Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!!! Welcome to 4th grade!   We have an exciting year ahead of us with lots of learning sprinkled with a lot of fun!  I am looking forward to working with your kids this year.  I appreciate you sharing them with me.    I am doing everything I can to ensure their safety and mine so we can stay in school face-to-face.  It is so nice to be back with kids in my room. I am the one the kids remind to wear my mask.  I will go to desk to take it off to get a breather and when I get up I forget to put it on.  The kids are very good and telling me to put it on.  Thank goodness it is attached to me!  Here is the first blog of the year.  Sometimes I have a ton of things to share and sometimes not much.  Please be sure to subscribe to the blog so it is automatically sent to your email.  If you subscribe the blog will arrive between 4:00 and 5:00 PM each Thursday.  

Language Arts:  So far this week we have taken a spelling inventory just to see where the students are when it comes to spelling. Plus it just allows me to show them my spelling routine on pretest days.  We successfully completed that yesterday.  Today and maybe tomorrow we will be taking a beginning of the year language arts assessment.  This is again to see where the kids are at in terms of reading and comprehension.  They have been asking when are we going to start working and today is the day!  We will begin our first story in our books next week.  This week will be a lot of learning routine in this subject.  I plan on teaching them a model I use to do the vocabulary words.  We will dive into that tomorrow.  I will have them do the 5 vocab for next weeks story so we are ahead of the game. We have a lot of new things to get them used to this year.

Math - I am having them do a chapter 1 pretest today and we will finish tomorrow if necessary.  This is all over chapter 1 and shows me what the kids all ready know and what I will really need to focus on.  The hardest part for them is knowing they have to show their work. 

Social Studies -  Today we started talking about Unit 1 and Chapter 1.  This will be about the 5 regions of the United States.  The students learned them last year but we spend the first little bit reviewing.  In Unit 1 we will cover Chapter 1 and 3.  We skip Chapter 2.  This is so we are sure to get finished with everything at the end of the year.  The kids seemed excited to get the books out and start talking about it.  This whole year focuses on the regions of the U.S and learning the states and capitals.

Responsibility-  This year I spend the whole year really focusing on these students taking responsibility for themselves.  This includes keeping track of their work, getting things signed and making sure all their bags are packed.  These are things they need to be doing on their own.  Setting routines for kids can be very helpful.  Next week when they start to bring homework and assignment books home will be a true test of responsibility.  I would recommend finding a spot in your house where the kids can do their work daily.  I also recommend having a spot in the house where they place their assignment book for the adult sign.  It is the child's responsiblity to be sure that it is all signed and back in the bag to bring to school.  It is less stress on you and again we are working on them being better students.  Taking care of your own things is an area they need to work on.  ALL 4th graders do. 

Climate -  Our room is always super cold in the morning.  They are welcome to bring sweatshirts to wear when it is chilly.  But with COVID they have to take them home and they either need washed every night or a new one brought the next day. They can not leave them here at school. It is the same rules with the water bottles.  They need to go home every night and be cleaned or a new one brought in the next day.

I have a Facebook page for this class.  Search St. Malachy Fantastic 4th Grade and request to join.  It is a private group for families only.  I will accept you and then you will see all the things I post about 4th grade. I will have pictures of things your students are doing.

I feel we have had a good week.  It is hard to get back into a routine since being out since March 13th.  I am even struggling.  I am dead tired.  The kids are learning the hard way that they have to listen.  I give directions out loud for everything. There are some that are having problems listening to directions then they are not doing things correctly. This is something we will be working on also.

I hope all of you have a great weekend!  This is my birthday weekend.  I turn 50 on Saturday.  My kids are coming home to help me celebrate.  I am super excited.  I have not had all 3 under the same roof since the beginning of June.  

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels