Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  What a wild week!  The day off Monday and 2 hr. delay Tuesday has me feeling crazy this week and also the kids.  We are working hard on items in all subjects though.  The talking has been more this week than usual.  I am trying to keep that down without taking away recess time cause I feel they need to run and play, but some kids are experiencing a loss of time.  I hope all are feeling well.  I have been dealing with a little cold this week.    I know influenza A and strep throat are going around pretty heavily and it has hit our building.  Just a reminder if your child has a fever they need to stay home until they are fever free for 24 hours.  So if your child is sent home from school at noon they should not return until noon the next day if they have not had a fever.  We are trying to prevent the spread of these illnesses and also keep in mind some kids are effected a lot worse than others.  Colds we can handle but fevers need to treated with a "better be safe than sorry" attitude.  I know it is an inconvenience when your child is sick but we need to think of others.  I, myself, don't want either of these illnesses at my house.  I am pushing hand washing and use of germ-X here at school!  We are also cleaning off our desks. with clorox wipes.  I am trying!

Language Arts -  This wee is a Unit test week,  It is so nice to have our own computers and not have to share.  We are able to take the test whenever we want, and Ms. Surma and I are not trying to share the computers!  They are working on their Unit test.  We took part of it yesterday, we will do another chunk today and tomorrow we will finish it.  They have several stories to read to complete this test. I copy those stories so they have them to refer back to when answering the questions. I feel this is easier than trying to scroll back and forth from story to question of the computer.  Tomorrow I will assigning to them a new book report.  This is the 2nd one this year and will be due Wednesday, March 1st.  They will complete a total of 3 book reports this year. One each trimester.  Please be sure to check with your child about what they have chosen to read and maybe let the read to you some.  I try to encourage the students to  challenge themselves when choosing a book.  Try to maybe read something different or a book with more pages than they are used to.  Sometimes stepping out of the box may make one discover a whole new world of reading for themselves.

Math - We finished chapter 3 and took the test.  WOW!  Comparing the pretest to the post test is like night and day!!  I had some amazing growth!  There were at least 5-6 perfect papers!   They really did a great job paying attention and learning this chapter!  The next chapter is going to be a fun chapter. It will cover area and perimeter.  Most of them have all ready worked with these on their ST Math program.  I am hoping for this chapter to be fun and relaxing for them since Multiplication can be so stressful sometimes.  Chapter 4 will get us back into hard content.  It is Division.  I plan to work very hard trying to get them division knowledge before the Iowa Assessments which are the beginning of March this year.  They have all ready taken the pretest for Chapter 13 so we are reading to dig in today!

Social Studies -  We finished up chapter 5 and began chapter 6 this week.  They are working on coloring all the flags of the Northeast States and then we will begin putting together an interactive notebook on the United States, starting with our Northeast States.  Next week we will get the lyrics and begin our states and capitals song also.  Lots and lots of learning going on here in 4th grade.  Another reason we love to have our own computers, is letting them use them in free time to look up information on the states.  We are definitely blessed with good people who care to donate to our school.  Students look up the flag of the state and color it in.  I have all ready copied the flag for them, they just have to look for it to put the color on.  We found out a lot of the states in the Northeast have Blue backgrounds.  Mainly the New England states. That was interesting!  Start working on learning those capitals!!

Auction -  I asked for volunteers a couple of weeks ago to put together the 4th grade auction basket.  I had one person volunteer.  We are gong to meet next Tuesday, January 24th after school at 3:30 to discuss some ideas for the basket and the silent auction item. If any one else would like to join us your are welcome to.  The more the merrier!  We want our auction items to be great!!!

Catholic Schools Week is Coming!! It starts Sunday, January 30th - Friday, February 3rd.  Next week I will give out full details of everything that will be going on that week.  Dress up days and activities will all be included, next week!  

 The Food Pantry is having an open house Saturday, January 21st from 5-7.  If you want to see the O'Riley center and food pantry where your children do service stop in.  They will be having a soup supper for a free will donation.  The upper level of the food pantry is a great room to hold baby showers, bridal showers, large family dinners, or anniversary parties.  It has a stage and capabilities of hooking up a computer to a big screen TV.  One could also hold business meetings there and use the new sound system. 

I hope all of you have a great weekend!!

God Bless, 
Mrs. Sickels