Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  What a week this has been!  It is hard to believe that we have just one more day to celebrate.  I look forward to tomorrow. It is always a great day.  Please make sure your child comes in dress clothes for mass and bring snow gear to go outside for recess just in case we have time to go outside.  It has been a very good yet crazy week.  Thanks for choosing our school for your children.  

Language Arts -  It has been a long story since our week started last Thursday for it.  We will be taking a test over the story tomorrow and a spelling post test.  Please be sure they are studying their yellow vocab packets and spelling words tonight.  
Our story this week was called The Life and Times of the Ant.  It is a fun story.  This class actually enjoyed it.  On Monday we showed the kids 3-5 It's a Bug's Life.  The movie goes along with our story quite well.  Plus it is old enough, a lot of the kids had not seen it.  This week we worked on Participles and participle phrases.  Our vocabulary strategy was over suffixes -able, and -ible.  Again it has been stretched out but due to the kind of week we are having it had to be.  

Math-  We are ready to learn the standard algorithm in math for multiplication.  I need to have 2-3 days in a row to be sure we are getting this strategy. I can't start teaching it one day then skip a couple days and pick it up again.  That would not benefit the kids whatsoever.  We will begin this on Monday.  This week we have done a lot of practicing on basic facts.  The kids are working on two new programs we are being introduced to.  One is Moby Max which has every subject on it not just math and the other is Espark which is a math and reading program.  I really like them both.  The kids are showing interest and improvement with these. You can see by the certificates I post on Facebook.  I know I have Espark for the rest of the year for free so we are trying to take advantage of it to see what other improvements we will see in their work.  We came back from the YMCA today and these websites were what they worked on. Not sure if they were tired or what but it was silent.

Social Studies -  We have worked on getting some states in the interactive notebook this week.  We have also began working on some vocabulary words. This chapter instead of putting words in a blue packet, we will be putting them on notecards so that the kids are making their own flash cards.  We will begin digging into the first lesson tomorrow.  

Grandparents/ Special Guest Day - Students need to be dressed up for Mass tomorrow.  Their morning will be normal.  We will load up on the bus and be to the church around 1:00.  Please have the grandparents/Special Guest meet us at Holy Spirit Parish.  Mass will begin at 1:30.  There will be a cookie and punch reception in the basement following mass. Your student may go home after mass with the grandparent/Special Guest as long as you let me know.  You can email me to let me know.  If you  are at the mass, just make sure you see me in the basement to tell me you are taking your child.  Thank you.  

Thanks again for choosing to send your child to St. Malachy.  I am happy to be teaching each and everyone of them.  They all bring a little something different to the room, which makes this group unique.  I hope all of you have a great weekend!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels