Dear Parents,
      Happy Last Thursday!!! Yes, this is the last Blog I will be writing for these students!!  This is crazy!! This is the first year I am not ready to end the year!!  We have lots of things we are doing over the next 2 days!  I am trying to make Tuesday as fun as I can without any work. You will find your student's Iowa Assessment results in their folders today.  It is the envelope made out to the parents.
       I would like to wish everyone a great summer vacation.  I hope everyone finds the time to go somewhere as a family.  You have a 4th grader that I am sure has suggestions of where they would like to go. Keep in mind there are some great things to see close to home.  Be safe!!

Language Arts - Students have been working hard on their book projects here at school.  Some of them have a little bit of stuff to finish up for tomorrow. Remember they are all due tomorrow.  They will share all of them tomorrow with the class.  We have taken the Unit test over Charlie and Chocolate Factory all ready and it is today's folder.  I was very happy at how all of them did.  I also gave out awards today for their Journals.  I gave an award for best pictures.  Reese Glynn won this award.  His pictures were always very neat, covered the whole page, and colorful.  I appreciate his work.  All students had pictures but some of them were not colored every time.  I also gave an award for the journal entries.  I gave it to the person whose entries were very consistent in quantity.  Patrick Varner won this prize.  He always wrote from 3-8 sentences on each entry.  He really told me what he knew.  Some kids began to get skimpy with entries.  Both winners received a box of Gobstoppers to take home.  Might as well give Wonka candy for the prize!  This has been a fun unit for the kids.  I am so glad we were able to do it.

Math - We are still working in Math.  We completed lesson 6.2 today and will do 6.3 tomorrow.  We have at least learned what equivalent fractions are and how to find them.  We used models to see what they looked, now we can find equivalent fractions without models.  Tomorrow we will work on fractions in simplest form!  Ms. Surma is very happy we are getting this in by the end of the year!!

Social Studies - We are finishing up chapter 10 with a test today.  We will take the end-of-the-year map test tomorrow.  Students need to be able to locate all 50 states on a map and name the capital of the state.  I also plan on reading some interesting facts about the West Region in our book since we are not getting to it.  Projects were fun this last time.  Students will be bringing them home today and tomorrow.

Last Day of School, Tuesday, May 26th -  This next Tuesday is our last day of school.  I plan on cleaning most items out of our desks on Friday, but if we don't get it all done then we will finish on Tuesday.  We will have field day starting at 10:00 A.M.  We will be eating lunch 3-4-5 together and watching a Disney movie the rest of afternoon.  We haven't decided what yet but are looking at movies like The Apple Dumpling Game, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks.  Your student needs to come to school with a lunch which includes a drink.  If you know pop has an effect on your student I ask that you not send it.  Send something else to drink.  It's the last day and we are all excited all ready without enhancing that.  We will end the day in the gym at 2:40 with prayer and saying good-bye.  You are welcome to attend any of these events throughout the day if you want.  Please feel welcome to join us.

I would just like to say, I have had a great year with your child.  I appreciate the opportunity to work with all of them.  Thank you for sharing them with me. I hope all of you will have a great summer.  You will find me at the ballpark.  I will spend all of June at a ballpark somewhere watching my oldest two play.  I love it.  It's my favorite summer activity.  Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday of every week in the month of June I will be watching softball!!  Yes it's busy!  

God Bless and Have a Great Summer,
Mrs. Sickels