Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday and Merry Christmas!!!  I hope you all are ready for Christmas Break because it is almost here!   Only a day and half until they are all yours for a couple of weeks!!  We have had a pretty good week, considering it is the last week.  I appreciate their behavior! I have kept them pretty busy this week.  I was gone on Monday, twin #2 had her wisdom teeth out so I had to be "Mom" duties all day. All went well that day and we have had a normal week since then.  

Language Arts -  Their story this week is called Antarctic Journal.  It is about a women who writes nonfiction books and she researches everything she writes.  She went  to Antarctica and stayed for some time.  She kept a journal while she was there and ended up publishing her journal.  It is really an interesting story but not sure a full week of it hold their interest.  We will see tomorrow how well they do on their test.  In grammar we have been talking about Modal Auxiliaries which are words like: can, may, would, should, might could and must.  There is a reason we use each one. They are learning when appropriate to use can or may, which is a fun one.  We also learned some Greek and Latin word parts that we use in our language and what they mean.  Those parts are spect, struct, tele, and vis.  They like seeing the connections.  We will still have a post test and end of week test tomorrow morning like normal.  The kids should be studying their vocab words and spelling words tonight.

Math-  This week we had one lesson on multiplying using 10.  We spent one day talking about it and then a worksheet.  On Wednesday and Thursday we did what I call "Fun Math".  We use a coordinate grid to color a picture.  The students were given a blank grid and then a sheet of instructions.  They are to follow the instructions and will end up with a Christmas picture if they do not make a mistake.  They are to have one picture complete but can pick another one to do if they get finished.  It is kind of like a battleship grid.  Funny how we wonder how that relates to math but it does.  In High School they will get into graphing and coordinate pairs.  This is just a simple beginning to that.  The students enjoyed it.  Some are also wanting to do Suduko.  We will see if I can get that done.

Social Studies-  We have put our last state for the Northeast into our notebooks!  Yay!!  The students took a 2nd map test over the Northeast States.  You will find the results to both in today's folder.  It is on an orange sheet.  We will pick up back in the chapter when we return from Christmas Break.  I hope to finish the chapter up and then start a new region.  We also completed a map skill on Map Keys, you will find that in the folder also on pink paper.  The students are doing a great job in Social Studies.  I keep them going and they just keep working hard.

GeoBee -  The Geography Bee finals were held yesterday.  Our winner was Spencer Brown in 6th grade.  Second place went to Daniel Buls 7th grade and 3rd was Rosie Leonard 8th grade.  Congratulations to our winners.  Spencer will be taking an online quiz in January to try and qualify for competition at the State Level.  Good luck to Spencer!!  I am very proud of the 3 4th graders who made it to the finals.  They should be proud. Usually I am lucky to have just one, but three!  WOW!!  They all got their first question right also.  That was awesome.  

 Friday - Tomorrow is the day!! Our last day together before break.  We will start the day in Music, then we will have language arts. When we have completed all academics we will then have some fun!   The students are all allowed to bring in board games that we can play.  I will let them enjoy each others company and celebrate together.  There will be treats and drinks and lots of fun.  I have a couple parents coming in to help and enjoy the day.  At 11:40 the students will go to lunch with their Advent Angels and at 12:15 we will begin our annual caroling in the gym.  You are invited to attend any part of the day with us that you want.  The caroling is always my favorite part.  It just melts my heart to see them singing songs together and having fun

I would like to say Thank you to all those who have given me such wonderful gifts.  I really enjoy the kids faces when I open them and they get so excited to see my reaction and they are so proud.  I have gotten some truly sweet thoughtful things.  Thank you very much!

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas Season.  My girls are home which is my favorite part.  Having all my children under one roof is the best.  I know my days are numbered for this to happen.  They will be having their own houses one day and won't need to stay with me.  I am taking a nice little trip to Branson with Ms. Surma, my daughter Molly and a friend over break.  We are looking forward to exploring some fun places while we are gone.  I hope things that I can use in Social Studies.  Have a safe Holiday!!

God Bless and Merry Christmas,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  It is the 2nd week of Advent!!  We are down to 12 days before Christmas. The kids have been really good.  I am very happy with their behavior and hard work this week.  I know this time of year can be very exciting for them and they are going about the days normally.  I have my first family Christmas this weekend.  One night I host everyone at my house and I feel like I have been a little crazy but not sure the students have noticed, yet!  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Language Arts -  We are reading a story called The Earth Dragon Awakes.  It is a story about a father and son living in Chinatown in San Francisco and they experience the 1906 earthquake that took place there. They live in a tenement building and it collapses with them in it.  They are buried in the rubble.  It is kind of a scary story.  It may bring fear in some of the kids.  I know I was fearful reading it.  They are rescued in the end so it was a happy ending.  We are talking about Possessive nouns this week.  They are learning proper rules to adding 's or just the ' if it has the "s" all  ready.  The vocabulary strategy this week was on synonyms.  This is just a review for them because i have them find synonyms for their  vocabulary words each week.  We will have our end of week test tomorrow and post test for spelling.  You will find the results for the last couple of weeks assessments in today's folder. 

Math -  This week we have been busy.  We have taken chapter 2 test.  We have begun the pretest for chapter 3.  The students will make corrections on their tests today.  I will give final score and I will send them home next week to be signed and returned.  Chapter 3 is over double digit multiplication.  This chapter will take the strategies they learned in chapter 2 and apply them to 2-digits.  They will pick it up rather quickly.  We will put in some "fun Christmas" math next week to lighten the load a little bit.  We are progressing very nicely through our studies.  Keep up the good work.

Social Studies -  We are working through chapter 5.  We took our first Map Test this week.  It is very important the students do well on these so they prepare themselves for the end of year test over all 50 states and capitals.  Some did not do so well. I hope to send those results today but not sure that will happen.  I like to keep the test in their binders so I can refer back to them but I will report results to you in some way.  I hope to finish putting states of the Northeast in the interactive notebooks by Christmas.  I also hope to have another map test next week before break.

Friday, December 21 -  Next Friday is our last day before Christmas break.  I just want you to know what that day will look like.  Students will start their day in music like normal.  When they return at 8:50 we will do Language Arts to finish up our story for the week.  When that is finished we will have a small Christmas party.  It is Melanie's birthday so she is providing us with a treat that day.  I haven't decided which we will do but normally I have the students bring in their favorite board games and we play games and enjoy each other's company.  We could also show a movie.  I think I will talk to the kids and see what they want to do to celebrate.  I love playing games.  It is nice to show them that you can still have a good time playing board games instead of playing video games.  I may start with BINGO and give prizes!  At 11:30 they will meet their Advent Angel and eat lunch, following will be Christmas Caroling in the gym at 12:15-12:45.  Students are dismissed at 1:10 that day.  You are very welcome to come to the classroom around 10:30 and join us for our fun activities and also caroling.  If a grandparent wants to come in and spend the morning that is fine too.  I just want to make the sense of "family" known with the students.  I want them to enjoy each other family style before the holiday. Students will need to bring a sack lunch but milk will be provided. Also students are encouraged to wear festive clothes for Christmas.  It is also a spirit day that day!

Geography Bee -  The finals for the Geography Bee will be held next Wednesday the 19th after mass.  It will begin at 10:15.  Baret, Rhett and Jace from 4th grade all made it into the finals.  We wish them luck.  Anyone is welcome to attend the finals to support.  This will be held in the gym.

I hope you are all getting your shopping done!  Mine is finished. I  get to wrap now.  Safe travels to anyone doing any traveling over the this month.  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  Welcome to Advent Season!  This is my favorite season on the Liturgical calendar.  We have great activities planned for the kids during Advent Angels.  We started this activity yesterday.  Yesterday seemed to be a very busy day for 4th graders.  It was our mass so we started our day in the gym practicing.  After Mass we had Advent Angels and Language Arts.  After Lunch/recess we went to the High School to practice for our Christmas Program!  It's a good thing we do that because our program last night was great!   It is so fun to hear the kids sing.  I am a little biased but thought that  the 4th and 5th sounded fabulous!!  I am so proud of them.  Whew!  That is one thing checked off on our calendars!  Hope you enjoy the rest of the Advent Season with your kids.  I know I plan to enjoy them these nest couple weeks!   They are all very special and I appreciate you sharing them with me.

Language Arts -  This week we are reading the story Hurricanes: Earth's Mightiest Storms.  It is a non-fiction informational story.  Some of it is interesting with facts kids want to hear but the majority is pretty detailed about how they form and the kids don't find these facts very interesting and fun.  They probably need to go over the story at home again tonight for sure. We have worked on homophones this week.  These are my favorite lessons in the book.  We learn how to use to, too, two, its, it's,  there, their , and they're properly.  So many struggle with this, adults included.  This is one that I catch on Facebook all the time.  The vocabulary strategy this week was on suffixes -ful, - ness,       -less, and -ment.  We discussed their meanings and how when added to a word they change the meaning of the base word.  We will read a short story today about Hurricane Katrina and the damage she caused.  They may or may not have heard of this storm before.  I try to talk about ones they are more familiar with.  We will have our spelling post test tomorrow and end of week assessment.  Please remember to have your child study the yellow packet of vocab words.

Math -  We have completed the last lesson in chapter 2 this week.  We will begin work reviewing for the chapter 2 assessment.  We look to begin to take this assessment on Monday or Tuesday of next week.  It will depend on how tomorrow goes because we are going to the Food Pantry in the afternoon to help unload the truck.  this takes our math time.  Sometimes when we return we may fill our time with Math.  It just depends on how the day goes. The students have learned some great strategies this chapter on how to multiply.  They have several ways to choose from.  They all like the regrouping strategy once they caught on.  The kids will do the test on computer but will have a paper copy also that they need to show their work on.  It is important that I see all work so I can see why they are missing things.  I look at multiplication strategy used, did they make a simple error or is it something bigger that I need to address.  Proving their knowledge is key.  By the way the last lesson on Order of Operations was Algebra. Some of them caught on better than others.  Showing each step is what threw them off.  They just wanted to work the problems and move on.  I made them show each step because that is what is expected in Algebra.  Hopefully all kids will do well.  Remember I forgot to have them take a pretest so I have nothing to compare their scores with this time.  I am anticipating great scores though.

Social Studies -  We have begun practicing the Northeast states locations on maps.  They have an answer key they may and some practice maps so they can practice placing the states and capitals on their maps.  You can copy more maps at home if you have the capabilities to do that.  It is very important for them to learn these states because we will move on to the Southeast soon and won't practice this region much after that.  At the end of the year they are expected to label all 50 states with their capitals.  This is to lead us up to that.  Next week I plan to give them their first map test which will cover just the Northeast states.  Make sure your child is practicing.  We are still moving through chapter 5 on people of the Northeast.  We will also work on finishing up the states in their interactive notebooks. We do a lot of work in social studies.  Oh yes, and singing the states and capitals song.  Is it driving you crazy yet??

Reconciliation -  Next Friday the 14th we will hold reconciliation for the students.  This is a time for them to spend with Father one on one to either be blessed or confess sins for forgiveness.  All students will be given a blessing.  It is a nice fresh , weight off the shoulders feeling for most.  It prepares us for Christmas also.

Our last day before break is Friday, December 21st.  We have a two hour dismissal that day.  We will some fun activities going on in our classroom that day.  All are welcome to come join us.  At noon the kids will eat lunch with their advent angels and the we have our annual sing-a-long in the gym.  I will give more details next week in Blog on what will happen on the 21st.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!    I hope everyone enjoyed their snow day on Monday!!  I am a lover of snow but I didn't ask for this one.  It is a little early, yet I know when I was a kid this was normal.  I had to come home from Chicago a day early to beat the snow.  I was a little irritated about it but very glad I did it.  I am thankful we all got home safe and my older two back to college before "Bruce" decided to move in.  I will say having a snow day makes for a crazy week.  Not because of the kids but because all my plans are off a day, which can make me crazy!!  Thank goodness the kids are used to me and my crazy now.  They have handled this week perfectly and gone with the flow like champs.  I am very pleased with their behavior.

Language Arts-  This week we are taking the Unit 2 Assessment.  This assessment will be easier than the first one.  The first one was a benchmark test and tends to be a lot harder than others.  This unit is a performance test and goes along better with the stories they read.  A lot of answers can be found by looking back in the story.  Their are also some questions that may be more difficult.  I kept them on to see how they do.  I may end of up using them as  bonus points.  We will finish the assessment today and we will go over it tomorrow as a whole class.  The kids will pull up their test and we will go over each question one by one.  I will also make them highlight things in their packet if they didn't already.  I requested they do that but sometimes they know the answer and skip that part. Next week we will go back to  a normal week with spelling tests and reading stories. 

Math -  We are still working on multiplication.  This week we have focused on bigger numbers.  We are doing 3-4 digit numbers times a single digit.  They are doing very well with this regrouping strategy.  This strategy is the one you and I were taught.  We will work on the last lesson today and tomorrow and next week we will prepare for the Chapter 2 Assessment.  I totally blew giving them the pretest which frustrates me because this the chapter that usually sees the most growth.  When I fill out the paper work on the assessment you will not see a pretest score.  Most students do pretty well on this test.  The next chapter is on 2-digit multiplication.  It is a shorter chapter, it is all strategies we have already learned we just apply them to 2 digit numbers times 2-digit numbers.  They may struggle but will catch on.  I hope to do some fun "Christmas" Math closer to Christmas and then we skip to chapter 13.  I cover perimeter and area right after multiplication because I feel it is an appropriate place to do that.  After two pretty heavy chapters I like to throw in a fun one to lighted the load. We do a lot of hands on activities.

Social Studies -  We are starting chapter 5 which is another chapter over the Northeast Region.  We spend this chapter discussing the people of the Northeast.  We will continue putting states into our notebooks and will begin map work on locating the states of the region.  This is a busy time for social studies.  I will begin giving them map tests. The map test will only cover the Northeast Region.  It is easier to learn them a region at a time then trying to do all 50 states at once.  They will locate the state and list the capital with it.  We will begin working on that next week.  I will give them practice maps to work with.  They will make one into an answer key then will have some blank ones to practice.  This is very important for them to learn because at the end of the year they will need to do all 50 states!

Book It -  Book It calendars are due by next Wednesday for a reward.  After Wednesday I will still accept them for minutes but not a reward.  Remember I need a parent signature on the calendar.

Food Pantry -  Advent begins this weekend!  My favorite time of the year.  This year we will be collecting items for the Food Pantry from Dec 3-14.  The 3-5 graders will be bringing in toilet paper to donate.  Personal items such as this are bought by the pantry at normal prices. These are not provided by the Food Bank of Iowa.  These items are distributed once a month, the first weekend of the month.  They are always running low on these items.  Please donate if possible.  No matter how big or small it is always very helpful!  The Food Pantry provides for 70-90 families on any given week.  Our students are able to see the volume of products that go through the pantry when they volunteer unloading the truck.

Cold Weather Rules:  St.Malachy plays outside under the following conditions.  Morning Drop-Off Outside if feels like temperature is 13 degrees or above.   K-8  Recess outside if feels like temperature is 0 degrees or above.  PK students Outside if feels like temperature is 13 degrees or above.

I hope the weather cooperates better for all of us.  I love this time of year and I feel it makes it better with snow but no more snow days!  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

God Bless, 
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!   Can you believe next week is Thanksgiving?!  I can't !  This year is going very quickly.  I guess time flies when you are having fun.  We have been working really hard in 4th grade.  We are all pretty much adjusted to the routine and doing very well.  Tomorrow is the end of the first trimester and I will be working on report cards over the weekend!  I try to have them done before Thanksgiving break.  We travel to Chicago every Thanksgiving!  It is our favorite time of the year!!  We leave on Wednesday and come back Sunday.  We do our Black Friday shopping out there.  It is not a huge deal in Chicago so the stores are not packed or stand in line kind of shopping like it is back here.  Plus we get some items that are not around here.  I hope anyone else who is traveling has a safe trip.  

Language Arts - This week they are reading a story called Jose! Born to Dance.  It is about a famous dancer and his life story.  He didn't take up dancing until later in life. He was an immigrant from Mexico.  This is a story that the kids find hard to understand and they are not big fans of it.  That just means that tomorrow I have to work hard to be sure they understand it.  If your student brings their book home and rereads they night before the test you might read it with them so you can see if they are understanding.  This week in grammar they are learning about pronouns.  We have focused on Subject, Object, Reflexive, and Demonstrative Pronouns.   We also will learn what an antecedent is.  That is the word that the pronoun replaces.  For our vocabulary lesson we talked about Shades of meanings when it comes to words like: big, large, huge, giant, enormous, and gigantic.  They all have similar meanings but the all make us picture something a little different or a little bigger than the other words.  This section of the test might be a tad bit difficult for them.  We always want to choose the more exciting words or the more professional sounding word.  The end of week test is tomorrow along with spelling post test.  We are then ready for a Unit test.  We will not take that until the week after Thanksgiving.  This Unit test will not be as bad as the first one.  I always see scores go up but I will require them to go back into the stories and highlight the answers.  We will talk about taking their time and working hard.  I will get the test done in 3 days then spend a day going over test results with them.  

Book Reports -  Reminder that book reports are due tomorrow.  I can't wait to see what they come up with.  We will share them in class next Monday.  The 1st graders will vote on the cereals and I will give a prize to the top choice.  

Cuddle up and read - On Tuesday, November 20th, we will be having a special day.  ON this day the students will be allowed to bring a blanket, pillow and stuffed animal.  They may bring one item, two items, or all three, whatever they want to carry.  We will begin our day normally with Music class.  After that they will return tome for our special reading time.  The students get to pick a spot in the room to lay down, snuggle up and just read.  We will spend 60-75 minutes just reading .  They may count all the minutes on their "Book It" calendars.  I will also be reading along with them.  It is just a fun da to enjoy reading.  They have been looking forward tothis day ll year.  I hope they enjoy it as much as I do!

Math - This week we have spent our time working on word problems.  These word problems are multistep word problems.  This means that you can't just do one problem to find the answer.  You at least need to do 2 or maybe even more to get to your answer.  The students don't like this because it is a lot of work.  They want a simple easy problem to do and be done.  This lesson really challenges them to think.  They have to think about what the problem is saying, what information is important, and how to solve the problem. The next lesson is teaching them the regrouping strategy of multiplication, which is the standard algorithm that you all learned in school.  They may struggle catching on because they won't understand how it all works but the more we practice the better they will get.  We will work on this strategy until Thanksgiving.  Then when we return we will work on it again but will bigger numbers.  I will work on it until I feel all students are understanding.  

Social studies- We just finished chapter 4 and took a test.  They all did very well on the test.  We are now putting more states into our notebooks and we will learn the States and Capitals song tomorrow and Monday.  We will also start practicing where the Northeast states are on the map.   I will give them practice maps to work on and then we will have a map test.  They have to be able to label all the states in the Northeast Region on a map.  They will also need to know their capitals. This is when Social Studies gets a little challenging yet fun for some.  It is very important for students to know what our Unites States looks like and where the states are.  Again you can get the song on itunes.  It is by Macho Nacho.  The students will have a copy of the lyrics in their folders.

Geography Bee-  The 4th graders get the opportunity to participate this year in our annual Geography Bee.  What happens is the 4th-8th grade students are split up between 3 rooms and put through 7 rounds of geography questions.  The top 10 scorers of the preliminary rounds will move on to the  Finals.  The Finals will be held on a Wednesday after Mass in December.  The official date will come later.  I have had 4th graders make it to the finals in the past.  It is the luck of the questions.  This is not something the kids can opt out of.  They will all participate.  This will happen Tuesday morning of next week.  I will run the 4th graders through a  practice couple of rounds in our own room Monday, so they know exactly what to expect. 

Again I want to wish you all a great Thanksgiving!  I know I will eat too much!  Also, we will have our Mass on December 5th.  That day will be a noisy change collection for our adopt-a-family and our Christmas Program that evening.  What a way to kick-off the Advent Season.   There will not be a blog next week due to Thanksgiving.  

God Bless, 
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I hope everyone is having a great day!!  Are you enjoying the weather?  Looks like we are going to take a drastic change.  Will we see the white stuff? I hope so!!  If is it going to be cold then we might as well have some snow.  BUT I hope the farmers have time to get their crops out before it hits too hard.  We know today's won't last!  I think all kids came prepared for recess today with coats!  That makes me very happy!  Sweatshirts just don't cut it. I see hats and mittens too.  I have recess duty today and brought my winter coat, headband and mittens myself.  It does put me in Christmas spirit a little bit.  I am all ready shopping but just not feeling it yet.  The kids aren't really feeling it yet either!! Thank goodness.

Language Arts -  We are reading a great story this week!  It's one of my favorites.  It is called Dear Mr. Winston.  It is a fun story about a girl who gets a snake, wants to know what kind it is, but can not check the book she needs out of the library.  So she sneaks the snake into the library in a box.  The librarian questions her, opens box, and is deathly afraid of snakes and faints.  The ambulance has to come to take him away.  She is writing an apology but yet it really isn't much of an apology cause she finds many ways to blame the librarian for the problem.  The kids seemed to enjoy it too.  That may mean they will do well tomorrow on assessment. This week in grammar we are learning about compound and complex sentences.  We learned what a dependent clause was and how it can not stand alone without a simple sentence.  Our vocabulary strategy was a review topic of antonyms.  Be sure to study vocabulary words and spelling words tonight!

Math -  This week in math we have learned 2 new strategies to multiply 2 digit numbers.  One was using expanded form and the other is partial product.  One actually leads right into the other.  Learning to use expanded form leads right into partial product.  They are almost the very same just recorded differently.  The partial product strategy starts us on the beginnings of the standard algorithm also.  Only in the order in which we do the problems.  The book teaches them to start in the hundreds or largest place value and I teach them to start in the ones because that is how the standard algorithm works. All strategies we learn are leading us into that algorithm that you learned as a kid.  We make sure they understand exactly how multiplication words and why they are doing what they are doing now.  I know I would have been more successful in math if I would have know these strategies for sure.  So much of it lends itself to algebra also!   If your child ever has any questions I am available in the mornings before school.  I happy to help.  I give them time at the end of the day to also search out for help.

Social Studies -  We are finishing up chapter 4 this week.  We are learning about the resources that come from the Northeast Region and learning about Chesapeake Bay and all the seafood that comes from the bay.  Kids are learning that fishing is not just a hobby but way of life.  They are shocked to think about it but when I talk about seafood restaurants and explain they get it.  We will be doing a study guide on Monday, checking it on Tuesday and taking a test on Wednesday of next week!  We are moving along quite nicely in Social studies.  We will spend some days next week putting more states into our notebooks also!!

Veteran's Day Program -  We are hosting a Veteran's Day Program at St. Malachy tomorrow in the gym at 2:00 P.M.  Students are asked to wear red, white, and blue to celebrate.  Please feel free to attend and please invite any Veteran's that you know to also attend.  There is something for everyone there!!

Book it!  We has a very successful October for reading minutes!  I hope the students keep it up in November!  It makes my heart happy to see them reading things they enjoy and finding authors that they enjoy!  I have a definite favorite author.  Colleen Hoover is my favorite.  She writes so many books dealing with so many different things. if you have not read any of her books I recommend them.  I keep a  blog of the books I read.  Here is my link in case you are looking for something to read.  I am part of a book club and so the books we read are on here also.

https://msickels0.wixsite.com/mysite  

I hope all of you have a great weekend!  Thanksgiving is coming very quickly!! Tomorrow is a Spirit Day!  Students can wear sweats for $1.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I have had early morning bus duty this week so I have to be at school by 7:15.  I am very happy about it being Thursday because I only have one more day of it!   I will not see it again for 7 weeks!  I am so not a morning person!  This week has been a great week.  We are accomplishing a lot every single day.  The students are pretty much adjusted to 4th grade.  They are getting their organizational skills down, and they know to use their study hall wisely.  I am very proud of all of them.  We will continue to work on these things throughout the year but they are doing great. 

Language Arts -  We are reading a story called Me and Uncle Romie.  This is a fiction story but it is based on a real live collage artist named Romare Bearden.  Is a story that makes you feel good.  A boy is going to stay with his aunt and uncle whom he has never meant before because his mother is having twins soon.  He will also celebrate his birthday while he is there.  He is nervous and scared to go but in the end he has a great time and makes a wonderful connection with Uncle Romie.  He even try to create meaningful art like him. We are still working on Verbs this week.  We focused on present progressing and past progressive verbs tenses.  It all boils down to the helping verb we use that decides present or past.  The action verb will be the same in both, and it ends in -ing.  If the helping verb is: am, is or are than it is present tense and if it is was or were then it is past tense.  This is also what will be on their assessment on Friday.  They will be asked to choose the correct tense to place in a sentence. Our vocabulary strategy this week was on figures of speech.  Like saying "hang in there", we don't take the words literally.  I went over several examples and even had them come up with a few.  I made sure to cover all the ones that will show up on their assessment.  I do not plan to do a story for Language arts next week.  The week is to short and too busy with Mass on our short day.  I, in not way, can make a story meaningful by rushing through it.  We will share Halloween stories next week, we will have a writing activity and will get started in our Handwriting books.  I also will do some read aloud and free reading time for them.   Be sure to study vocabulary words and spelling words tonight.

Math -  We have started this week learning how to multiply by tens, hundreds, and thousands.  We applied that knowledge to estimating products to see if answers are reasonable or not reasonable.  We will move onto the Distributive property either Friday or Monday.  This is not hard once you understand it.  I had a grandfather visit one day during this math lesson.  He was surprised at how much this made sense after being taught how it works.  He couldn't stop talking about it because he had learned something new and it made complete sense.  He has been my inspiration and great reminder that what we are teaching is good stuff.  I see a lot of negativity online about the "new" math.  This is not new stuff it has been around a very long time.  It was just not required for us to teach it so we didn't.  We only taught kids one way to do things.  Well, are we only going to teach them one way to get out of a burning building?  What happens when that way is blocked?  How do they use their own problem-solving skills to get out?  Same applies to building a house with only a hammer.  How does that happen.  I am filling their tool belt with strategies and skills that will make them think about other ways in case one way is blocked or just doesn't work for them.  I know they may bring it home and you may not be able to help them.  I am here by 7:45 every morning they can come in early to get help and I stress to them from 2:30-3:00 every day I am available to them.  They have to ask me questions!  I try to make my math happen with the least amount of stress and give them time to work on their homework so it doesn't come home.  

Social Studies -  This week we have learned about Nigara Falls and how important it is to the state of New York.  Not only is it beautiful but it supplies New York with most of its electricity.  We also learned about 6 mountain ranges and where they are located and for some how they go their names.  The last thing was about the difference between the coastline in Maine and in New Jersey.  We are working on a map skill dealing with the directions using a compass rose.  We learned about how to properly go about reading a Cross-section Diagram.  By Friday we will be ready to put our first state into our interactive notebooks. Whew!  That was a lot of stuff to pick up on in a week's time.  We are truly working hard!  They also seem to be enjoying it all as we do it.  For some reason Social Studies always becomes a 4th graders favorite topic to study.  I think it might be because of my love for it.  We also do lots of group work, that also may be it.  Our topic of the 50 states seems to help to. We will keep up the hard work.

Book it -  Next week is the end of the month.  Please be sure to sign your student's book it calendars so they can turn them in.  I will not accept them with out a parent signature.  I can't wait to see how much some of them have been reading.  I have not read as much this month as I normally do. Remember they need to turn it in even if they didn't meet the goal.  I will give a prize at end for those who turned in all 6 calendars even though they did not meet the goal.  I just want to track their minutes.  There is a great poster in the hallway for book fair showing the correlation of reading so many minutes per day and standardized test scores!  After reading that, you may want to have more free reading happen in your household.  To me it made sense.  Check it out.

Server Training -  There will be a server training for those Catholic students in 3-4-5 grades on November 3rd and 4th after mass.  We are really needing servers at this level so if you have a child that is able please be sure to have them attend one of the training sessions.  Thank you.

Conferences -  Reminder conferences are next week!  Be sure to sign up for a time to meet with me.  Last I looked I had many signed up but was still looking for a few more.  I will remind your student if you still need to sign up.  Thank you!   I look forward to meeting with you. 

Halloween Activities -  We will be painting pumpkins here at school one day.  The pumpkins are brought in by Taylor's family.  I have painting shirts here all ready so it will protect them from paint on clothing.  This will just be a fun "extra" art activity for us to do.  On Wednesday, we will have Halloween activities put on by the Civics Club.  We will have a small Halloween party in our classroom before with a snack and drinks. It will be an absolute crazy week but we will get through it!  I look forward to having fun with the kids. 

I hope all of you have a great weekend!  I look to have a nice relaxing one.  Next week will be crazy with Halloween activities!  This is the reason I plan to relax and enjoy the weekend!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I hope all of you are enjoying the sunshine.  I know I am!  It was so nice to be out a recess with the kids with the sun!  Conferences are quickly approaching.  They are two week from today.  I have emailed out a sign-up so that you can sign up for a time to meet with me. I sent it to the emails that you provided the school. I also put it out on our 4th grade Facebook page.  Please find the link and sign up.  I have a large gap from 4:20 to 6:00 that I am not available.  From 5:00 - 6:00 we have supper hour and I have my own daughter's conference at 4:45 at the High School.  I need to drive out there for that.  There is more than enough time slots left over but I apologize if these times are ones you were looking forward to signing up for. Here is the link in case anyone has not seen it yet. 

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-4thgrade5

Language Arts -  This week in Language Arts we are reading a story called Coming Disasters: Questioning Movies.  This story talks about some of the special effects that movies contain.  It also points out the "unrealistic events" that take place in movies.  One example is, when a parent loses a job, they still live in big gorgeous homes and drive brand new vehicles.  They also point out severe car crashes where the car flips in the air and catches fire and people walk or run away form those accidents.  The last one is when there is fight scenes going on and women are wearing high heels while fighting bad guys.  These are all things that would have different outcomes in real life.  We also read a short article on the different kinds of special effects out there and concentrated on how they created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park. We reviewed verb tenses this week.  We talked about the three kinds: past, present and future. We also talked about when a sentence has two verbs in it we have to keep the tenses the same.  If the sentence is a past tense sentence then both verbs should be past tense.  Our vocabulary strategy this week was on Greek and Latin word parts.  We talked about phon, graph, tele, photo, auto.  We looked at their meanings and then looked at words that contained these word parts.  They will need to study their vocabulary packets and spelling words for tomorrow.

Math -  We have spent the last week working on multiplication comparisons.  We learned how to write an equation from a comparison sentence and we learned how to draw a model to match.  After everyone mastered this skill we moved on to word problems that contained a multiplication comparison.  We then spent two days figuring out word problems using our new strategy.  When I was confident that the students had the hang of it, I assigned the worksheet to go along with it.  That happened today.  I reviewed the strategy using problems they had worked on their own and them allowed them time to work on the worksheet in class so that if they had questions they could ask.  Most of them completed the worksheet.  I feel they all are understanding this concept and how to work these problems.  Tomorrow we will go to the Food Pantry to help unload the truck so we will not start the third lesson until Monday.  That lesson will be over multiplying tens, hundreds and thousands.  

Social Studies -  We have started a lesson on the Northeast region.  Our focus has been vocabulary words so far.  We had an introduction to the first lesson yesterday and began reading it today.  They learned how important Niagara Falls is to the state of New York.  Not only is the tourism important because the falls are so beautiful, but there are hydropower plants on the Niagara River that supply most of the state of New York with electricity.  We will move on to talk about mountain ranges in the region.  After lesson 1 we will put our first Northeast state into the Interactive notebooks and I will begin teaching them the states and Capitals song.  

Muffins with Mom -  Thanks to all the moms that attended this morning's event.  It was fun for all. It is so great to have a packed gym full of loving moms having breakfast.  I am sure your child appreciates you coming also.

Book Reports-  Remember that all book reports are due by Friday, November 16th.  I have some students that are done with their book and beginning their reports and I still have some students reading their books.  Please just check with them on where they are.  They have everything they need in their expanded files.  If they have lost things let me know so I can get them more copies.  I just want to be sure all students are working on this.  I check with them here but just hoping you are doing the same at home.  They are welcome to bring their boxes to school and work on them here if they would want.

I hope all of you have a great weekend. 

God Bless, 

Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!   Hello welcome to the cold! I am thinking we are actually having a Fall!   I am packing up by capris and pulling out the sweaters!  I am happy to have Fall for once.  Normally we skip it.  We are back to a pretty normal week this week but so far I have had one student absent every day this week.  All different kids!  I hope tomorrow is perfect attendance!  We will see!  

Language Arts -  This week we are reading the story "Invasion From Mars".  This is a piece out of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.  In 1938, since they had no TV, radio shows read books or even acted books out over the radio.  On October 30, 1938, they were acting out this section on the radio.  If you didn't know that it was a radio show, you would be terrified hearing it.  Many Americans tuned in after is started and it caused panic. You can pull it up on Youtube.  Today I will let the kids listen to it.  We are working on Verbs in grammar.  We learned about action verbs, helping verbs and linking verbs.  Our vocabulary strategy focus was on suffixes -y, and -ous.  Please remember to study the vocabulary words (yellow packet) tonight and spelling words for the post test.

Math - We have begun chapter 2.  The first couple of lessons are about multiplication comparisons.  We have covered the first lesson.  We will be practicing more of it today and they will then do their worksheet.  This is pretty easy to understand but lesson 2 when I put this into practice with word problems it tends to get a little more difficult or tedious.  This is one strategy to working word problems that are making comparisons.  I will drill this into them and they will be able to work these problems well.  This whole chapter is focusing on multiplication.  Any fact work you can do at home will be great!  Anytime you can do flashcards or find a computer game drilling basic facts, that would be fabulous.  

Social Studies - We are learning this week how to put items in our Interactive notebooks.  All the kids were to have a composition book.  This composition book is what we use for their interactive notebooks.  We started this week with the United States.  We made a book on important facts like: largest city, national bird, national nickname, national flower, capital city, and when it was established.  We also colored the US Flag.  Tomorrow we will glue all these things into our notebook.  This is a routine thing we will do with all 50 states throughout the year.  At the end of the year they will have a notebook with facts and information about all 50 states.  It's a pretty cool thing for them to have.  We will begin digging into the Northeast Region next week.  We begin by talking about some natural resources the it has.

The students are doing a great job reading their book report books at school.  I feel like most are keeping track of their minutes for book it.  I can't believe we are almost mid way through October.  In a teacher's perspective the end of the year is close.  Once we hit Halloween, it is conferences, then Thanksgiving and then Christmas.  We have a lot of breaks in there and days off from school.  It always seems to go very fast!  Weather is changing please be sure your child dresses appropriately.  I know they can still wear shorts BUT they will be going to recess and freeing when the highs for the day are lower 40's.   I hope everyone has a great weekend!  

God Bless, 
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
      Happy Thursday!  I am "out of the office" today.  Ms. Surma and I are taking a class.  It is called Tier two.  It is over our FAST testing that we are doing in our classrooms.  We will have to attend classes 3 different times this year.  I am also going to be attending a different class on the 16th and 30th of this month.  It is a classroom teaching strategies.  I am looking forward to this one.  I know a couple people who have taken it and really liked it.  It gives you ways to keep the kids engaged in their learning.   I hate being gone from my class but I feel it will definitely be beneficial.  We as teachers are still constantly learning and gaining information to help us, help our students learn and be able to take ownership in their own learning.   It is kind of exciting!  I am looking forward to it.  I am not looking forward to the extra planning it takes to be gone though.

Language Arts - This week has been a Unit Test week!!!  There are advantages to this week and disadvantages.  The advantages are no spelling test, no homework, no daily lessons, more reading time to count reading minutes and more read aloud.  These are all great things.  The disadvantage is you have to take a very large test consisting of about 55 problems and several stories to read.  These assessments are not easy!  It also tells me how well they are retaining material.  I use these results to help me see what strategies tended to work better with the kids and how well they are reading and comprehending.  Again these assessments are quite challenging.  If the student rushes through the test and doesn't take their time they will do poorly.  Usually after the first unit test I can share the results with the students and have them ask themselves if you did poorly, did you rush?  Usually lots of them end up getting an idea that if they take their time and work slowly being sure to read everything, they will do better.  It is a larger lesson learned!  We will have another Unit test in 5 weeks!

Math - We finished our first chapter in Math this week. The students are working on taking a math test.  They started it on Wednesday and will finish it Thursday.  I am working with them on taking their time and proving their answers.  They take the test online but have a paper test to show their work or prove their answer on.  They are required to show work on any problem that needs it.  I only allowed them to complete half the test on Wednesday and the other on Thursday.  Some didn't even finish the first half, which is fine, it means they didn't rush.  Others did finish the first half which could mean they total understand all the problems.  If the test is not finished we will spend Friday finishing up.  After we wrap things up with the test we will then begin chapter 2!

Social Studies -  The students corrected their tests on Wednesday.  I will look at those corrections and give a final score.  I will then send the tests home with the students to have signed by a parent and returned.  The students will be working on map skills on and off this year.  They will start with the first map skills assignment on Thursday.  It will just brush up their knowledge of the kinds of maps that are out there and what information they give.  We will then work with all those kinds of maps throughout the year.  We will also begin working on the Northeast Region.  We will begin learning how to put together our interactive notebooks and learn our states and capitals song.  Again that can be purchased at Itunes.  It is by Macho Nacho.  I like this part, we are really getting down to business now! 

Book Reports-  I assigned the first book report on Wednesday.  The report is not due until November 16th.  The students have plenty of time to read a book and complete the report.  This is meant to be fun for the students not stressful.  I try to talk to the kids about challenging themselves and enjoying a book then using their creativity to put together something that shows what you read.  They all we be completing a cereal box book report.  You will see all the directions in their expanded file.  I gave them a whole packet on things and went over them in full.  The students were asking questions as we went along.  I have given them some rules about the books they choose to read. Mainly about book size and challenging themselves.  I shared  my book blog that I have with them.  I showed them that after I read a book I write a small article about what I thought of the book. I told them I am careful not to give away anything from the book that would ruin it.  I pulled up my blog and shared the book Before We Were Yours with them. So I said I kind of write a report about the books I read when I am done.  Some were very impressed.  I am trying to show them that I do because I want to not because I have to. Again trying to make it a positive experience.  Some are very excited about it!

Looks like we have a rainy weekend ahead of us!  Probably more than anyone wants.  My apologies to all the farming families out there who will have a halt put into their harvesting plans. I don't mind the Fall temps I could just do without the rain.  It makes it colder.  I will once again be luck enough to have all 3 kids under my roof for the weekend.  God is good!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I hope you are all having a great perfect Fall week.  I love this cool weather.  It is perfect Fall weather.  I am hoping we have a Fall this year.  Seems we go from Summer to Winter and skip it completely.  Try to pay attention to the weather and send your child with appropriate clothing.  I am referring to jackets or sweatshirts.  Our room is hard to get at a certain temperature. Sometimes we are chilly and sometimes it seems warm.  I try to keep in comfortable but everyone has their own temperature gauge.  Sometimes at noon recess it is not heated up enough and some need a light jacket to wear.  I keep a fleece at school for this reason.  Thank you!

Language Arts - This week we read a story called Stormalong.  It is a Tall Tale about a sailor.  It is a story that has been passed down for many years about people living a seafaring life.  This is not a tale we commonly hear because of where we live.  The story is fun to hear the first time but not so much on the 2nd and 3rd.  I think the students become a little bored with it.  In grammar we are talking about capitalization.  We have worked on capitalizing historical events and documents, titles of stories or books, languages, Nationalities, and people's names.  This is an easy yet important week of grammar.  A lot of the students don't even remember to capitalize the first letter in a sentence so learning all these other rules is hard to remember.  Our vocabulary strategy this week was on reference sources.  We were reviewing using a dictionary.  The students use an online Thesaurus every week when doing their vocabulary packets.  It is also considered reference materials.  Next week we will take our first Unit test.  I break the test into 3 parts.  We w) time. I will begin a new read aloud book, one that I have not read before so I can model how I read a book and what goes on in my head as I am reading to help me comprehend. I will also Assign their first book report to them.  We will go over the directions thoroughly in class.  The students will have until the end of this Trimester to complete the book report.  I do have some rules on what kinds of books to read.  No graphic novels.  Must be a chapter book.  It can have pictures but there shouldn't be a ton of pictures in the book. Due to the Unit test there is no spelling test next week!  They get a week free of spelling words!  I like Unit testing week because we do a lot of free reading.

Math - We are finishing up chapter 1.  We have practiced adding large numbers and subtracting larger numbers.  We will end the week going over some word problems.  Next week we will do the review in the book and take our test. It looks to be Tuesday or Wednesday that we will test over chapter 1.  We will then begin chapter 2.  The chapter 1 test is done online.  I will send a sheet home that will show their scores, how they did on the benchmarks that were covered.  We cover about 4 benchmarks in this chapter.  Only. 2 of those I am required to report on, which means you will see them on the report card.  The other two I don't but I still let you now how they do with them.  

Social Studies -  We are finishing up our chapter this week.  On Friday the students will be completing  a study guide.  We will check it on Monday and take the Test on Tuesday.  We will then begin our journey through the regions of the United States. We start in the Northeast Region.  We will focus on the states in that region learning their location, what their flag looks like, and keeping our interactive notebooks.  This will be a new experience that will take some time to learn.  Once we are through the first couple of states it becomes much easier for them and they do it quickly.  We will be using our chromebooks more and doing a lot of cutting and pasting.  The students usually end up enjoying their notebooks.  They have facts about all 50 states in it by the end of the year.  We will also be learning the capitals of each state.  I use a States and Capitals song to help us memorize them.  It is found on Youtube and can also be downloaded from itunes. It is called States and Capitals song by Macho Nacho.  The Youtube version is pretty cool because they pinpoint each state and where it's capital is as the song is being sung.  I will give the students a copy of the lyrics so they can sing along.

Book It -  Book It starts in October.  I will send a calendar home with the kids to keep track of the minutes they read at home.  There is a goal at the top of the page.  Each month has a different goal.  We do this reading challenge through March.  I will also keep track of my reading time.  I am an avid reader and belong to a book club so I read a lot.  I challenge the students each year.  If there is anyone that can beat my total number of minutes at the end of the 6 months, I will reward them with a prize.  I give prizes and awards to the 3 that have read the most minutes at the end of the 6 months. I ask that all students turn in their calendars even if they do not meet the goal.  They still have a chance to win even if they don't meet the goal every time. Our goals are as follows:  October 350, November 400, December 450, January 500, February 550, and March 600.  This ranges from 12 minutes a day to like 18-20 minutes a day.  I feel these are not unreasonable numbers for the students to reach.  We start slow and work our way up to more!  Because of my love for reading I will talk about this a lot.  I have also found a site that gives the kids challenges for the month on what kinds of books to read. I hand those out also.  The website is called Brightly.  It is a great site for books!  It gives great grade appropriate books. I am in love with this site and I have purchased 4 books from it in the first two weeks I found it.  I am restraining myself now!  It is worth looking at if your child struggles to choose books of interest.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  I have nothing planned which is nice, yet it is more fun if I have something to do.  I think housecleaning will be one of my activities.  That's not a fun one though. Maybe a trip to Ames should be on my agenda!  I could do some Christmas shopping. Yes I am thinking of that all ready!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!   It is Homecoming week!  The kids are excited about the early out and parade on Friday.  They are also talking about the game.  Please remember your  student is to sit with you or in the student section at the game.  They are monitoring the kids.  They also may ask your child to not return to any future games if they are constantly running around.  The student section is on the north end of bleachers.  These kids are to sit towards the top.  the High School students are along the bottom then the middle school and then elementary students.  I would hate to have anyone asked to leave!  

Friday, September 21 -  We have an early out!  It is earlier than normal.  We will be putting kids on the buses at 12:30 and getting them moving.  So the carline bell will be ringing about 12:35 or 12:40. Please note this change.  The Parade starts at 1:30 this year.  If your child is riding on the float make sure you have turned the permission form in and make sure they get where they need to be for the float.  They will not be getting on at St. Malachy school.  If your child is riding they received a paper today explaining where to go.  Students must have permission form to ride.  Have a fun and safe Homecoming!!

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a story called The Power of W.O.W.  This story is actually a drama or play.  It is about a bookmobile in Dallas, Texas that lost its funding and cannot continue to bring books to a neighborhood that is too far away from the library.  The kids in the neighborhood decide to raise money to help save the bookmobile, which they call Words on Wheels or W.O.W.  I teaches the kids that when a community pulls together to help they can get things done.  It is a "feel good" or inspirational story really.  The kids enjoy it because it is written as a play and has parts for them to read.  We are working on sentences in grammar.  We are talking about sentence fragments, run-on sentences and complete sentences.  The vocabulary strategy we covered was on the prefixes non- and mis-.  We will be taking our end of the week test tomorrow and spelling post test.  Please check with your student to be sure they are studying their yellow vocabulary packet.  Those 5 words are the ones they will be assessed over.  

Math -  This week in math we finished talking about rounding numbers and began learning about renaming numbers.  The renaming of numbers can be difficult.  It is like taking the number 1,800 and saying 18 hundreds, or saying that 150 is 15 tens.  When you have a number in the hundred thousands you can say it 5 different ways using all levels of place value.  We will use this skill later in the year when learning multiplication so it is important to get now.  The kids have had a busy week doing work in this subject.  We will move next week into adding and subtracting larger whole numbers.  These are quick one day lessons because this is review for the students.  We end the chapter with problem-solving skills.  After that we will be looking at reviewing for our first test.  It will not be next week but probably the week after for sure.

Social Studies -  This week the students have been working on making posters on the Bill of Rights.  We have been learning about government and we will move on to learning what our rights and responsibilities are as citizens and I feel having an idea what the Bill of Rights are and how important they are will help them understand.  The posters will be displayed in our hallway.  I plan on them sharing their posters tomorrow with the class.  They were given partners and an amendment to cover. Some groups had 2 amendments.  It is fun to hear them talk about them and ask questions about what they are saying and what they mean.  Some are hard to explain what that actually means to them.

We will focus on finishing on sharing posters and completing language arts tomorrow.  It will be a very short day due to our 12:30 dismissal.  It makes it a crazy day!  Tomorrow we will most likely have a pep rally at some time also.  It is very busy!  Please have your students wear their panther gear tomorrow!  Let's show our community pride by wearing read and black!!!

Have a great weekend!  I will be busy with homecoming activities!  I also have my oldest two coming home to help their sister prepare for the dance.  I love having all my kids under one roof!  Especially in light of the tragic loss of the student at Iowa State.  That hits a little close to home so I will be happy to hug my kids!  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I hope all of you are having a great week!  Sounds like this could be an exciting Balloon Day weekend!  Weather looks to be cooperative for the the balloons to go up and 33 are coming to Creston.  I do enjoy this weekend.  The parade is always fun and then getting to see balloons in the air is great.  The kids drew balloon pictures this week in Art and they will hang in the hall for all to see. It is like we have our own balloon weekend in the hall. Students had a rough couple days Monday and Tuesday.  They were full days with learning and work for them to complete.  I tried to explain that there will be days periodically that have more homework than normal and days that have barely any.  It is just the way things progress. I try very hard to make the plans in each subject work with one another but sometimes it just doesn't work.  I have given away some late slips this week.  Again, they will settle in and get used to the routine of what is expected and they will get better at using their time wisely in study hall.  The hardest part is wanting to visit with friends during study hall when they should be getting their work done so they have no homework.  Most of the time students should have no homework because I try to make sure they have just enough to get done in the time they have here.  Again, some days it may not work.  I am not worried about any of the kids, they will catch on.  They may serve a detention or two for late work, but they will catch on.  If some are really struggling we will find ways to help make them more successful.  I am not here to watch them fail.  We will find a way to help them.

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a story called My Librarian is a Camel.  Sounds funny, right?  Well, it is an informational article about areas in the world where kids do not have access to books.  It talks about different countries and how books arrive for kids.  Some countries it is via mail, some a camel, some a boat, an elephant, or a bus.  The kids only have access at certain times.  I tried to show how blessed they are to have a bookshelf full of books in classroom, a school library and a public library to access books anytime. I also talked about accessing books online.  It is an interesting story the first time it is read but then they lose interest in it.  Which makes it hard to test on Friday.  I try to point out how important it is to understand for Friday.  But I will not surprised if scores tend to drop a little on Friday.  In grammar we are learning about Quotation Marks and how to write sentences with direct quotes in them.  We talked about using context when we  don't understand a word or phrase.  Please remember we have an end of week assessment tomorrow so they should look over their vocabulary words and also spelling for the post test.

Math -  We have learned about comparing and ordering numbers this week and are now working on rounding.  Rounding is something they all know and when doing it as a class they show me they can do it BUT when I turn them loose on homework it's like they forget how.  I have been telling them this and they just laugh at me.  We will see how they do.  In 4th grade the numbers get bigger and how we ask them to round gets confusing for them.  We might have a number in the hundred thousands but you are only asked to round to the nearest ten.  There are 4 other numbers in front of the tens so it can get confusing.  We will end the week with this. 

Social Studies -  We are beginning to discuss our government.  We are learning there are 3 levels: local, state, national.  We are learning it is made up of 3 branches: Legislative, executive, and judicial.  We are focusing on what each branches purpose is and I compare that at every level.  I try to talk about how it works at each level.  This is all the further we go with government.  They have learned about being a democracy and a republic.  We are talking about how important it is to vote.  We will move on to discuss the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen of the US.  This is a pretty heavy chapter that is full of important things about our country, yet, I feel only skimming the surface.  The information I am giving them seems overwhelming to them! 

I hope all of you have had a chance to sign up for our Facebook page.  Again it is called St. Malachy Fantastic Fourth Grade.  I try to look at least once a week to see if anyone has asked to join.  I need to look yet this week.  I hope everyone has a great weekend and has a opportunity to go see the balloons fly! 

Please know if you have questions or concerns you can contact me at school before or after school and during my prep period which is 8:20-8:50.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I hope everyone is having a good short week!  Short weeks are good and bad for me.  Good, because I love the extra day at home, but bad, because it make for more work at school.  Again, we are still adjusting to our schedules and routines.  The whole month will still be a learning process.  Remember we all adjust at a different rate.  All the students will get there, I promise.  Patience is key.  I am very happy at where all of them are right now.  Great job 4th graders!!!

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a biography on Martin Luther King, Jr called My Brother Martin.  It is written by his sister. It shares with us what childhood was like for his family and what events led him to be fight for Civil Rights.  The kids seemed to enjoy this story.  We have been working on 4 kinds of sentences in grammar.  The four are declarative (telling statement), interrogative (asks a question), imperative (a command) and exclamatory ( statement said using strong feeling).  They have had this lesson for at least 2 years and I know will have it again next year.   I remember learning about this but not till I was a Freshman in High School!  I told the kids this to make them feel like they were big stuff!  Some of them smiled and sat up a little straighter.  The vocabulary strategy we worked on was prefixes ( in, im, il, and ir).  We worked with some words that contain these prefixes and discussed how it changes the meaning of the word.   The target skill this week is Author's Purpose.  We talked a lot about those purposes.  Ask your child if they can tell you why author's write things.  Remember tomorrow is our spelling post test and end of week test. 

Math -  This chapter in math is all about place value.  This chapter should be a bit of a review.  Only thing new is I teach them place value up to the hundred millions.  The first two lessons are talking about place value, what a period is in math, the value of digits in a number, reading numbers correctly, and the three ways which we can write numbers.  Those three ways are standard form, word form, and expanded form.  This is a lot of information in 2 lessons.  We will finish the week with three forms of writing numbers.  It's a little amazing how much information is in these two lessons and how long it takes us to get through them.  I want you to know I am a teacher that won't leave a lesson unless I feel like everyone is really understanding the concept.  Sometimes we spend a short time on certain lessons and sometimes we spend a long time.  Just depends on the group of kids and how well they learn new concepts.  Each thing we learn is important to something else we will learn down the road so we can't skip things or move on because we are frustrated. 

Social Studies -  We learned how to do vocabulary words this week.  I do vocabulary several different ways.  We may make flash cards one week. we may just put them in our notebooks with definitions one week or we may work with them in something similar to a Frayer Model.  This is where they define the word, put it in a sentence, give me an example and a non-example of the word.  This one is harder but you also learn a lot more about the word because you have had to dig deeper with its meaning.  This is on strategy I am working on with them for this chapter.  We are also working hard on cooperative learning where the students are more engaged with one another then with just me.  I am doing this in all classes but this one is the one I do it in the most this time of year.  They learn to work together and learn from each other more than just listening to me. It also allows them more time to share out their ideas and thoughts with each other.

I hope all of you are signing up for my Facebook page.  Remember it is called St. Malachy Fantastic Fourth Grade.  I just accepted some people on there today.  Please sign up so you can see any photos I post about things going on in our classroom.  I also want to say thank you for sharing your precious child with me this year.  I am all ready enjoying all of the students.  I appreciate you putting your trust  in me to care for them each day.  Tomorrow is Spirit day!  We combine this with CyHawk Day!  Wear your favorite Iowa team tomorrow.  Can't wait to take pics of us supporting our favorite team. 

GO CYCLONES!!!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Hello!!  Welcome to 4th grade!!!
    I am so excited to get a new year started!!  My class is always an adjustment.  We will work hard to get used to the routines and expectations of 4th grade.  I feel like such a meanie sometimes.  Trying to get used to a new schedule and new class is sometimes a very slow process.  The schedule this year is very different from what I have ever had in the past.  I actually am enjoying it but I am still trying to get used to it.  I feel like we are coming and going a lot.  I am very happy to be teaching your children this year.   All ready I feel like they are a great group of kids.  They have two new classmates and I feel like they have done an excellent job of welcoming them and making them feel comfortable.  Kudos to the kids!!

Facebook -  I have a Facebook page called St. Malachy Fantastic 4th Grade.  You can go on and like the page.  I have a first day of school picture on there.  I have to accept you to the page so the only ones seeing this page are parents unless you let me know a grandparent would like to see the page.  We keep the page private otherwise.  Last year's parents also have access.  Please go on and request to like it.  I will put different things on here that we are doing or just some pics of the kids during different activities.  Just another way for you to see what we are doing in 4th grade. 

Language Arts -  The story we are reading this week is called Because of Winn-Dixie.  It is a chapter book written by Kate DiCamillo.  This story has been made into a movie also which is on Netflix right now.  I hope to show it to the kids today.  It is a fun story about moving to a new town, not having any friends, making friends with a dog and the librarian.  It is funny how her and the librarian become friends!  We are working on story structure, so character, setting, and plot and also summarizing.  The students will actually work on summarizing each week with every story.  In grammar we are refreshing our memories on sentences, subjects, predicates, and nouns.  They will take an end of the week test on Friday along with a post test in spelling! 

Math -  This week in math we have taken a Chapter 1 pretest to see what the kids all ready know about Place Value.  This took a couple days to complete.  I take all my math tests online in the same place they take their Language Arts tests.  We have also completed the pre-pages for chapter 1.  These pages just refresh the kids memory on topics we will be discussing in this chapter.  Today I plan to start lesson one with them.

Social Studies-  We are digging right into the book this week.  Our whole year will be spent learning about the United States.  We will learn all 50 states, where they are on the map and their capitals.  We will learn them a region at a time.  We will learn about a Native American tribe who settled the region, we will learn about resources in the region, we will learn about climate, and what the regions offer today. The students will have an interactive notebook that we will work on that will have all 50 states in them and some facts about the states.  They will color the state's flag too.  It is a fun way to walk away from 4th grade with a book to keep about the states.  Right now the first few lessons are on the United States as a whole.  We are talking about landforms and then we will move on to discuss our government.  We just skim the surface about that.  We discuss the three levels and three branches and what the purpose of each branch is and what they do. It will be a fun yet very busy year for the students! 

There is a lot of adjusting for kids to do this year.  Organization is the key to be successful.  I will help them get there.  I know the first couple months seem very stressful sometimes but the students will catch  on and it will be easy for them.  We all just need to patient and help the students learn the new routine and expectations.  We work on all of it everyday.  Some need a little more help then others and this is expected.  I am still working on figuring all of them out also.  I will be gone tomorrow.  I know, I know, jeez, all ready!  My daughter is having all 4 wisdom teeth pulled and I have to drive her there and she can't be alone so that's my mom job.  Mr. Dick Bergstrom will be with the kids tomorrow.  I will plan the day just like I was here.  I hope everyone has a great long weekend with whatever you do.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels