Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!!  What a nice week!  Fall is finally here!  I hope it sticks around a while.  It was a little chillier this week and I had several students without jackets or sweatshirts.  They need to have these items for when they go outside.  All of the teachers agree 50's is not warm enough to not have a jacket or sweatshirt on.  Please make sure to check the weather and make sure your child has one of these things.  Thank you.  Wednesday was coldest day and I had morning duty and many students complained about being cold.  Again just be sure they are prepared.

Language Arts -  We read our 5th story in Unit 1 this week.  The story was called Stormalong.  It is a tall tale.  Tall tales always have some sort of person with a superhuman ability.  Stormalong's was his size.  He was a huge man.  He was too big to fit on a boat, which was his dream job.  He was a seafaring man and belonged to the sea.  He leaves and goes to the Midwest to become a farmer because he feels the sea is not for him because of his size.  He finds he is very unhappy.  He goes back to the sea and his friends make a boat big enough for him because they can see that he is unhappy.  The moral of the story is be true to yourself. Don't try to be a different person than what you are meant to be.  This is a big moral for kids this age but we did discuss it and I think they get it.  This week we studied capitalization rules for names, documents, historical events, Nationalities, languages and titles of essays, stories or books.  This was a lot but a few of them they should have known.  The spelling list this week was on Homophones, which are words that sound the exact same but have different meanings and are spelled differently.  Tomorrow is our assessment day.  Please be sure your child looks over the vocabulary packet and spelling words.  Thank you.

Math -  Students are taking their chapter 1 math test today.  We will do the paper/pencil work today.  Tomorrow they will enter their answer on the computers.  I can't wait to see their improvement!  Yes, I am very positive that I shall see improvement for everyone.  We worked hard on this chapter.  Every one seems to be working really hard on the test also.  We will begin chapter 2 next week.  This chapter is longer than the first one so we will be working on it for a while.  I will do my best to keep us moving and learning.  This chapter is over multiplying by a 1-digit number.  There are lots of strategies to learn in this chapter.  Chapter 1 was 8 lessons long.  Chapter 2 is 14.  That is a big difference.  This chapter takes a while to go through.  We will begin with a pretest to see what students all ready know and I can base my instruction on that.  This is a very important chapter for the students. We need to work hard!! I also may start having what I plan to call Fraction Friday.  I hope to use Fridays to start in learning about fractions.  It is a a fun unit where the students will get to use a few more manipulatives to aid in their learning.  It is a way for me to cover a couple different things at once, which will help make our year a little more successful.

Social Studies - We took a test this week in social studies.  I was very pleased with how well the test was done by all.  It shows me they are learning those good study habits.  We have started chapter 2.  This chapter is about how Native Americans arrived in North America.  It will discuss the government and how is it organized.  These things are important to understand before we begin talking about each region separately.  Please note that I only skim the surface, when talking about government.  We just focus on the branches and what their purpose is.  This is an election year and there have been some opinions floating around about the candidates by students. I am glad to know these discussions are going on at home.  

I hope all of you have a great weekend!! Remember next Friday is our first day to help unload the Food Pantry truck.  We will walk down there unload and walk back.  This is weather permitting of course, but kids need to be sure to dress appropriately.  We will go if it is chilly so they need to be prepared.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels