Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  I hope all of you have had a great week!  Mine, not so great!  Starting out with being sick and gone 2 days was not what I wanted.  I hate being gone.  I will say, it was almost worth it.  When you have 6-9 students tell you they missed or excited you are back, let's you know how much you are appreciated.  That was so sweet! You have great kids!

Conferences -  The conference sign up went out yesterday!!  I hope all of you have seen it.  I put it on the blog and sent you an email.  There has been a great response so far.  Keep it up.  I look forward to visiting with you.

Language Arts - This week we read a story called Sacagawea. It is a biography that tells about her life on the Louis and Clark Expedition.  It tells about all the things she did that were important to the success of the expedition.  We have been going over abbreviations this week in grammar.  Pretty much all abbreviations that are out there.  Ones we use when addressing someone, mailing address abbreviations, time, measurement, months, days of the week, anything you can think of we have covered this week.  We also talked about "shades of meaning".  This is looking at synonyms yet realizing there is a difference in the meanings.  If I say something is big or I say enormous, you get a different picture of what they may look like.  We talked about different words that have different shades of meaning.  Tomorrow is assessment day.  Study the spelling words and vocab words!!

Math -  We have finished lesson 6 in math.  It just wanted kids to practice using the three strategies that we have learned.  The area box, partial product and regrouping strategies were there choices.  I told them to use them equally.  We will move on today into lesson 7, which is problem solving and then it is time to get ready for a test.  We will be having a test next week!!  The next chapter we do will be chapter 13 focusing on area and perimeter, which is short and sweet. Then it is back to the grindstone with division.  That will also be a longer process for us.  I try to be sure I have everyone understanding before moving forward. So the pace may slow down a little bit.  

Social Studies - We are at the end of the chapter!!  We will begin the study guide tomorrow, check it on Monday, then test on Tuesday!  Which means I will be getting their due dates for their projects out!!  I told students today that if they have a Southeast state they need to be researching and not to wait for the due date to start.  My plan is to have some due before spring break and then the rest due after.  So some will only have a couple weeks to work on it.  I will be working on those due dates next week to send home for sure!  I have a few pieces of poster board from students that I will work on and have ready for Monday.  Old projects will be coming home if they have been hanging in the hall. Some of the poor things have taken a beating!  I apologize but it's mainly from kids leaning on them.  Also remember since I put the Southeast and Midwest together your child will only be completing 3 projects instead of 4!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  Thank you for those who donated to the Auction basket. I plan to go shopping on Saturday for items to fill it in!  I am excited about the basket theme cause it is right up my alley.  If you still want to donate, yesterday was the deadline, but I won't turn anything away today or tomorrow.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels