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