Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I hope you have all enjoyed the weather!  I know I took advantage of it.  I walked a couple of times.  The nice weather is over!  It is all ready getting colder today. Please, please, please make sure your child goes out of the house with a coat tomorrow.  The high is only to be like 35.  That is not sweatshirt weather, that is coat weather.  Maybe even hat and mittens.  I am a wimp and think today is cold, but it is compared to what we have had.  I am glad we are not getting the snow they will be getting about 100 miles away.  I do have to travel to Ames on Saturday and hope I don't run into much there.  I am attending Josie's, mother-daughter day at her sorority.  She is an Alpha Gamma Delta and lives in the house as a Freshman.  She was lucky they had an opening.  I was never into the sorority stuff so this is a new experience for me.  I am looking forward to it.  

Language Arts -  This week is week 20 and so marks the end of unit 4.  We read the story Sacagawea, this week.  It is a biography about her and her part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  It was a very interesting story.  Most students didn't know that she was stolen from her Shoshone tribe by the Hidatsa people.  When she is on the expedition she is reunited with her brother, who was now Chief of the Shoshone.  She still returns back to the HIdatsa though.  We spent our week learning and reviewing abbreviations in grammar. Next week we will take the Unit 4 assessment.  The following week will be the Iowa Assessments so we will not cover a story but work on a writing project.

Math - We started division this week.  The students took a pretest over division.  It was pretty bad.  They were highly frustrated with it.  Most of them didn't understand even where to begin.  They were showing their frustration.  I had one person pass the test and all others failed, which is fine.  It shows me where we need to do the most work.  We have a lot of work to do.  We started lesson one yesterday and finished it today.  This lesson is estimating quotients.  I taught them to use a multiplication table to find the estimates.  We struggle the first day but had it by the second day.  This  will be a very heavy chapter for us.  We will have to work very hard to get through it.  I told them they should ask questions at school and not bring questions home because we are learning more things than what the parents learned and they may not be able to help.  I reminded them that I was always in the room before school to help them when needed.  So if they come home and are struggling send them back to me.

Social Studies- We are finishing up the Northeast Region.  Their interactive notebooks are completed for this region.  We will start a new region next week.  We will move a little faster through this region so we can get to the others.  Now that we have a routine with the interactive notebooks we will integrate that easier than the last time.  There will also be a social studies project they will complete for this region.  That will all be coming up quickly.  They need to be sure to study their Northeast maps and capitals tonight.  They will do the 2nd part of test tomorrow over those two items.  I forgot to remind them to study those two things so gave them tonight to do so.

Iowa Assessments -  We will be taking Iowa Assessments the week of March 6-10 this year.  Yes this seems early but this is the only week in March with a full 5 days!  We will have snacks for students and I will provide other "brain breaks" that week.  

Friday, March 10 -  This day is another day that the public school has off for Professional Development but we are still in session.  There will be no buses that day so please make arrangements to get your child to and from school that day.  Why you ask is this the 2nd day we are in session and they are not?  Look at your calendar in April.  The Mon.- Wed. after Easter we are not in session.  The teachers will be in St. Louis at a National Catholic Teachers Education Convention.  So that is why we are making up days up!  What a nice Easter break.  

I hope all of you have a great weekend!  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels