Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!  This will be a short blog this week.  I have been at home all week.  I was just being precautionary with cold symptoms.  Come to find out I am positive for COVID.  I don't have many symptoms but losing taste and smell are the big ones and I have lost those.  My return date would be November 25th. So I will back in the classroom after Thanksgiving.  I have been teaching some classes from home which has been fun.  I feel like I am still there and a part of class if I can do that.  Today I bowed out of Language arts due to getting my test results and having to talk to public health.  This is all so very crazy!!

Language Arts - This week is the last story in Unit 2.  It is called Jose! Born to Dance.  This was a story that we enjoyed the first time but not really anytime after that.  It is about a famous dancer Jose Limon.  He is a real person and it tells his life story about what he went through to finally decide to become a dancer.  In grammar this week we are learning about pronouns.  We learned the subject and object pronouns, and also reflexive and demonstrative pronouns.  The vocabulary strategy this week was shades of meaning.  It is talking about synonyms having different shades of meaning.  If you think of the word big, you have lots of synonyms: huge, large, enormous, gigantic.  They are synonyms but we have a different picture of how big something is based on the word we use.  Students will need to be sure to practice their spelling words and vocabulary words tonight.  The end of the week test will be tomorrow.

Math -  This week they learned the regrouping strategy for multiplication which is the strategy you were all taught growing up.  Yesterday we focused on double-digit numbers times a single digit.  Today we moved up to digits in the hundreds and thousands.  We are almost finished with this chapter which is great!  The next chapter moves into double digits so we get even harder.  They are all doing very well.

Social Studies -  They have completed a test this week.  It has been  a crazy week to test and we went about it very differently but we made it through.  We will be beginning the next chapter today.  They will be putting another state into their interactive notebooks also.  Next week we are doing a Geography Bee.  We usually do this every year.  It is a national event.  The national event was cancelled due to COVID so we are holding our own at St. Malachy.  I will hold a mock geobee on Monday with them that I will be online conducting.  Then on Tuesday we will do the real thing.  It will take place in the morning.  I will run them through 7 rounds of questions.  I will get together with the other teachers 5-8 and we will compare our results and come up with a top ten.  Those top ten students will compete in the Championship round that we usually hold in December.  It is normally done differently but we are adjusting this year to follow our COVID rules. It will be fun!

This had totally been a crazy week for all of us!  I would like to hope this could all come to an end soon.  Pray for a vaccine and pray for those people who are not doing the right thing.  We have to stop the spread and we will only do it if we all just do what is right and asked of us.  Stay safe and everyone feel better!!

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels 

Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!  I hope everyone is having a great week!   Boy the numbers for COVID are sure on the rise. I hope all of you are doing your part in keeping everyone safe.  I am very thankful we are still in school face-to-face.  If for any reason that changes we have made a plan.  We will shorten the hours of the school day.  The students will get the same amount of lessons and instruction but we will just be online a limited amount of time.  We are prepared if the need arises to go online.  It is getting tiring not going places and seeing people.  One of the twins has had it.  She was pretty sick actually for being young.  Definitely not asymptomatic.  The other twin was exposed, has had to quarantine, no symptoms and tested negative but still could not go back to student teaching.  I am wearing a mask in the room all the time. I take small breaks at my desk or remove it if the kids can't understand what I am trying to get across, which depends on what mask I am wearing that day.  Sometimes I even forget to take it off for a break when the kids are not in the room.  Crazy the things we just adjust to.

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a very funny story called Dear Mr. Winston.  It is about a girl who takes a snake into a library cause she wants to know what kind of a snake it is.  The book she needs is a reference book and can not be taken out of the library.  She sneaks the snake in.  The librarian is petrified of snakes. He catches her with the snake and faints and breaks out in a rash.  He taken by ambulance to hospital.  The girls is writing an apology but is sure to point out her parents are making her and she always makes it out to be the librarian's own fault.  It is fun to read.  We are working on compound and complex sentences this week in grammar.  It is kind of hard stuff. I had to teach what a dependent clause is.  The vocabulary strategy is over antonyms which they are pretty good at since we do them weekly with the vocabulary words.  Please be sure they study for their spelling post test and vocabulary packet.

Math -  We have completed half the chapter!  The kids worked on a Mid-Chapter Checkpoint.  This is a long chapter!  We are actually about 10 days ahead of where I normally am, so that is good. The kids do a very good job of listening and really trying to understand the concept.  I try to really pump them up before the lesson starts so I have their attention. I think they think that is fun.  Then we go to work.  The second half of the chapter does not seem so bad but I will teach them the standard algorithm of multiplication. Yes that is what you learned but they will not find it as easy as the strategies we are using now.  I may have to take 3 days to teach this concept, which is normal and just fine.  I hope to be testing over chapter 2 either right before Thanksgiving or right after.

Social Studies - They began learning their States and Capitals song today. I apologize now, they will drive you crazy singing it.  Especially this class because they sing all the time!!  They have a copy of the words so they can practice at home.  Again I am sorry.  You can find the song on Youtube.  It is called the States and Capital song by Macho Nacho.   We will practice it everyday now.  They will also be starting a study guide on Thursday.  I plan to check it on Friday and then the test will be Monday.  They can start practicing their vocabulary words now.  They have notecards in their expanded file they can use to study.  We will soon begin to work on Map tests.  This is where they have to take a test over the Northeast Region.  I will give them a blank map of the region and they have to label it with the states and capitals.  We will learn the geography of the U.S. a region at a time and then at the end of the year they take an end of the year test over all 50 states and capitals.

Christmas Program -  The filming for the Christmas program will be held on Monday, November 23rd.  We would like your child to come dressed in their Christmas best!  Whatever they would have worn to a normal Christmas program. Thanks!  I will remind you next week also!  Just wanted you to have time to find those Christmas dresses!

Spirit Day!-  Tomorrow the 13th is a spirit day.  The weather is just right for wearing sweatpants!  Get out those dollars and participate.

Absent - I will be absent Thursday afternoon.  I am attending a college visit with Molly.  We are visiting Iowa State!  We have had it planned then cancelled and almost cancelled this one.  We are going to get it done and over with.  It is just a half day thing.  There is not much contact and masks are required.  The main thing is the tour of campus.  Let's see I attended there, plus I toured with both the other girls separately and now I am doing it again.  Sometimes I think I could give a better tour!   I will also be absent next Wednesday all day due to Molly competing at State Dance with the Peppers.  I don't like to be gone at all but I also can't miss my lasts with my youngest!  Believe it when people say "Time Flies"!

I hope everyone stays safe and healthy!

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!  I hope everyone is enjoying the weather this week. Sounds like next week will be chilly again.  We have been lucky to have what we have.  It is hard to believe we are in November all ready.  For me, this year is close to the end.  It is always that way after conferences.  Once conferences are over then it is like 3 weeks before Thanksgiving week.  After that it is only 3-4 full weeks before Christmas week hits.  It all seems to go very fast, especially when we are working so hard.  I plan to get a lot of things accomplished in these weeks.

COVID-19 Rules - FERPA stands for Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. This is very similar to the hospital's HIPAA laws.  I wanted to make sure you knew that I shared with your students that I am not able to share with them if a student in the room or school test positive for COVID.   It is the job of Public Health to contact trace and make notifications to families who are possibly exposed.  The numbers in Union County are on the rise, there is no doubt about that.  Families in our community are being affected.  We are continuing our mitigation procedures at school. Just know we as teachers can not give out any information.  

Language Arts - This week we are reading a realistic fiction story called Me and Uncle Romie.  It is very good. I really enjoy this story. The story is based on a real character Romare Bearden who was a collage artist.  I am talking about what a collage artist is and what their art looks like.  I hope to have the students do their own collage art at school.  If they are asking for items to bring to school for it, just know it will be glued onto artwork and you won't get it back.  The kids tend to like this story too because it is a "feel good" story. In grammar we have been working on Past, Present, and future Progressive Tenses.  This deals with verbs ending  with -ing and the tense of the verb is based on the helping that is in front of it.  It has been easy stuff for the kids this week.  Our vocabulary strategy was on Idioms.  This is figurative language.  We talked about sayings like "break a leg", "feast or famine", "heart of gold", "good as gold", "head over heals", and "safe and sound".  If we took their literal meanings they would not make sense.  The kids has to rewrite sentences replacing words with these sayings.  Tomorrow is a test day.  Please remind them to study their vocabulary packet (gold) and spelling words.

Math -  We have had some great math lessons this week.  The kids have learned what the Distributive Property is and they have used it to solve problems.  We also finished the week using that same property and expanded form to solve multiplication problems.  They are working problems into the thousands using this strategy.  It is super easy when you are shown what you are doing.  I told the kids their parents would think what they were doing was hard, too long, and makes no sense, but it makes perfect sense them.  This strategy teaches them exactly what multiplication is and what you are doing to find your answer.   Using the standard algorithm is hard for some to learn because they don't understand what exactly they are doing.  They get the process and what to write but they don't know the "why" .  What we are doing now helps them understand the "why" and make them better at math.  They were excited because they all thought it was easy and made sense.  Some people use this strategy as mental math and don't even realize that is what they are doing.  Your kids are dabbling in some Algebra.  They are doing an excellent job too.

Social Studies -  We have been learning this week about Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  They have learned what the Bay has to offer.  We have talked about Seafood restaurants in Des Moines that may have seafood from this area.  We also talked about fishing being a hobby around here but for the "watermen" in the Chesapeake Bay area it is their job.  If they don't catch anything they don't get paid.  They were amazed by this.  We also talked about how pollution plays a roll in ruining the habitat.  They had great conversations.  We will be gearing up for a test next week.  They will work on a study guide before testing.

Tomorrow is NOT a spirit day!!  

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I will be cutting back my rose bushes and getting them ready for winter this weekend.  It is not a fun job at all.  I always get compliments on my roses in the summer though.  They are pretty low maintenance.  I water every night and keep the dead buds cut off.  I learned from a neighbor on Montgomery street who always had beautiful roses. He taught me the tricks of the trade.  

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels