Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I hope everyone had a very enjoyable Spring Break! I know my family sure did. We went to Dallas, Texas to stay with my cousin and her family. We had a great time. The weather was 80-90 each day. We enjoyed relaxing by the pool and reading books, shopping, playing with virtual reality, and eating different places Iowa does not offer. We went to a fondue restaurant which was quite an experience.
The students all seemed to come back tan and relaxed from their break. The first few days were great!! They were glad to be hear and were quiet and paid attention. They are still doing a great job, just a little more chatty than the first two days. We have put in some good work time this week and will continue until the end of the year. We have a lot to accomplish before 5th grade!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called I Could Do That! This is a biography about Esther Morris. She was a women who believed women should have the right to vote. She was the person who made it happen in the state of Wyoming. Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote. This happened about 51 years before women were granted the right to vote by the U. S. Government. We even looked her up on the computer and learned more information about her. We have talked about contractions and negative words this week in grammar. We learned to not use two negative words in the same sentence. We talked about ways to change sentences with 2 negatives to make it correct. We also read a small story on the constitution. I reminded us that the government was made up of 2 branches and that citizens have rights and responsibilities. I love this story and I may have triggered an idea for some of the girls in the room, who seemed interested in Esther. Next year they will need to read a biography book and do a report. This is a person they may want to find a book about.
Math - This week we completed our mid-chapter review. We also started the job readiness section for BizTown and will soon be applying for jobs. Today we will begin the next lesson in the chapter which is on using repeated subtraction and multiples to find quotients. We will probably spend a couple days on this lesson. The last half of this chapter will get a little heavy and I want to be sure they are understanding the content before I move forward. Please remember, if you are struggling with helping your student at home, I am available in the mornings before school to help them. This will also keep them from getting any late slips because they didn't understand what they were doing.
Social Studies- We are in the 2nd lesson of chapter 6 on the Southeast states. We talked about the climate of Florida, we talked about the Florida Keys, and we talked about Hurricanes a little bit. The students have their assignment dates for their projects. They have about 4-6 weeks to work on them. Some students have brought in their poste rboard for me to trace their state on. That is only if they are doing a poster or a person. We will be doing BizTown activities on Fridays during Social studies. With our days off in April this field trip will come upon us pretty quickly.
BizTown - We have been working on BizTown, we are working on the Job Readiness section. We talked about interests the students have and skills they need to have. I talked a lot about me and how I came to be a teacher. I talked about all my interests and the skills I need to do my job. We talked about jobs being "people jobs', "ideas jobs", "things jobs", and "data jobs. People jobs are jobs that have you working with people, idea jobs involve coming up with new ideas or thinking about solutions to complex problems, thing jobs are poeple who like to work with things such as machines or tools. They enjoy making, fixing or building things, and working outdoors. The data job involves working with numbers and information. People who like solving math problems and working on gathering information are good at these jobs. The students will be introduced to the jobs available at BizTown. They will choose their top 3 choices of jobs when filling out the application. Students will then be put through an interview process. There will be a panel of people making the decision on who gets what jobs. The kids are very excited for this process.
April 3rd - Just a reminder that there is NO school on Monday, April 3rd. It is an inservice day for the teachers.
As most of you have probably all ready heard, I lost my last grandparent on Monday evening. Grandma was 94 and lived a good full long life. she has been without my grandpa for over 30 years. It was time for our to join him. I had family away so funeral arrangements will be made today. I will most likely be attending a funeral Monday instead of professional development. Worse case scenario is I would be gone Tuesday for the funeral instead. I will know for sure tonight.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I am not sure I have much to share this week. It has been a big week of testing! Iowa Assessments are under our belts!! Tomorrow we will be completing one more thing for the Iowa Assessments and then taking a CRS test. Please see below for that. I can't wait to get scores back and see their growth from last year.
Language Arts - We have spent our language arts time on Iowa Assessment this week. Wednesday we didn't do any testing so we started writing our Dollars for Scholars Essay. This is an essay contest put on by the Dollars for Scholars group here in Creston. The students are writing an essay called "What Education Means to Me". This essay will be written solely at school. The essay is due tomorrow. I will help them to edit their essays by checking spelling only. I will not change their words. This essay should be based on their thoughts, no matter how they put them down on paper. After we have edited them we will then learn how to use Googledocs. The students will type their essay in and share it with me so I can print it out. The student names will not be on the essays and they are then give to 3 teacher in the building to pick their favorite three. When the top three have been chosen, those 3 will go on to the Dollars For Scholars group where they will judge them and pick a#1 essay. One person in this room is guaranteed a $50.00 savings bond. This is so exciting!!
Math - This week we have been doing math this week. We have done ST Math and BizTown math. This week in BizTown we have learned about banks and what they have to offer, we are learning to write deposit slips, and checks and keep track of them in a check register. Some are really struggling with their registers! We practiced writing checks and filling out a check register today. We have also talked about "bad" checks or bouncing a check. They are having fun learning adult things but have a hard time wanting to listen. We do some game playing with BizTown and when we do a lot of them don't want to calm down to come back to the lesson. I have warned them that I would stop playing the games if they couldn't come back to the lesson. I hope they figure out that I am serious.
Social Studies - We have not done much of this subject this week. We have been testing so much. We have finished a lesson and done a worksheet on it. I have assigned another state to be put into their notebooks. We will be sure it gets glued into our notebooks. Next week we will definitely choose our next state project. We may get to it on Friday but if not for sure on Monday or Tuesday.
CRS Testing - This is called the Constructed Response Supplement Test. It is a reading test and is used as our 2nd assessment for reading. The students will be reading a non fiction story and answering 8 questions. They can go back and find the answers in the text of the story. We will be taking this test also.
REMINDER!! WE WILL BE IN SCHOOL TOMORROW!! The public school is not having school so there are no buses running. Please be sure you have made arrangements.
Conferences! Also please remember conferences are next Thursday. I have just have one or two that have not signed up. Please be sure to get that done. Thank you!
I hope you all have a great weekend! SNOW!! UGH!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! I am not sure I have much to share this week. It has been a big week of testing! Iowa Assessments are under our belts!! Tomorrow we will be completing one more thing for the Iowa Assessments and then taking a CRS test. Please see below for that. I can't wait to get scores back and see their growth from last year.
Language Arts - We have spent our language arts time on Iowa Assessment this week. Wednesday we didn't do any testing so we started writing our Dollars for Scholars Essay. This is an essay contest put on by the Dollars for Scholars group here in Creston. The students are writing an essay called "What Education Means to Me". This essay will be written solely at school. The essay is due tomorrow. I will help them to edit their essays by checking spelling only. I will not change their words. This essay should be based on their thoughts, no matter how they put them down on paper. After we have edited them we will then learn how to use Googledocs. The students will type their essay in and share it with me so I can print it out. The student names will not be on the essays and they are then give to 3 teacher in the building to pick their favorite three. When the top three have been chosen, those 3 will go on to the Dollars For Scholars group where they will judge them and pick a#1 essay. One person in this room is guaranteed a $50.00 savings bond. This is so exciting!!
Math - This week we have been doing math this week. We have done ST Math and BizTown math. This week in BizTown we have learned about banks and what they have to offer, we are learning to write deposit slips, and checks and keep track of them in a check register. Some are really struggling with their registers! We practiced writing checks and filling out a check register today. We have also talked about "bad" checks or bouncing a check. They are having fun learning adult things but have a hard time wanting to listen. We do some game playing with BizTown and when we do a lot of them don't want to calm down to come back to the lesson. I have warned them that I would stop playing the games if they couldn't come back to the lesson. I hope they figure out that I am serious.
Social Studies - We have not done much of this subject this week. We have been testing so much. We have finished a lesson and done a worksheet on it. I have assigned another state to be put into their notebooks. We will be sure it gets glued into our notebooks. Next week we will definitely choose our next state project. We may get to it on Friday but if not for sure on Monday or Tuesday.
CRS Testing - This is called the Constructed Response Supplement Test. It is a reading test and is used as our 2nd assessment for reading. The students will be reading a non fiction story and answering 8 questions. They can go back and find the answers in the text of the story. We will be taking this test also.
REMINDER!! WE WILL BE IN SCHOOL TOMORROW!! The public school is not having school so there are no buses running. Please be sure you have made arrangements.
Conferences! Also please remember conferences are next Thursday. I have just have one or two that have not signed up. Please be sure to get that done. Thank you!
I hope you all have a great weekend! SNOW!! UGH!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! The weekend is here and it is the St. Malachy Gala and Auction!!! Such a fun time of year! I really enjoy our auction. We have some great items to put up for auction this year!! I hope all of you are planning to attend. Tickets are $35 per person and can be purchased in the school office if you haven't all ready picked yours up! I hope to see all of you there!
March 10th - This is next Friday and is a day that the public school doesn't have school but we do! So therefore, you must get your child to school and from school that day, due to no buses!
Shorts- Yes, according to the dress code shorts are allowed in March but I would hope that you would not let your child wear them on cold days. We go outside for recess and will still do so even if it is cold and kids are wearing shorts. That 20 minutes will be very long if they are freezing cause they are in shorts. I told the kids I was very proud of them for not wearing shorts today. It was too cold. They all thought it was nuts to wear them today. I am glad to know they will be smart about it. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Language Arts - This week we did not read a story, we were taking the Unit 4 Assessment. You will receive results from week 20 and the Unit assessment next week. This week we have completed the unit test, made donuts for the entire school, and shared book reports that were due on Wednesday. It has been a busy week for Language Arts.
Math - We are all ready up to lesson 5 in division. We have been focusing on estimating quotients. We started by using a multiplication table to do the work, then moved away from using that to using compatible numbers. We also investigated remainders. We used several different counters to help us play around with division and see remainders. This activity has them visually seeing division and the remainders they may have. It was fun because they "played" with items and they learn because they see it in action. In the 2nd half of the chapter we will begin to use the different strategies for division.
Social Studies - We finished the unit on the Northeast Region. We are now moving onto the Southeast Region. If your child struggled with labeling the northeast states and naming the capitals, they need to continue to practice because we are moving on to the next region. They will now need to work on studying this region. Now that we have more of a routine on the Interactive notebooks we will move quickly through this chapter. We need to or we won't get all the regions covered.
JA BizTown - The 4th and 5th graders will be attending JA BizTown as their field trip this year. We will be going on Tuesday, April 25th. This is a great experience for your kiddos. It is fun day but a huge learning experience. Here is a little overview about it:
Junior Achievement USA empowers young people to own their economic success. Since its founding in 1919, JA has contributed to the business and economic education of more that 100 million young people in the United States and throughout the world.
JA's programs span the K-12 educational spectrum. The programs help students assess their personal skills, interests, and values; understand the economic benefits of education; explore career options; learn job-hunting skills; respect and understand business ethics; and practice personal and business financial management. Junior Achievement's Capstone Programs introduce studnts to the principal characteristics of a market economy and the roles that consumers and producers play in the free enterprise system.
Junior Achievement used hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. IN partnership with educators and business, JA brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential.
This is a great day for the kids to experience. I will be preparing them for their big day. We will do some financial literacy during math and some items about philanthropy during social studies. They will learn how to get paid, how to use a check book and write a check, and why taxes are removed from their checks. They will have to apply for jobs and interview. They will be given a job they must fulfill that day. The kids actually run the town. We have adults that will be working in each business to help guide the kids if needed. Ms. Surma and I have all the volunteers we need for that day all ready.
I wanted to let you know a little bit about BizTown before I get started teaching it to the students. I hope to see all of you at the Gala and Auction this weekend. Enjoy the weather!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! The weekend is here and it is the St. Malachy Gala and Auction!!! Such a fun time of year! I really enjoy our auction. We have some great items to put up for auction this year!! I hope all of you are planning to attend. Tickets are $35 per person and can be purchased in the school office if you haven't all ready picked yours up! I hope to see all of you there!
March 10th - This is next Friday and is a day that the public school doesn't have school but we do! So therefore, you must get your child to school and from school that day, due to no buses!
Shorts- Yes, according to the dress code shorts are allowed in March but I would hope that you would not let your child wear them on cold days. We go outside for recess and will still do so even if it is cold and kids are wearing shorts. That 20 minutes will be very long if they are freezing cause they are in shorts. I told the kids I was very proud of them for not wearing shorts today. It was too cold. They all thought it was nuts to wear them today. I am glad to know they will be smart about it. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Language Arts - This week we did not read a story, we were taking the Unit 4 Assessment. You will receive results from week 20 and the Unit assessment next week. This week we have completed the unit test, made donuts for the entire school, and shared book reports that were due on Wednesday. It has been a busy week for Language Arts.
Math - We are all ready up to lesson 5 in division. We have been focusing on estimating quotients. We started by using a multiplication table to do the work, then moved away from using that to using compatible numbers. We also investigated remainders. We used several different counters to help us play around with division and see remainders. This activity has them visually seeing division and the remainders they may have. It was fun because they "played" with items and they learn because they see it in action. In the 2nd half of the chapter we will begin to use the different strategies for division.
Social Studies - We finished the unit on the Northeast Region. We are now moving onto the Southeast Region. If your child struggled with labeling the northeast states and naming the capitals, they need to continue to practice because we are moving on to the next region. They will now need to work on studying this region. Now that we have more of a routine on the Interactive notebooks we will move quickly through this chapter. We need to or we won't get all the regions covered.
JA BizTown - The 4th and 5th graders will be attending JA BizTown as their field trip this year. We will be going on Tuesday, April 25th. This is a great experience for your kiddos. It is fun day but a huge learning experience. Here is a little overview about it:
Junior Achievement USA empowers young people to own their economic success. Since its founding in 1919, JA has contributed to the business and economic education of more that 100 million young people in the United States and throughout the world.
JA's programs span the K-12 educational spectrum. The programs help students assess their personal skills, interests, and values; understand the economic benefits of education; explore career options; learn job-hunting skills; respect and understand business ethics; and practice personal and business financial management. Junior Achievement's Capstone Programs introduce studnts to the principal characteristics of a market economy and the roles that consumers and producers play in the free enterprise system.
Junior Achievement used hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. IN partnership with educators and business, JA brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential.
This is a great day for the kids to experience. I will be preparing them for their big day. We will do some financial literacy during math and some items about philanthropy during social studies. They will learn how to get paid, how to use a check book and write a check, and why taxes are removed from their checks. They will have to apply for jobs and interview. They will be given a job they must fulfill that day. The kids actually run the town. We have adults that will be working in each business to help guide the kids if needed. Ms. Surma and I have all the volunteers we need for that day all ready.
I wanted to let you know a little bit about BizTown before I get started teaching it to the students. I hope to see all of you at the Gala and Auction this weekend. Enjoy the weather!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
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