Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!! I hope all of you are keeping warm!  Just a reminder make sure your child is dressed appropriately for school.  We will go outside unless the temperatures fall to 0 or below.  This does include wind chill.  We want them outside playing as much as we can.  Some of the students are choosing not to bring boots.  This gets them some fresh air but not the chance to run and play.  Will you double check that your child is bringing the necessary gear to school, please.  Thank you.  It is no fun standing on the sidewalk.  Please pay special attention to the Auction Basket information in today's folder.

St. Malachy Foundation Auction -  The Auction is fast approaching!!  It is March 5th.  We are preparing a basket to put in the auction.  It is a coffee lovers basket.  So any item dealing with coffee will be greatly appreciated.  There is a flyer in the kids folders talking about it but I will also post a copy of the flyer on my blog following this letter.  Our silent auction item this year is a video that will be produced by Meg Haines.  She also has a flyer in the folder pertaining to that.  Be on the look out for wear for your child.  If you don't have any ask to borrow things.  I will also add that flyer to my blog with auction basket flyer.  Any donations you can give even monetary will be greatly appreciated!!

Language Arts-  This week we are reading a FUN story.  It is called Hercules' Quest.  It tells a very different story from the movie.  Hercules' mom is jealous of his relationship with his father.  She feels Zeus is giving more attention to their son and not her, so she tricks Hercules' into using his strength for the wrong reasons.  Hercules' is then sent to Earth to prove himself.  His goal is to earn his place on Mount Olympus.  He is given 3 impossible tasks to do to prove himself.  He accomplishes them and earns his place.  I usually show the movie to the kids for fun so they can see the difference in the two.  Since we had the field trip Tuesday we are kind of out of time.  I may show it Friday during the Valentine Party, I will give them the choice.  We talked quickly about prepositions and prepositional phrases this week in grammar.  We also read another short story about Zomo the Rabbit and how he doesn't have friends.  By the end he gains friends.  This is a great story.  Ask you child about it. They may have learned a few things about friendship.

Math -  This week we have moved onto learning the partial product strategy of multiplication.  This is the same as the area box strategy without the box.  Some are finding they still need the box to help guide them.  We will be moving onto the regrouping strategy which is the standard algorithm we learned growing up.  I was asked which is most commonly used. I would say in my eyes the regrouping is most commonly used only because it used to be the only strategy taught.  If you ask which one should be most commonly used it is the strategy we are learning right now.  It helps them see what exactly they are doing.  It shows each step.  I have taught this strategy for many years.  Probably for at least 10 of my 18 years.  I use it more than the standard algorithm.  Our kids having so many different ways to find answers helps them to choose the strategy which is the best fit for them.  

Social Studies-  We are will be discussing elevation maps tomorrow.  I will show them some examples of elevation maps.  We will practice our knowledge of reading them.  We talk about how to show elevation on maps when they are not printed in color.  We mainly focus on maps of color when talking about shading but not all maps can be printed that way, like our worksheet.  So I discuss how that works.  We just finished talking about the land and how it is made up.  We learned about the Inner and Outer Coastal Plains, Piedmont region, Appalachain Mountains, and the Fall Line.  Next week we will focus on the climate of the region.  The average temperatures and precipitation. I always compare the region we are discussing to our region.  I compare their land to ours, their climate to ours.  I want them to recognize how it is the same or how it is different from where we live.  We will take considerable about Hurricanes and Hurricane season, since this is something we personally are not familiar with, kids have a lot of interest in it.  We talk about the destruction they cause.  I try to compare to tornadoes here.

Valentine's Party -  We will be celebrating Valentine's Day tomorrow at 2:00.  Danica is supplying the treats since her birthday is on Valentine's Day.  Daniel is supplying our drinks.  We will pass out our valentines to one another and open them.  I do not allow them to eat any candy because they are getting a snack.  All the candy items will come home in their valentine bag.  We may watch Hercules during this time also.  It usually takes a while to pass out valentines when there are so many kids in the class.   Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.

I hope all of you have a great weekend.  We will be spending our weekend in Ames because Molly has a dance competition.  I hope the weather stays good for everyone.  Next week is finally a normal week of school!! Oh Wait!! We have a teacher inservice on Wednesday! So NO School!  So I guess not a normal week!  I am ready to have a normal week and I think the students are too.  Missing too much school throws kids way off track.  I think everyone is off track due to the crazy weeks we have had.  I am ready for it to calm down.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels