Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  Sounds like we are going to start getting a little wet!  We need the rain for sure but not sure we want as much as we are suppose to get.  I am suppose to be traveling to Sidney, Iowa tomorrow for a workshop, and I am not too thrilled about going anymore.  Two reasons: 1) We have had a big week of testing this week and some unfinished business I hate leaving for a substitute, 2) Sidney is in the area that there will be flooding.  Not sure I want to go and then be stuck.  I counted and there are 6 rivers to cross between here and there.  Ms. Surma is going to workshop also.  We are making a decision today whether we are going to attend or not.  I told the kids you may or may not know what teacher will be in here when you get here tomorrow.  

Language Arts- We have spent the week testing on the Unit 1 Benchmark test.  It is a very long test that I break up into 3 parts.  We take a section a day for 3 days.  I feel the students do a better job this way.  I will have results of this testing to you next week.  I apologize I didn't send home scores last week for week 4.  I totally forgot!  This week in the folder you will find week 4 and 5 results.  I feel like our Friday testing is not where it should be.  I have had a couple of kids improve and some fall backwards.  I don't think they take them very seriously.  I am trying to talk to them about the importance of these tests.  I am also discussing that we use this data for a lot of decision making.  These tests help us to decide how they are doing with comprehension and whether they need extra help in these areas. We also started a writing project this week.  They will be writing a Halloween story based off a fairy tale or children's story.   I shared with them the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then shared a former student's story that she created from it.  I will also share some other stories that are easy to convert to Halloween stories.  This is meant to be a fun writing activity.  The stories will be on display in our room!

Book Report- I also assigned them a book report that will be due November 7th.  These book reports are cereal box reports.  I explained the assignment to the students.  They are to read the book in it's entirety first, then come to me for the rest of the items.  I have pieces they are to fill out and put onto their cereal box, plus I have a grading rubric they can follow to put it together to make sure they are getting the score they want. Please be sure to save a cereal box that is in good shape and nice sized for this project.

Book It! -  We are participating in this program this year.  I love this program.  It is a good way to get kids to read.  One way I challenge the kids is, I tell them to beat me!  I read a lot, not as much as I did in the summer but still a lot.  I will give a prize to any kid that can beat me in the amount of minutes I read.  There is a goal every month on minutes to be read.  They all have their own calendar to keep track of their minutes on.  Goals for each month will go each month.  The Goal for October is 350 minutes, November will be 400, December will be 450, January 500, February 550 and March will end with 600 minutes.  I figured it our, we start reading 12 minutes a day and by March they should be reading 20 minutes per day.  I have already read 603 minutes this month.  That will slow down though.  I will begin to get busier so it will slow down.

Math-  This week we have focused on testing over chapter 1.  We took the test Wednesday, and we hope to make some corrections on Thursday.  I will be sure to share the students pretest and post test scores with them so they may see if they improved or not.  There was a lot of room for improvement by all.  It is always fun to see their faces when they see how much they learned.  We will begin chapter 2 next week.  This chapter covers multiplication.  It is a very long chapter and a very deep one.  There is a lot of strategies and new concepts that the students will learn in this chapter.  It usually takes a very long time to get through.  It is made up of about 14 lessons and a lot of those take us a couple of days to get through if I want full understanding.  So we are in it for the long haul.  I will talk to the students about it being a long process but also talk about all the things they are learning and how each one is important.  I will say this is definitely where we will see struggles.  Please work flash cards at home if you have any.  This will help them with the process.  At least it will make it easier on them.

Social Studies -  We just finished chapter 2.  We will be taking a test over it tomorrow.  They students had a study guide to work on and that study guide is just like last year and will cover everything they will see on the test.  We will correct that today so the students have the correct answers to study.  These tests are just like last year's tests.  The students should know exactly what to expect.  We will begin the Northeast Region next week!!

WOW!  What a week!  I can tell it is a full moon!  It didn't help that this was a testing week in many things.  We did a lot of reading which is great because it adds to our Book It minutes!  Have a great weekend!  I have one kid coming home to watch her sister in a volleyball tournament.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels