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