.  I usually worked with it once a week.  This time I get to do it every day!!  The students will have vocabulary words that need completed for each section, and journal entries they need to make for each chapter.  I will hand all that out tomorrow and explain.  I will also talk about the book and all it's covers, the author and his interesting life, and where his got his stories.  Just a reminder, the book is on sale for $1.99 on amazon for your kindle or if you have the kindle app.  This app is free and can be put on ipods as well as tablets.  I have had one student take advantage, which is good because I only have 14 books. I have ordered one on my kindle so I have my copy. We would leave their devices in their bags until we needed them.  There will be lots of fun activities that we will do with this book.  I plan to watch the "old" movie when we are finished with the book.  There will also be a book project due when we are done.  We have to read the book before any of those can be completed.  We will talk about those later.

Math - We have completed math on Iowa Assessments this week and checked our review.  I gave the kids a review sheet to help them work problems for review for the test.  The test will be tomorrow.  We will end our morning with that.  Next week we will begin chapter 5.  This chapter only has 5 lesson in it.  I hope to work through this on pretty quickly then get right to chapter 6 which is on fractions.  I know we need to get as much of this chapter done as we can for 5th grade.  Again, it is hard to believe we are nearing the end of their 4th grade year!

Social Studies - Projects are looking good.  Some have needed a little more information with them but otherwise they are looking good.  We have 3 more days of due dates and then I will assign them their last project.  I know we are not quite done with the Midwest but we will be.  I want to get them on their last project because then they will have their end of book project for Language Arts to work on.  The next lesson we read is set in Wapello County, Iowa.  It will tell the students about a "land rush".  People behind a starting line and when the gunshot or sound of a whip rang out they all rushed out to claim land.  Sounds dangerous to me!  They will find this very interesting just because it involves Iowa.  Next week we will finish up this region. 

I hope you all have a great weekend.  Help me to pray the weather holds off until the prom kids are in the gym!  Here are a couple more photos of our trip!  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

The graves of John F. Kennedy and wife Jackie Kennedy Onassis.  JFK is on the left. The eternal flame is hooked to a gas line and never goes out rain or shine.  It works because as you can tell it was raining when picture was taken.

This is the "pile of shoes" from the Holocaust.  After the victims were killed in gas chamber they removed the shoes and through them in a pile.  This had a huge effect on all of us.  Shoes are dirty, dusty and have an old musty smell to them.  Really put things in perspective for some.

This is the Capital building.  The dome is under construction.  They are just doing some remodeling and fixing.  

Dear Parents,
      Happy Thursday!! Another week has passed!  What a depressing week this one has been.  The weather has been dreary all week.  I am not sure about you, but it makes me grumpy!! I wish it would just storm and then clear off!! The sun is what we need!  The students need it too.  I have had a lot of yawning and sleepy eyes this week, including my own!  Our time together is dwindling.  When I make plans every week, I am now making them with the end in mind.  Where I want them to be and what I want to cover with them by the time 4th grade comes to an end.  Hard to believe we are at that point.

Language Arts - We are reading The Fun We Had this week.  It is a story with a setting in the future.  It talks about school, teachers, homework, and books in the future.  The kids find an old book, a book made out of real pages.  They are amazed.  Then they begin comparing past and present.  It made kids think.  We also talked about the movie Back to the Future.  One of the future dates he travels to is the year 2015.  The movie portrayed life with hoverboards and things that are not happening in the year 2015.  We also talked a  little about the genre of Science Fiction.  In grammar this week they have been reviewing compound sentences.  Mainly for the use of conjunctions and the commas that go with them.  We also reviewed the types of sentences and the ending punctuation that goes with them.  Capitalization of titles, nationalities, languages, names, and states were also reviewed.  Next week we will be writing a descriptive story or a fantasy.  I have quite decided yet.  We will begin Charlie and the Chocolate Factory soon also.  If your child has a kindle or the kindle app on a tablet this book is only $1.99.   I like all students to have their own books.  They are welcome to bring their device to school and use during class.  I hope some of you take advantage of this because I am short a few copies of the book for all to have.  Thank you very much.

Math - We are finishing up the division chapter.   We completed the last lesson today on word problems.  They are multi-step word problems which means you have to do a couple different problems to get to your answer.  We will work on the chapter review then have a test.  Yes, this test we be next week.  I know this is Iowa Assessment week but I have to  have them complete the test because I am looking at the big picture.  The next chapter is a short one with only 5 lessons, then I hit fractions.  We need to get as much learning about fractions in before the end of the year as we can.  Again, I can't believe we are nearing the end.

Social Studies - We took a test this week.  it was a great test.  I had 6 kids with perfect papers and several just missing one or two.  That is awesome!!  We will move right into chapter 9 which is still over the Midwest.  Remember projects are due next week.  We will be sharing projects next week and also working in chapter 9.  Iowa Assessments will take place all morning but our afternoons will remain the same.  I think they are enjoying learning about the region they are a part of.  They did a great job locating states on the map.  The next test they have to also name the capitals.  Some of them have all ready begun working on memorizing those.  We will continue to work hard.

Here are a couple more photos from my trip.  I hope you are enjoying them.  Have a great weekend!!  Hopefully the weather turns around and the sun shines!

Jefferson Memorial from the top of Washington Monument

Circle is the WWII Memorial, then the reflection pool that leads to the Lincoln Memorial.  This is the view from the top of the Washington Monument.  No water was flowing in the pool or the fountain because it was too cold.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!!  Wow! What a great week for weather!  The week has really been enjoyable.  The only downfall to this warmer weather is that allergies are kicking in!  We are very low on Kleenex.  I had a couple students bring some in at my last request.  I hope that will get us through the end of the year.  If your child is particularly bad you might send them with a box.  I know my eyes have been bothering me a lot this week.  I am not complaining though!!!  You will find a couple more pictures from my trip at the end of this letter.  If you have any requests of something I have seen please let me know.  I will be glad to share.

Language Arts - This week we read a true story about Owen and Mzee (mzay).  Owen is a hippopotamus that lost his family during a tsunami.  He was rescued and placed in Hallar Park in Kenya.  He became friends with an Aldabra tortoise named Mzee.  This is a very odd friendship which is what the story is about.  How they became friends and the reasons behind it.  This is considered Narrative Nonfiction.  It tells a story but you are learning things about the animals as you read.  In grammar we began to work on commas.  We talked about using commas with compound sentences.  We also talked about how they are used with items in a list, separating date and year, and separating city and state.  These are great lessons to have right before Iowa Assessments.  We have one more story left to read in this unit.  We will then take the Unit 5 test.  When that is finished unit 6 is meant to be a fun, light unit. Well... instead of doing that unit I will doing my  own unit using the book Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.  We will use all the strategies we learned throughout the year with this book.  This will show the students how to take what they learning and apply it to a book they read on their own of their choice.  I think sometimes they need to see things done.  So I plan to lead by example.  We will have many activities that we will do during this unit.  A lot of them are fun but again we will use the skills and strategies we learned in the text to help us comprehend. 

Math -  We are still working with Division in Math.  We only have a couple lessons left in this chapter.  We will finish the up next week.  Then we will take a Chapter 4 test.  I am thinking we will be heading into fractions after this lesson.  Fourth grade is suppose to have a very large part of math focused on fractions.  This will kind of fun for them because we will use a manipulative to help us better understand fractions.  When they can be hands on they enjoy math much better.  It will start off pretty easy but then progressively become a little challenging.  I know all these students will do well with this topic like all the others we have done this year.

Social Studies -  We are gearing up for our first test over the Midwest States.  They received a study guide today, which we will check on Monday.  This means there will be a test on Tuesday.  Projects are due in a couple of weeks.  This will be perfect timing for the end of the next chapter.  We still have the Southwest and West to get to.  We are moving along at a very good pace.  If we keep this up we will be fine.  Remember to have them practice the location of the states.  They will be required to label a map of the Midwest.

I hope everyone has a great Holy Week and Easter Sunday!!  I wish safe travels to all those who will be traveling to be with family.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Josie, myself, and Jami in front of White House

911 Memorial at the Pentagon.  There is a bench for anyone who perished in the building or on the plane.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier