Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I feel like this has been a short week also with our field trip mixed into the week. We are headed to the end of the road. Only like 23 days left of school. Lots of things start happening for your students. Thank goodness dance is over, but softball/baseball, soccer and other things begin to kick into high gear. Please remind your students school comes first. We still need to be getting our work done for school even though we are busy at night or it is just too nice to be inside. I feel I have given a lot of late slips out recently. We are almost done but not quite. I will be sad to see your kids go, I have have really enjoyed them this year!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called Owen & Mzee. It is a story about a very odd friendship. The friendship is between a very old Aldabra turtle and a baby hippopotamus. It is a very good story about rescue and adaptation. The Hippo is stranded alone after a Tsunami destroys his pod. They rescue him and take him to a shelter area and put him in with Mzee the turtle. They become fast friends. It is really a sweet story. We have worked on the suffixes -ly and -ed. We worked on comma rules in grammar. We looked at words in a series, city and state, date and year, and speaking directly to someone. These are good reminders because 4th graders struggle with most of these when writing. Tomorrow is test day! Be sure to study your spelling words and vocabulary words.
Math - We have been so busy working on BizTown Math that we walked away from division for a while. I reviewed division with them today and many have forgotten how to do it. Tomorrow I plan to reteach division to them and have them work on some more problems. They have 4-5 problems to do for homework today. Most are finished. We are near the end of our chapter so we will finish it and take a test. After this chapter we are going to go into fractions. We will discuss what fractions are and what they look like. A lot of them are all ready working on fractions in ST Math. Some of the activities they are doing in ST Math are very challenging. It is great to see them work with a group of kids who try to problem solve together to get their answers. I even find some of the levels very challenging.
Social Studies - We have finished our interactive notebook for the Southeast region and will begin work on the MIdwest states. We are going to start reading the really important facts about each region so we can move forward. I told the kids there wouldn't be any more tests over chapters but we would do tests over the maps to get them ready for the end of the year test. Next week we will take a test over just locating the Southeast states and listing the capitals with it. Again the next region will be the Midwest. We will learn important facts about this region and work on locating them on map. We will also continue to put the states in our interactive notebooks.
BizTown - We had a lot of fun on this field trip. Thank you for all the volunteers that went with us. Your child worked very hard all day and made comments about all the things they needed to accomplish is such a small amount of time. Our day is shorter than those kids in Des Moines because we have that hour drive time. We will work on trying to extend our day a little the next time we go. This year I worked in the bookstore. It was a lot of work because it was to have 4 employees and only had 2. We had a ton of stuff to do. It was great to only have St. Malachy students and not another school with us. I feel our kids benefited greatly from that. I tried to explain to the kids we were doing 8 hours of work on a 3 1/2 hours. We are very fortunate to have this activity. Such great life lessons here and we are covering financial literacy!
I hope all of you have a great weekend! I will be gone Monday afternoon. I am going to Dr. with one of my daughters to see about a cyst in her wrist. Hopefully they will just drain it right there in the office, otherwise we will be scheduling surgery. Pray for a simple fix!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! Today is to be a beautiful day!! I am so happy it is nice. We have our Sedar Meal at noon then our Cross Walk this afternoon. I am so glad it will be nice for our walk to the church. It is a great Holy Thursday celebration for St. Malachy today!
Language Arts - We did not do a story this week. There were only 3 full days we could have covered a story then would have had to finish it next Thursday and Friday. I didn't feel we could do the story justice by doing it that way. We filled the time with other activities. One day we played Spill and Spell as a class to practice our spelling and have a little friendly competition. One day they wrote letters to Editor or a story about something from school to put into the magazine at BizTown. I also had them type them onto google docs. They also had a new book report assigned to them that will be due in May.
Math-We have spent the week working on the standard algorithm or regrouping strategy for Division. This one always takes me a while because it has so many steps to the process. Even though I put the process of steps on the board and teach them a little chant, they still lose track of where they are in the process and what to do next. The more we practice this the better they will get. Next week we will work more on this strategy. Any practice at home they can do would be great. Ask them to show you the chant we have.
Social Studies- They are completing chapter 6 today by taking a test. We will be moving quickly through the other regions due to running out of time. The year is dwindling down quickly. I will pick items in chapter 7 to cover that I fell need to be and we will work on capitols. Then we will go to Midwest and so on. Projects will be coming due in about a week so please check with your children on how they are doing with that.
Biz Town- This week they received their job assignments. Mrs. Surma and I spent a few hours on Sunday night going over their interviews. We decided that we needed to take into account our knowledge of each child's interests and capabilities when choosing their jobs. There we jobs that the no one had applied for, so some may not have gotten a job that was one of their choices. I feel they handled the new well. I am sure that day they will have so much fun they will forget that they are doing a job they didn't want to do. This week they got together with the people they are going to be working with and had to create a name for their business. They also had to write up ads to be done for the magazine and radio in Biz Town. The CEO/CFOs had to fill out forms for the bank. They will also be writing some short articles that will be included in the Biz Town magazine!
When we go, they will need a sack lunch and drink. They will also need to wear mass day attire. They are going to work!
Clean-Up Day- The school will be cleaning up our school property on Friday, April 21. We are asking your kids to bring a rake to school that day if they have one! Make sure your family name is on it somewhere. If they have work gloves, they can bring those too. We will be raking along the fence and by Father Halbur's house.
Iowa Assessment scores are going home today. Please look in your child's folder for their results.
I hope everyone enjoys their nice Easter Break. I am looking forward to the teacher's trip to St. Louis! I hope to learn some new things to bring back with me to try in my room!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! Today is to be a beautiful day!! I am so happy it is nice. We have our Sedar Meal at noon then our Cross Walk this afternoon. I am so glad it will be nice for our walk to the church. It is a great Holy Thursday celebration for St. Malachy today!
Language Arts - We did not do a story this week. There were only 3 full days we could have covered a story then would have had to finish it next Thursday and Friday. I didn't feel we could do the story justice by doing it that way. We filled the time with other activities. One day we played Spill and Spell as a class to practice our spelling and have a little friendly competition. One day they wrote letters to Editor or a story about something from school to put into the magazine at BizTown. I also had them type them onto google docs. They also had a new book report assigned to them that will be due in May.
Math-We have spent the week working on the standard algorithm or regrouping strategy for Division. This one always takes me a while because it has so many steps to the process. Even though I put the process of steps on the board and teach them a little chant, they still lose track of where they are in the process and what to do next. The more we practice this the better they will get. Next week we will work more on this strategy. Any practice at home they can do would be great. Ask them to show you the chant we have.
Social Studies- They are completing chapter 6 today by taking a test. We will be moving quickly through the other regions due to running out of time. The year is dwindling down quickly. I will pick items in chapter 7 to cover that I fell need to be and we will work on capitols. Then we will go to Midwest and so on. Projects will be coming due in about a week so please check with your children on how they are doing with that.
Biz Town- This week they received their job assignments. Mrs. Surma and I spent a few hours on Sunday night going over their interviews. We decided that we needed to take into account our knowledge of each child's interests and capabilities when choosing their jobs. There we jobs that the no one had applied for, so some may not have gotten a job that was one of their choices. I feel they handled the new well. I am sure that day they will have so much fun they will forget that they are doing a job they didn't want to do. This week they got together with the people they are going to be working with and had to create a name for their business. They also had to write up ads to be done for the magazine and radio in Biz Town. The CEO/CFOs had to fill out forms for the bank. They will also be writing some short articles that will be included in the Biz Town magazine!
When we go, they will need a sack lunch and drink. They will also need to wear mass day attire. They are going to work!
Clean-Up Day- The school will be cleaning up our school property on Friday, April 21. We are asking your kids to bring a rake to school that day if they have one! Make sure your family name is on it somewhere. If they have work gloves, they can bring those too. We will be raking along the fence and by Father Halbur's house.
Iowa Assessment scores are going home today. Please look in your child's folder for their results.
I hope everyone enjoys their nice Easter Break. I am looking forward to the teacher's trip to St. Louis! I hope to learn some new things to bring back with me to try in my room!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! This has sure been a short week for me! Monday was a day of professional development for the teachers. They spent the morning doing volunteer work at the Food Pantry. They cleaned all shelving and mopped floors! In the afternoon they were working on teacher things as a group! I missed this day due to my Grandma's funeral. It was 10:30 in the morning. The afternoon was spent with family. Wednesday I was at a technology conference in Des Moines. I attended 4 different sessions. I walked away with some great things to begin to look at for the classroom. Some can happen right now, others need to be further investigated before we try to implement them. So I will have taught 3 days this week which makes it feel really short! I will say I was told by the students they had a good day Wednesday but they miss me when I am not here. That made me smile and feel pretty special. Thanks again for sharing your wonderful children with me!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called The Ever-Living Tree. It is informational text on the California Redwoods. It is a story that shows us the longevity of the trees. They connect the life of the tree to events taking place all over the world. Here are examples from the book of all the things that took place while this one Redwood was growing: Alexander the Great, Great Wall of China being built, Augustus Ceasar, Kingdoms in Africa, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Mayflower and the Pilgrims, Revolutionary War, building of railroad, and men walking on the moon. That covers hundreds of years!! This is an interesting story but I am not sure the kids are as interested in it as I am. In Grammar we were reviewing ending punctuation and capitalization. We also talked about prefixes; pre-. inter-, and ex. Tomorrow is our end of the week test. Be sure your student is studying their spelling words and vocabulary words that are found in their notebooks this week.
Math- We have learned and expanded on repeated subtraction and partial quotient. Next week we will finish the division chapter by learning the regrouping strategy which is the standard algorithm that you and I learned in school. That is the last strategy to learn in this chapter. Most students have all ready seen this strategy when working on ST Math. This has been a great help when teaching it to the kids because they begin to really see what they have been doing in ST Math. It also makes it to where my part in the teaching doesn't take quite as long with them because they are familiar with it all ready.
Social Studies - We will be finishing up chapter 6 next week and testing next Thursday. This is our first chapter over the Southeast states. I will give them maps tomorrow to start practicing the Southeast Region. They will need to label the map with these states. Tomorrow morning during Social Studies we will be do an activity where the students run through a quick practice interview with partners. This will get them ready for their job interviews tomorrow afternoon.
Biz Town - We have filled out job applications and picked 3 jobs they want to apply for. The job interviews will take place Friday afternoon. We have asked a couple of parents from 4th and 5th grade to help us out. We asked parents who weren't attending Biz Town. We are also going to have the the 4th grade parents interview the 5th graders, and the 4th graders will be interviewed by the 5th grade parents. We are just trying to make it more realistic for the kids. There is a good chance they won't know their future employer so we wanted to keep it as close to real as possible. Ms. Surma and I will make final job decisions and let the kids know some time next week.
Dollars for Scholars Essay - Your children have written an essay called "What Education Means to Me". This essay is for a contest put on by the Dollars for Scholars group. The students put their students ID numbers on the essays and I have passed them around to three teachers in this building. Those teachers were to read the essays and choose their top 3 choices to be sent on to the main competition. They have no idea who wrote what paper since we used student ID numbers. The top three essays will be sent on to the committee to be judged and a top essay chosen. The person who wins receives a $50 savings bond. One person in this room will win! The top three essays chosen by teachers are...Josephine Bolinger, Taylor Smith, and Sasha Wurster. Congratulations Girls!!! We will find out the winner in the middle of May.
I hope everyone has a great weekend!! Get out and enjoy the sun! Seems like we have forgotten what that was like!!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! This has sure been a short week for me! Monday was a day of professional development for the teachers. They spent the morning doing volunteer work at the Food Pantry. They cleaned all shelving and mopped floors! In the afternoon they were working on teacher things as a group! I missed this day due to my Grandma's funeral. It was 10:30 in the morning. The afternoon was spent with family. Wednesday I was at a technology conference in Des Moines. I attended 4 different sessions. I walked away with some great things to begin to look at for the classroom. Some can happen right now, others need to be further investigated before we try to implement them. So I will have taught 3 days this week which makes it feel really short! I will say I was told by the students they had a good day Wednesday but they miss me when I am not here. That made me smile and feel pretty special. Thanks again for sharing your wonderful children with me!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called The Ever-Living Tree. It is informational text on the California Redwoods. It is a story that shows us the longevity of the trees. They connect the life of the tree to events taking place all over the world. Here are examples from the book of all the things that took place while this one Redwood was growing: Alexander the Great, Great Wall of China being built, Augustus Ceasar, Kingdoms in Africa, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Mayflower and the Pilgrims, Revolutionary War, building of railroad, and men walking on the moon. That covers hundreds of years!! This is an interesting story but I am not sure the kids are as interested in it as I am. In Grammar we were reviewing ending punctuation and capitalization. We also talked about prefixes; pre-. inter-, and ex. Tomorrow is our end of the week test. Be sure your student is studying their spelling words and vocabulary words that are found in their notebooks this week.
Math- We have learned and expanded on repeated subtraction and partial quotient. Next week we will finish the division chapter by learning the regrouping strategy which is the standard algorithm that you and I learned in school. That is the last strategy to learn in this chapter. Most students have all ready seen this strategy when working on ST Math. This has been a great help when teaching it to the kids because they begin to really see what they have been doing in ST Math. It also makes it to where my part in the teaching doesn't take quite as long with them because they are familiar with it all ready.
Social Studies - We will be finishing up chapter 6 next week and testing next Thursday. This is our first chapter over the Southeast states. I will give them maps tomorrow to start practicing the Southeast Region. They will need to label the map with these states. Tomorrow morning during Social Studies we will be do an activity where the students run through a quick practice interview with partners. This will get them ready for their job interviews tomorrow afternoon.
Biz Town - We have filled out job applications and picked 3 jobs they want to apply for. The job interviews will take place Friday afternoon. We have asked a couple of parents from 4th and 5th grade to help us out. We asked parents who weren't attending Biz Town. We are also going to have the the 4th grade parents interview the 5th graders, and the 4th graders will be interviewed by the 5th grade parents. We are just trying to make it more realistic for the kids. There is a good chance they won't know their future employer so we wanted to keep it as close to real as possible. Ms. Surma and I will make final job decisions and let the kids know some time next week.
Dollars for Scholars Essay - Your children have written an essay called "What Education Means to Me". This essay is for a contest put on by the Dollars for Scholars group. The students put their students ID numbers on the essays and I have passed them around to three teachers in this building. Those teachers were to read the essays and choose their top 3 choices to be sent on to the main competition. They have no idea who wrote what paper since we used student ID numbers. The top three essays will be sent on to the committee to be judged and a top essay chosen. The person who wins receives a $50 savings bond. One person in this room will win! The top three essays chosen by teachers are...Josephine Bolinger, Taylor Smith, and Sasha Wurster. Congratulations Girls!!! We will find out the winner in the middle of May.
I hope everyone has a great weekend!! Get out and enjoy the sun! Seems like we have forgotten what that was like!!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)