Happy Thursday!! What crazy weather we are having. This does not make for a fun Halloween and Trick or Treating. I remember several Halloweens taking my own kids out and their costumes were covered by winter coats. A lot of the time I would have chili at home in the crockpot waiting for us. If the kids want to find me I will be at my mom's handing out candy. My neighborhood is not popular at all. My mom is in a very heavily trafficked area. The address is 1111 Hillcrest Drive. Once you have seen me you can go up and down the street and around the block and get lots of good candy. I hope to get to see all of you.
Conferences! Let's begin with the most important item at hand. Here is the link to my conference schedule. Please be sure you are signed up to meet with me. I am very anxious to talk to you about your child. I was able to make my conference for my high school daughter on Wednesday night so it didn't take away from my schedule.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-fall
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called "Coming Distractions, Questioning Movies". This taught us some of the tricks movies use to keep us entertained. We learned a little about special effects and just some simple tricks to keep us watching. This story is interesting to read and discuss the first time but I think they get bored with it the next couple of times they read it. In grammar we are talking about verb tenses. The three tenses are past, present and future tense. We are also learning about past and present participle. The vocabulary skill this week was on Greek and Latin word parts. We looked at phon (sound), photo ( light), graph (write or recording), auto (self), and tele ( far or distant). Each word is connected with the word in parenthesis. I know this is an item that is tested in the next Unit test. I told the students this as I was teaching it. I think I pulled a lot of their attention with that statement. Remember to have your child study their spelling words and their vocab packet.
Math - We are moving along in our chapter. They have learned this week to estimate products. I will say they did not do a very good job of following directions. Several did not show all their work. In math at our level and because we are just learning, they have to show their work on everything we do. This shows me what they are thinking in their head. I can't just guess that they are doing in correctly. I also assume they may have used a calculator to do the work. If they do work on a separate piece of paper, which is fine, they need to staple that paper onto the back of their worksheet. Then I can look over their work and understand what they were thinking. I stressed they have to show, I even make the work worth points, so if they don't show it they miss points. I warn them about this all the time. We re learning the distributive property now. This is a strategy that you will go, "why are they learning it". They will need to know this strategy for 5th grade and in high school when they hit algebra. We get a jump on it in 4th grade. I would have been a much better math student if I would have learned these things earlier. If your child is having troubles at home please just bring them to school the next day by 7:45 and I can help them. I have talked to the kids about this opportunity. I have all ready had some take advantage of it.
Social Studies- We are working on putting some states into our interactive notebooks this week. They have added Connecticut so far. Today I will have them work on Massachusetts. I am trying to stress to them about neatness. This is a lot of coloring and some just want to color very sloppily. I also have tried to preach about capitalization. It is very important they write things the correct way including capitalizing things that need it. They have to find the 2 letter postal abbreviation and those are 2 capital letters. Some didn't capitalize. I made the erase and redo. I know I have been saying it for week but the song is coming. Believe me, once I introduce that song they will probably drive you crazy with it. I apologize now.
All Saints Day - Tomorrow is All Saints Day, we will be having Mass. The students need to come dressed up for Mass. We did not have mass on Wednesday due to this. All Saints is a day of Holy Obligation that is why we changed mass. That means all Catholics are to attend a service that day.
Book It October Calendars- These calendars with their minutes is due on Monday, November 4th. They must have a parent signature on the calendars also. I will accept calendars after the 4th but they will not be awarded a prize. I would like all calendars handed whether they meant the goal or not. I like to keep track of whatever minutes they read.
Reminder: November 7th is an early out due to Parent-Teacher Conferences. Friday November 8th there will be No School! Enjoy the long weekend.
I can't believe it is time for conferences all ready. The rest of the year will fly by. Conferences lead to Thanksgiving Break then a very short time until Christmas Break. It will all go by very quickly. It just seems crazy that we are almost halfway through the year all ready. I am enjoying working with your children and learning a lot about each one of them. Since I am meeting with you next week to discuss your child, I will not be creating a blog for next week. I may send out some last minute reminders on ClassTag but there will be no blog next week.
Happy Halloween!
Have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
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