Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  What a week of nice weather! I think the kids have enjoyed the time outside.  I know I have walked every day enjoying the last of the warm days.  Sounds like temperature is due to drop,  Please get out the kid's coats.  Some of them, during the last cold spell, only showed up in a sweatshirt.  That is not enough when the high is only in the 40's.  I watch the weather and remind the kids when they need to bring in heavy coats.   I don't want anyone outside shivering.  That is no fun for them.  It is hard to enjoy recess when you are freezing.  The rest of this week looks to be great but next week is a different story.  

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a story called Coming Distractions: Questioning Movies.  This is an informational story about what we see in movies is not always reality.  It points out movies like Charlie's Angels where Cameron Diaz is fighting bad guys in high heels and doing a fabulous job at it.  It also points out that when a family has something bad happen like a mother or father loses a job, they do not make any adjustments to their lifestyle in a movie and in real life, life styles have to change.  Grammar lesson are based on verbs again.  We are looking at the verb tenses (past, present, and future).  We talked about latin words parts found in our language, those parts are phon, photo, auto, tele, graph, and their meanings or words they are linked to.  It may help them to better understand the words these parts are found in.  Tomorrow will be a normal Friday.  They will take a spelling post test and end of the week assessment.

Math-  This week in Math we have learned multiplication comparisons and will move on to relate that to comparison problems.  We will now move onto word problems that use multiplication comparisons to find an answer.  We spent several days understanding this topic to hopefully make the word problems easier for us.  We will begin the lesson today and hopefully get more into it or finish tomorrow. Again this chapter is pretty heavy and I want everyone to understand exactly what we are doing in each lesson before moving on, which is why this chapter takes so long. Multiplication is one of the main content areas at the 4th grade level that they need to learn and will make them feel like a "big" kid.  It is amazing the number of times I hear the students say, " I feel like a real big kid learning multiplication."  It makes it fun for me to hear them say it.  I am so glad they realize they really are learning things!  

Social Studies-  We are working on covering lesson 1 which discusses Niagara Falls and its importance to the state of New York. It looks at all the important mountain ranges that are a part of the Appalachian Mountains in the Northeast.  It also talks about the coastline and how it looks different from Maine to New Jersey.  This week the students started their interactive notebooks.  These are notebooks that will be full of information about the 50 states.  We are walking through how to look up the information and what is expected on their fact sheets.  They will learn how to put these items in their notebooks tomorrow.  Once they get used to it, the process won't take them very long at all.  We are studying the Northeast Region so those are the first states they put in the notebook and I have them put them in order of statehood.  The first one they did was Connecticut.  Yes Delaware is the very first state but it is not part of the New England States and that is where we started.  I love it when the kids are researching and asking each other questions about the states.  The other item they have to do is color in the state flag.  This allows them to see how certain regions have similar flags.  A lot of them have them same colors in them.  Again, I love this notebook cause it's so full of great information.

Spaghetti Supper - Don't forget the Spaghetti Supper is Saturday night.  If you signed up to help or bring an item remember to do it.  Also remember all families are asked to bring in a dessert for the supper or something for the cake walk!    Hope to see you there!

Conferences:  I have sent out a Sign up to your emails for conferences. Please take a minute to sign up for a time that works for you.  I have given all the times I am available including some time on Tuesday and Wednesday, if Thursday just doesn't work for you.  People were signing up as soon as I sent it out so hurry and get there or your time time you are wanting may be taken.Thank you in advance for signing up, I look forward to meeting with you.  In case you didn't see the email here is the sign up link.

                    https://mrssickelsstmalachy.blogspot.com/

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  I am very happy that next week is back to a normal week.  But then the next is a short week again!  It seems we are not in session a lot recently.   The rest of the year will move very quickly.  Once conferences are over than it is Thanksgiving Break, then we move to Christmas Break and then BOOM! A whole new year!  I am really enjoying your children.  I thank you for sharing them with me this year.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels