Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  I bet you are tired of my little posts on the blog!  Here is the normal weekly one for you!!  How about this weather?  I hope everyone enjoys today and tomorrow in some way!  Who knows how long it will stick around.  We had a great professional development on Wednesday!  We are learning some great strategies to use in our classrooms.  These will help make the kids a lot more engaged in their learning and it gets them up and moving around the room.  Just the little I have done to make small changes in my room have great results. I feel kids are more attentive to me.  It's learning how to not take advantage of Mrs. Sickels that is the struggle.  Being able to do the fun things yet calm back down to focus on the job at hand, is where some have problems.  We are working on this.  I set  timer to get them to regroup or transition to the next thing.  It is working tremendously!! If you need something to get your kids to move quicker at home use a timer!  They really focus and pick up the pace!

Silent Auction Video!  I just want to report it coming along fine.  Your kids are being very cooperative!  Today, Meg had something come up and was unable to be hear.  So the plan is tomorrow the kids need to wear western gear again!!  I am okay that they are wearing the same thing each day, just be sure they don't wear it all night too.  On Monday, we want kids to wear all St. Malachy shirts or sweatshirts.  If your child doesn't have anything let me know as soon as you can and I will help find something for them.  We have kids with extras but I have 3 kids with stuff at home. I will share for a day.  This should hopefully wrap things up Monday.  I can't wait to see the end product.  I haven't received many donations! Remember the deadline is next Wednesday, March 24th. No donation is too small!  

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a story called Harvesting Hope.  It is the story of Cesar Chavez and the work he did for the migrant farm workers in California.  Their living conditions and pay was really poor.  He started a march to the capital to protest.  The march took place during a very important time that grapes needed harvested or they rotted.  Well, the grapes rotted and because of that things happened and a union was set up for those migrant workers.  Conditions were improved.  In spelling we worked on words with suffixes this week.  They did pretty well as a whole this week.  In grammar we talked about independent and dependent clauses.  We also read a short story about an "Edible Classroom".  It is a classroom that takes place in a garden, kitchen and a classroom.  They have to care for the fruits, vegetables and herbs in the garden. They learn to create healthy meals from the garden items and they cook them.  I think what a fun experience but it wouldn't work here.  Most of the harvest takes place over the summer.  The kids were pretty interested in this short story.  Tomorrow is the end of week assessment and spelling test!

Math - We have been working on the regrouping strategy or standard algorithm of multiplication this week.  Double digits proves to  be harder than the single digit.  Some are taking a little longer to pick up on it which is just fine.  Everyone learns at their own pace and also learn by mistakes.  We will work on it again today and tomorrow is a correction day where they will be given back work to correct and I will have some one on one with those who need me.  Next week I plan to finish out the chapter.  We will then test and move onto to a little bit of geometry.  Focusing on Area and perimeter.

Social Studies - We have picked our new states and projects!!  I have had to make some changes to how I normally do this due to the amount of kids I have and the lack of time!! Some kids have Southeast state and some have a Midwest state.  The Southeast state projects will be due first then those who have the Midwest will be due when we start the Midwest. Please make sure if you need posterboard you are getting it and start working on the project. I will give due dates next week.  I may have some due before Spring Break, so let's not wait to begin.  After next week I will have an idea of how long I will take on the next chapter.  I will then give due dates.  I will stress to the kids to make sure they are starting things.  We will be finishing up this chapter next week and then testing.  We have one more chapter on the Southeast Region.   I will keep you posted on how we progress and when due dates are assigned!

                          I hope everyone has a great weekend!!  Enjoy the sun!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels