Dear Parents,
HELLO, HELLO, HELLO!! Welcome to 4th grade!!!! I am very excited about working with your kids this year! I have already seen some changes in some of the kids this year! Some very positive changes. I have lots of ideas and new things to bring to the classroom! Let's keep communication open. If you need anything you can email me at msickels@crestonstmalachy.org. I will get back to you. There is not a ton of time in the day but I will respond quickly if necessary, but if not then at the end of the day. You can call the school, I available 7:45 - 8:10 in morning, 10:15-10:45 is my prep period, 11:55-12:40 all days but Tuesday and Wednesday. I have lunch and recess responsibilities those days. Please reach out for any reason. I want this to be a positive year for your child, you and myself. I feel that will happen when we communicate. Remember everything we do at St. Malachy is in the best interest of your child. I have started a Facebook group called St. Malachy Fantastic 4th graders. Please go find it and ask to be in the group. I will accept you. You may tell grandparents also. I hope to put pictures of things we are doing in the classroom and also post messages to the parents here.
Language Arts- We have begun our first story this week in Language Arts. We are reading Because of Winn-Dixie. This is a real book of fiction by Kate DiCamillo. We are reading just a small section of the book. Usually it triggers students to want to read the whole book, which I thought I had on my shelf, but I have not been able to locate it yet. In grammar, we are talking about complete and simple subjects and predicates. I know this topic is a tough one for this age. The students also have spelling words. I know the manner in which I cover spelling words is very different from last year. We take a spelling pretest on Monday, we practice any misspelled words on Wednesday, and take a post test on Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday they students will have a homework sheet that deals with the spelling list for that week. You will find the list of 20 words on those worksheets. I do NOT send home a list of spelling words. The students have access to their list in their spelling notebook and there is a place in their assignment book that they can write them and have them for all week. If students get a perfect paper on Monday they will still take the Friday post test. If they really know how to spell the words they will do it again on Friday. I am very picky about handwriting and the correct formation of letters. Some of your kids are finding out they need to exhibit their best handwriting skills. Also, we don't capitalize words unless they are proper nouns and need to be capitalized. My classroom assessments are all digital. This means the kids take all their tests online. In doing them online, the students receive immediate feedback. They have their score in a click of a button and they go back over the questions they miss and look at what they should have picked. Instant feedback and the fact that it automatically links everything to the standards and benchmarks they are assessed over are the two main reasons I use the online format. If I were to check the tests, they wouldn't get them back until Monday and then we would have to use up more instructional time to go over the tests. You will find all results to spelling tests, all Friday assessments and homework/classroom work on Power teacher. If you are not familiar with Power teacher please get into the office and get comfortable with it. I will post all scores on there, so you will always know what work your child is doing, how well they are doing it and if they are missing any assignments. We will take our first Friday assessment this week! Your student should be studying vocabulary words and spelling words,
Math - We took a chapter 1 pretest this week. This will help me decide what lessons I need to cover in a whole group setting and maybe what ones I need to cover in a small group. The students will feel a great sense of accomplishment when they can compare their pretest score with their post test score. Usually they display tons of improvement after we have covered the chapter. This really helps to build their confidence. The first chapter is over Place Value. This really is the basis of all Math. We will move pretty quickly through this first chapter. Students will begin to see more homework when we start adding Math assignments into the mix.
Social Studies - We begin the year talking about the United States as a whole. We have discussed that the U.S. is broken down into 5 regions. We will cover our government and how if functions. Then we will dig right into the regions by studying them a region at a time. We will talk about Native Americans, climate, and resources from each region. We will keep an interactive notebook over the 50 states as we cover the regions. They will color the state flag, look at it's population, state motto, the abbreviation for the State, state flower and state nickname. They will walk away at the end of the year with a book of all 50 states, made by themselves.
Homework - Please be sure to check with your student and see if they have homework. So far this week there has been a couple days they have been assigned work. A few people have had to take some home to do. I will push for them to use their time wisely at school, so they don't have to take any or much home with them. I prefer they do it at school in case they need help and then I am there to help them. I try not to go overboard on homework, and if I do I make sure they have ample time at school to get the majority done. Your child really should not bring home more than 30 minutes of work. If they are bringing home more than that on several days, let me know so that I can be sure I am helping them to keep organized and also get the work done at school.
Again I look forward to our year together. I will be leaving Friday at noon. My family and I are taking advantage of the long weekend and going to Chicago. We have family there and usually go twice a year. We were unable to make it this summer due to work schedules for my college kids, so we are going now. The other time we go is for Thanksgiving every year. Kids will have a sub for the afternoon. Enjoy your long weekend together!!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
