Dear Parents,
      Happy Thursday!  Welcome back!!  I think students were happy to see each other on Monday.  They were a little chatty.  They have calmed down and are hard at work now.  The students came back and we slipped right back into our routine.  I am looking forward to January and all the hard work I get after having a Christmas break.  I hope all of you enjoy that your children are back to school.  I am happy to see them.  I really did miss seeing them over break.

Language Arts -  We walked right in and began a new story with spelling words and the whole bit!!  The story this week is called The Life and Times of the Ant.  It is really kind of interesting because it compares the life of the ant to human life.  It compares the jobs of ants to jobs humans do.  We learned that ants are the strongest insects and in some instances stronger than humans because they can lift a seed that is 5 times its weight.  I tried to compare what 5 times a human's weight is and that you have to really really strong and work out to lift that much.  The spelling words this week focus on the final ending in words.  This list proved to be quite difficult for students or they were just not ready to dive back into spelling.  I am going with it was difficult list.  No worries, we learn from it.  In grammar this week we discussing participles; present participles, past participles and participle phrases.  The first two were pretty easy, the phrases was little more difficult even for me!  We discussed decoding this week with suffixes.  I tried to walk them through how to separate the suffix from the base word then work with putting the base word into syllables.  Tomorrow is our normal assessment day.  Remember to have your student go over their spelling words and vocabulary.

Math -   We reviewed the standard algorithm, then moved onto to larger numbers.  This lesson worked on 3 and 4 digit numbers times a single digit.  It also added money amounts.  We worked on that for a couple days.  Today we will begin talking about multi-step word problems.  This will be word problems that require you to work more than one problem.  After this lesson we will be reviewing for a test.  Next week we will take the test over Chapter 2.  I am excited about that because then we move onto multiplying by 2 digit numbers which is easy because they know all the strategies all ready.  It is also a shorter chapter.

Social Studies -  We are starting chapter 5 this week.  They have been working on vocabulary and we began reading lesson 1 on the Narraganset Native American Tribe in Rhode Island.  We are learning their way of life and that they were lead by a Sachem.  We will be finishing up lesson 1 tomorrow.  This is the last chapter over the Northeast Region.  They will be expected to label a map with the Northeast states this time and capitals of those states.  Please practice these items at home.  We will spend one day at school working on this but it should carry over to home.  Sing, sing, sing the song. If your child doesn't have it, it is free on itunes.  It is States and Capitals song by Macho Nacho.  

Again, I want to thank all of you for the generous gifts given to me and to the classroom.  The kids are so excited when you open their gift which puts the biggest smile on my face.  I had a great break but am very ready to be back.  I hope all of you  enjoyed it also.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels