Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  Wow!   Only 14 more school days.  It makes me sad to count down the days until summer.  It just reminds me of the limited number of days I have with your kids!   We are still working hard and I intend to right up until that last day.  I know they are getting very busy with their activities, but please remember school comes first and their work needs to still be done everyday.    We will get down to having less work outside of class, but  will work hard here at school.  I understand the business of the month.  Plus there is lots of a teacher to accomplish to finish our the year.

Language Arts - This week was a Unit test week.  They have worked this week to complete the Unit 5 Benchmark test.  This is the last unit test we will take.  Tomorrow I plan on passing out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books to them.  We will read this story through the end of the year and watch the 1960's movie.  We will ready in partners/small groups.  There will be questions to answer about the chapters.  We will also have a few fun quick project things to do.  They will not be big.  Normally there is one big book project at the end but we do not have time to complete one of those.  I just want to show them the joy of reading and how we are learning things when we even read for fun.  We will pick out grammar items and touch upon things we have learned all year long.  But I do want it to be more about enjoyment.  We may even use our technology to look at books that might interest us as a summer read this summer.  If you all ready have a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory please send it with your child tomorrow.  If you want to purchase it on their kindle, Nook, or tablet I will allow those to be brought in also.  I have some books to hand out but only like 15.  That makes me 7 books short so if you could help by sending in a copy or getting on device I would appreciate it.

Math -  We are working on the chapter 4 post test.  We will be finishing it up today.  I plan to move onto fractions tomorrow or Monday.  This division chapter has been a long one.  I feel like we have been doing it forever.  It will be nice to move onto a new concept.  I will have them take the pretest over fractions to see where I need to focus.  I am not sure we will have time to take a post test before the end of the year.  

Social Studies -  We have been talking about the Midwest this week.  The students have maps they are studying for a map test tomorrow over the Midwest.  Some did not do well on the Southeast.  Please, please be sure they are studying for the map tests.  They are practice heading up to the "BIG" map test they take at the end of the year.  Next week we will work on the Southwest which is only 4 states.  We will only give them a couple days to study those and then we will move on to the West Region.  There will be no more tests in Social Studies except for the map test.  So this is a subject of less stress for the rest of the year.

I feel like our year has just flown by.  Yes, I always look forward to summer and I am building up a stack of books to read over the summer.  So far I have 5 books on my summer reading shelf.  I will miss your kids.  I know they are ready for a summer and a shift to 5th grade, but it is always bittersweet for me.  They have all grown and matured so much.  Some have learned some big lessons this year.  Thank you for sharing your precious little ones with me.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels