Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!!  Well, this is a short week for us.  There will be a few changes in our schedules.  I plan to cover those below.  I am looking forward to conferences next week.  Everyone has signed up for a time. I always like to  visit with parents about their students.  I like to share what I am seeing and hear from you on what you are seeing. I hope the kids enjoy their extra day off.  I sure wish I was getting that extra day off.  Next week will be a crazy week for sure.  Halloween and Conferences in the same week is insane.  I hope to have a fun and successful week.

Halloween- We will be celebrating Halloween on Wednesday, October 28th.  I plan to have a normal morning then spend the afternoon enjoying ourselves.  Our Homeroom Mom, Sam Baird, will be supplying snacks and drinks for the afternoon.  I plan on playing a geography game and then doing some Halloween Art.  There will be a Halloween parade so be sure to send your child's costume to school.  The parade this year will be done virtually. I am not sure on specifics but each class will go to the gym and be filmed parading around the gym in costume and they may even be interviewed about their costume choice. I will get you information about the virtual link next week.

Language Arts - This week we are reading an informational story called Coming Distractions Questioning Movies.  It is interesting the first time you read it, but not the 2nd and 3rd time you read it.  The vocabulary strategy we discussed had to do with Greek and Latin word parts.  Phon, photo, tele, graph, phono are the word parts.  I showed the kids what they mean and how it works in certain words.  I grammar we talked about the 3 verb tenses: past, present, and future, and we learned about helping verbs and past participles.  Fancy words for a helping verb and a past tense main/action verb.  This wee is a short week but I am going to use next Monday as our "Friday".  Since next week is an even shorter week I am extending this week into next.  The spelling Posttest and end of week test will happen on Monday.  Then Tuesday and Wednesday we are going to work on writing Personal Narratives.  This is just a short story or essay about themselves.  I have video clips to watch to help the kids.  A personal Narrative is a Standard that the students must work on in 4th grade.  We will follow the steps on brainstorming, prewriting, editing, revising and publishing to complete the paper.

Math -  This week in math we have focused on multiplication comparisons.  They have done a great job understanding how to write a comparison statement from a multiplication problem.  We then moved onto learning how to use those comparisons to write a word problem with pictures to help us solve.  We finished that lesson today.  If you looked at it you would go, "huh!"  It is not easy stuff.  I am super proud of them for learning it and learning it quickly.  Next week we will begin to move on in the chapter.  Lesson 3 is super easy, I will teach them 2 strategies in one day.  It is multiplying tens and hundreds.  So problems like 100 X 3  or 1,000 X 6.  Then we will learn to estimate products.

Social Studies -  The students have enjoyed putting their first 2 states into their notebooks this last week.  They love to color, cut and paste.  Plus they are learning facts about the state.  We will soon begin learning our States and Capitals song.  I will give them a sheet with the lyrics on it and we will sing along with the song.  It is a great way to memorize all the states and capitals.  The song is found on youtube, it is called States and Capitals Song by Macho Nacho.  You can practice it at home too.  I apologize now because once they learn it, they will sing it all the time.  This class is constantly singing.   The next lesson are over resources in the northeast and harvesting Chesapeake Bay.  

Conferences - Conferences are next week on Thursday.  Everyone has signed up for a time.  Please be sure to read through the rules again.  I will be cleaning thoroughly in between each conference. If you requested a virtual meeting I will just meet you on the classroom link.  It's the same thing your child goes to when getting online for school.

● Conferences will last 12 minutes - this allows for time to clean between each visit. ● 1 Parent/guardian may attend (we recommend the other parents/guardians attend via facetime or speaker phone call) 

● Teachers will take the temperature of the parent/guardian in attendance 

● Masks are required 

● To reduce exposure we ask that parents/guardians use the door nearest your child’s classroom door ● We ask that children to not attend 

● We will have the Book Fair in the gym on Thursday from 1-9:30. We ask parents to social distance and sanitize their hands before shopping.

 I hope everyone has a great weekend.  The student should enjoy their long weekend.  I am preparing for a crazy week next week.  We will survive!  I hope you do as well.  See you next week!

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels