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