Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!   I hope everyone enjoyed their snow day last Friday.  I know I did.  I got some things done around the house I had been dreading.  I then used Saturday and Sunday and days to relax.  I spent Friday night in my cousin's cabin west of town which was fun.  I woke up to watching about 6 deer feeding.  I wonder what this weekend will bring.  It looks like some more snow and maybe freezing rain.  We don't need the freezing rain for sure!!

Language Arts -  This week they are reading a story called "The Life and Times of the Ant".   This is a story about the life of ants.  All the hard work they do  and even a look into their nests.  The best part of this story is illustrations that go along with it.  They are cartoon like and very literal.   They just add a little enjoyment to a non fiction story.  We are working on present and past participle for grammar.  These are verbs that end in -ing and -ed.  This is a review for the students.   The vocab strategy was on suffixes, -able and -ible.  We worked on those today in partners.  We are doing this story in 4 days instead of 5.  Tomorrow we will have our post test and end of week test.  Please be sure that the students are studying their yellow packets and spelling words.

Math -  We learned the standard algorithm or regrouping strategy for double-digit multiplication this week.  I feel to really grasp what we are doing we need to spend some time practicing.  They were taught the strategy and practiced just a few problems in their book.  We went over those problems together and worked out some bugs.  Then they did a worksheet with just a few problems on it.  Today I copied a worksheet from my old math series.  They are still practicing this strategy.  They are working on  the odd numbered problems today and then we will check those an do the even ones tomorrow.  I feel like this will be enough practice to really say they can do this skill.  We will then move on to look at the problems and decide which strategy would be beneficial to use with certain problems.  We are getting to the end of this chapter.  We will begin testing soon.  Then our next chapter is a fun one, at least I think so.  I take them to chapter 13 and go over Area and Perimeter.

Social Studies - We have just finished up the Northeast Region.  Today we began introducing the Southeast Region.  There are 12 states in this section.  So they will be learning the location of 12 new states and capitals.  We will also start putting them into our interactive notebooks.  They corrected their tests today and will bring them home over the weekend to be signed.  I told them we would have to pick up the pace a little bit to move through the rest of the year.  

Tomorrow is a Spirit Day!   The temperature is suppose to drop and be cold.  By recess it will only by like 19 and we don't know what the windchill will be like so it's a perfect day to pay the $1.00 and wear sweats!!!  I told them I hoped they enjoyed the last two days because the weekend looks to be very different.

Please be sure to read about our Auction basket in the folder!  I have one donation so far.  We are a long ways from where we need to be.  Also, Sam and Dustin Baird are helping me with the silent auction item.  Remember we need all donations to be in by February 5th so we can get items ordered from our Pampered Chef consultant.  The sooner the donations the better so we have time to decide on items to order.  Thank you for all your support!

Have a great weekend!!

God Bless, 

Mrs. Sickels