Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  I hope all of you are enjoying your time outside!  I had several of you respond to my last week's blog of how true it is that kids are busy due to baseball and other activities.  They also agreed that kids are tired.  I know there is not much we can do but it really does affect them at school.  Try very hard to get them to bed, and also to get homework done before the game so that when they get home they are not stressing about it.   We are going to continue to work hard for the next two weeks.  I plan on working right up to the last day.  I want them to get all they need and more before they head to 5th grade.  I have really enjoyed my year with them and thank you for sharing your kids with me.  

Language Arts -  We are working on week 26 story which is called The Girl Who Loved Spiders.  It is a cute little story about a boy who hates them and a girl who loves them.  The fun part is the kids think that is backwards.  I agreed with them.  We have read the story but will only read it twice this week due to the field trip. We will still have our end of week test tomorrow also.  We have worked on some grammar dealing with comparative and superlative adjectives.  We have also had spelling words.  Tomorrow we will also have a spelling post test as normal.  We will also cover a story next week doing the same things.  This will be week 28. I tried to pick the most interesting stories out of this last unit to cover.  I hope to show them the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during the last week of school and do a compare and contrast activity with them over the book and the movie. That is my plan for the last week.  It will be fun.  I may even get popcorn from the theater to eat during the movie.  Definitely getting exciting getting down to the last day.  That last week I also plan on giving out prizes for the Book It we did this year.  I didn't have many follow through with participation but I will reward those who did for sure!  They deserve it!

Math - We are finishing up chapter 4.  It is looking like a test on Tuesday of next week for Math.  This will be our last chapter test.  We will move on into chapter 5 and work on it up until the last day, but we will not pretest or post test over it.  I will make sure they understand some important concepts for 5th grade.  The kids are excited thinking they will be taking their last math test for the year!  We are finishing up a lesson on word problems today and doing a worksheet.  They will review tomorrow, check it Monday and test on Tuesday!

Social Studies-  I am covering the Southwest with them more quickly than normal.  We will be taking a map test tomorrow over the Southwest. I told the kids I expect perfect papers because there is only 4 states!! They will be able to study quickly for it.  I will give them the maps today to study.  This will be the only map test on the Southwest because it is so little.  I will then give out the West so they can get started looking it over.  We will start covering that region next week.  There are really only 3 lessons in the two chapters that I feel are of a lot of importance.  I will make sure they get those chapters.  The final map test over all 50 states will be May 31st.  I plan this so far in advance so students have the opportunity to start working on all 50. There is a site online the kids are using to study! It is a good one and highly recommend they start doing it at home.  It is very helpful. If they don't know it, have them ask at school.  Lots of kids are doing it.

I will only be doing one more blog next week then I will blog only if there are things I need to tell you.  Next week's will be full of information about that last week of school.  I still can't believe it is here!!  I hope you are ready for it.  I think the best part is watching the building go up and knowing when we return it will be close to complete!  Seeing the safe room is awesome!  I am so happy we will have a safe place to go!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels