Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  Thank you all very much for meeting with me last week.  I appreciate our "short" time together talking about your child.  I am always happy to share the things we are doing.  The rest of this year will go quickly from here on out.  Before we know it Thanksgiving will be here and then Christmas.  I plan to work them very hard  over this weeks.  I do try to keep the homework down though.  My goal is not to overwhelm them.  This is also an exciting time of year, and I want to be able to teach yet enjoy our time together.  This month is prayer I am having the students say things they are thankful for each day.  I told them yesterday I was thankful for them and thankful that I am able to teach them this year.  I think some of them were surprised by this statement.  I really do enjoy all the kids in this room.   I appreciate you sharing them with me.

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a really fun story called Dear Mr. Winston.  The story is written as a letter.  A girl named Cara is suppose to be writing an apology to the public librarian.  She took a snake in the library in a box to try and look in a reference book to figure out what kind of a snake it is.  The librarian looked in the box and was deathly afraid of snakes.  He passed out and was taken away by ambulance.  Her apology letter is funny because as she apologizes she also points out why it was not entirely her fault.  The kids really like this story.  We are working on compound and complex sentences this week in grammar.  We also are working on antonyms.  The antonyms should just be a review because we use them every week in our vocabulary packet.  I again was sure to cover the comprehension questions from the test while we covered the story together.  Tomorrow we will have our spelling post test and end of the week test.  Make sure your student studies their yellow packet of vocabulary tonight.  

Math - We worked on multiplication facts, and I taught them a new strategy for multiplying using expanded form.  I really pumped this strategy up to them.  I love this one.  It is easy and really shows how multiplication works.  They seemed excited about it because they thought it was easy.  I can't wait to see how they did today on their work. I hope they do well so I can keep the excitement going.  It is a fun lesson to teach watching the realization of how easy it is in on their faces.  We will be learning a couple more strategies that  are pretty easy and fun to use this chapter also.

Social Studies -  We are working on the next lesson on resources of the Northeast region.  They learned about grapes and cranberries coming from here.  They were shocked when they learned there is 1,000 total cranberry bogs in the United States and 500 of them are in Massachusetts!  We also talked about why New York was a great place for grapes to grow. I also discussed grapes being grown around here at wineries. They also learned today about maple syrup in Vermont, we talked a little bit about the process it goes through to become the syrup on the store shelves.  Also, there are minerals in the region.  Quarries are there, granite is one specific quarry.  New Hampshire's nickname is the Granite State because they have granite quarries there.  We will be doing a study guide and taking a test next week over chapter 4.

Spirit Day - Tomorrow is a Spirit Day!  You can pay $1.00 to wear sweats or a hat.  Tomorrow we go to the Food Pantry so it might be a good day to wear sweats!!!

Resident Artist

St. Malachy School has a resident artist coming the week of November 18th. She and her husband are going to create a 3D art mural for our hallway made from small projects the students create. We need some supplies. Can you help?

*Repurpose your unwanted sewing/craft materials for little weavings, gods eyes, and bead wraps we will create for the collaborative wall mural. We need a variety of materials in a rainbow of colors.

*cloth (that can be cut in at least 12” x 1" strips)

*yarn

*pipe cleaners

*thin colored plastic coated wire

*buttons

*beads

The Fourth grade will be with the artist on Wednesday around 11:00.  This is going to be so cool!

If you are looking for something to do this weekend.  The High School Music Department will be putting on the musical Brigadoon. They will perform Friday  and Saturday night at 7:00P.M. and a Sunday matinee at 2:00P.M.  

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Don't forget the St. Malachy Vendor Fair is going on this weekend.  Come find some Christmas gifts or just look at all the fun things people are creating.  I love a good craft fair.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels