I am very excited to be teaching your children this year. Thank you for sharing your precious gem with me! We have had a good week! I think..... I feel they have gone very well. Your kids may say differently. We are learning the basics. They have to get used to me and how I run my classroom. They have to get familiar with all my expectations and how work is done. Everything is new to them. I am sure it has been overwhelming for them. I feel overwhelmed sometimes also. We will get the bugs worked out then the day will run like a well-oiled machine! (we hope) My classroom is very routine. We will stick to the schedule. Only time we venture off schedule is when extra fun activities are planned: Advent Angels, Lenten Angels, Bullying days, Catholic Schools Week, or snow days.
I hope this blog is helpful in keeping you posted on things we are doing in the classroom and fun things we may do throughout the year. If you have any questions or concerns for me shoot me an email at msickels@crestonstmalachy.org or call the school 641-782-7125. I am available most mornings 7:45- 8:10 then again 9:30-10:00. Also at the end of the day 3:15-3:45. The BEST way to reach me and get a response is via email.
Language Arts - We are finishing up our week on the story Because of Winn-Dixie. We have spent time this week focusing on the vocabulary words form the story, and picking out subjects and predicates of a sentence. These are all things that they will be assessed on tomorrow. It will also assess their comprehension of the story. Remember there is a spelling post test tomorrow! I have instructed the students to be sure and study for spelling and also study their vocabulary words in their notebooks. These are items tested over every Friday. I request they bring their vocabulary notebooks home to study every Thursday night.
Math - We have had one full lesson in Math this week. It focused on the base ten system and understanding that each place value is 10 times the previous place value. We looked at base ten blocks up to 1,000 then discussed what they would look like if we had physical example past 1,000. I found something new this year online with our series which helps keep track of kids and where they are. Because of this I am giving a pretest for chapter 1 today. They will do it on paper and then enter their answers onto computer. This is so I can generate reports about each student and the class as a whole to show me what they are all ready good at and what areas need work. This will help with planning and pacing of the chapter. I am excited to see if this program does what it is suppose to.
Social Studies - We will be studying the United States this whole year. The first three chapters focus on "Living in the United States". We will learn that the U.S. can be split into 5 different regions. We will also talk about our Government and how it is set up. We will then study the states a region at a time. Kids will be able to label on a map the states of each region and by the end of the year they will label all 50 States on a map. We have projects we complete during each region. The projects usually start after conferences so we will discuss them more then. I hope your kids love this subject as much as I do.
Science and Religion- Just a reminder that our child will go to Ms. Surma for Religion class and Mrs. Burg for Science. I am in charge of 3-5 Social Studies. Ms. Surma is also doing all art 3-5 this year. You should check out their blogs to see if there is anything about 4th grade on them. If you have questions or concerns about these two classes you will need to make contact with these two teacher.
I hope all of you have a great long weekend!! My family is headed to Chicago to visit family! I am taking off at noon on Friday when my kids arrive home from college and we are taking off. I am looking forward to this time with my kids. Have a safe weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
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