Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  We are having a great week!! This was definitely a different week!  The change of Mass on Tuesday instead of Wednesday threw everyone for a loop!  We are also having a great week.  The kids seem pretty settled this week considering we are gearing up for Christmas.  We have had hard working week.  I am very pleased that we are completely settled in and really working on our learning.  Some are still struggling with managing time, so their work is done on time.  Most students dig right in and want to get finished.  I am stressing not to hurry too much, so that they make mistakes.

Social Studies -  I just finished putting together due dates for their first projects.  I have 2 projects due a day.  I only have time for a couple to share their work so we can still have part of our regular social studies lesson for the day.  The dates range from Jan. 4 - 20.  Make sure these due date sheets are placed where everyone is aware.  We are talking about resources from the Northeast region this week.  We discussed: grapes in New York, cranberries in Massachusetts, maple syrup in Vermont, and granite quarries in New Hampshire.  We have completed all the vocab for this chapter!!  The kids are excited to be finished with that.  I feel we will be looking at a test over chapter 4 before Christmas.

Math-  This week in math we are focusing on word problems.  They are multi-step problems.  This means there is more than one problem to be worked to find the answer.  Most kids hate these because it means more work.  I am trying to have them look at them as a challenge.  I am trying to get them excited about finding the ways to work out answers. I think they think I am crazy!!  You will get their results of the first multiplication timed test this week.  It is on the blue half sheet in the folder. We took another one on Wednesday and we are working on getting that one checked.  I also put results on Power School as soon as I have them ready.

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a story called The Earth Dragon Awakes.  It is historical Fiction.  It's historical event is the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.  We follow the happenings of a father and son who lived in a tenement building.  The building collapses.  The characters and events that happen to them are not true but could have happened. The kids found the story interesting since we do not have to deal with earthquakes here in Iowa.  We have spent time talking about possessive nouns this week in grammar.  This is the use of apostrophes to show ownership.  Is spelling the list focused on adding the endings of -ed and -ing to base words.  Next week the list will have more words with these endings.  We discussed the base words and endings on some of the spelling words for decoding this week also.  End of the week assessing will take place tomorrow.

Geography Bee -  Grades 3-8 attended the final competition of the Geography Bee yesterday during our regular Mass time.  We had 10 finalists to compete for the Championship round.  Our class had two representatives:  Daniel Buls and Cecilia Zachary!! We are so proud of them!!  Megan Pellman ended up being the school Championi!!  Congrats to Megan!!

I hope all of you are getting everything ready for Christmas.  I am ready to start wrapping presents!!  I have some shopping left to do on the twins but not Molly. I am done with her.  We start having Christmas parties this weekend!  FUN!!  I hope you enjoy all the season has to offer!!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels