Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  A full week this week! We are surviving.  But next week we have another short one.  No School on Monday, teacher inservice, and Friday we are out early for Homecoming!  The kids will not know how to handle a full week when we get going and back into that routine.  I may not either!  I am pleased with how this class has matured over the summer and come in and adjusted to 4th grade.  I have not given out a ton of late slips and that is a good thing.  The students have been having a study hall each day, but that is changing due to computer time.  We have finally gotten to where we can fluently get on the computers and work.  So that will now take place of the study hall.  You may begin to see a little more homework floating home with your student.  Please be sure to set aside time for them to complete the homework.  I have included a copy of our schedule for you to see how our day works.

Service Work -  The 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students will be participating once a month in some community service.  They will be walking down to The Food Bank of Iowa and helping to unload the truck that comes in on Fridays.  It usually arrives around 1:15 or 1:30 and may take about 20-30 minutes to unload.  The Food Bank provides supplemental food to those in need.  The students will providing a great service to those who volunteer their time to unload the truck, shelve the products and help the day it is distributed to families.  We are excited that they are being given this opportunity to help others in the community.  I have provided a permission form in today's folder for you to sign regarding this opportunity.  It lists the dates the student will walk down to the food pantry, which is on Wyoming Street.  It is on the corner of Division and Wyoming.  Of course this will always be weather permitting.  We will not walk in the rain or when the weather is too cold.  The teacher in charge will make the decision.  The 4th grade will be going the 1st Friday of every month .  Please return the permission form as soon as possible. 

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a nonfiction story in our book called My Librarian is a Camel.  It is an interesting story that talks about very remote places that don't have the means of a Public Library building so they improvise.  It shares several ways in which books are transported to children.  Some of the ways are by mail, camel, elephant, bus, and boat.  I tried to discuss we are lucky to have access to books all the time.  We have access in our schools, a public library and via the internet.  I tried to get them to understand how lucky they are and that others are not.  They studied using quotation marks in grammar and their spelling list was short i long i.  Tomorrow is assessment day so they will take a spelling post test and end of the week assessment. They have a vocabulary packet to study and their spelling words.  

Social Studies -  This week in social studies we have discussed resources in a region.  There are many resources that different regions provide.  We have talked about the most important ones to the five different regions.  We have discussed industries, capital resources, human resources, natural resources, raw materials, and the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources.  The students have done a great job participating in the group discussion, choral reading, partner reading, and group work.  Today they have an individual homework assignment deciphering if something is a nonrenewable or renewable resource.  We are nearing the end of this chapter ad will be getting ready for a test by the end of next week.  


I hope all of you have a great weekend.  Sounds the weather will be great.  Rainy all week but beautiful weekend.  Get out and enjoy the balloons.  Remember NO SCHOOL MONDAY!!!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels