Dear Parents,

     Happy Thursday!   I hope this finds all of you well.  It has been quite a week.  We have had a lot going on.  I was out Monday and Tuesday due to the death of my Father-in-law, the resident Artist was here, and we have Earth day Friday.  That is a busy week besides the academics we are doing also.  Recital for some is also this weekend.  This is Molly's Senior Recital.  I am ready yet I am not ready.  I am used to attending 2 recitals but this year it is just one!  That seems to make it sadder for me.   I hope everyone attend the Market on Maple this weekend.  Molly  will share her Senior Solo as the 5th act and it starts at 2:00PM.  Sounds like a lot of vendors will be sharing their crafts and food items.  I am looking forward to the Rolled Ice Cream truck. 

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a story called the Ever-Living Tree.  It is the showing the life of a Red Wood or Sequoia tree in California.  It compares its life to other things happening around the world.  It shows the longevity of life for this tree.  It also talks about how when it falls it gives back to the earth so more trees can grow.  This week in grammar we have reviewed ending punctuation and capitalization/punctuation in Quotations.  The kids are loving all this review in this last Unit.  Our vocabulary strategy was on prefixes pre-, inter-, and ex-.  The short story we are reading this week is poems about Towering Trees.  I also tell them about the tree you used to drive a car through and how it fell a couple years ago due to the torrential rains in California.  This also relates to them what happens to a tree after is falls.  Only 2 more weeks of stories left then we will move into reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory!  FUN!

Math - This week has not been a good week for Math.  We have had so much going on.  On Monday we worked on Division facts and practiced with flash cards.  This was a good thing to do to help them remember those basic facts we need to do division.  Tuesday they were at the Resident Artist during Math.  Wednesday they did Dreambox in what little time they had for Math.  Today and tomorrow I hope to get a lesson in the book taught to them, but we are moving band to Math time due to Mrs. Taylor needing to be gone this afternoon.  I told them if there was not time for a lesson I was going to teach them a new card game I learned.  It is a fun game but you have to pay attention closely to numbers.  I don't know the name of it, I just know I learned to play it last night. They will be wanting to teach you at home I am sure.  We will be working our way through the 2nd half of the Division chapter as soon as things calm down and we can dig in.  I need to be sure we are giving it the time it deserves.  After Division we may have a small geometry section and then we will move on into fractions.  This is my hope for the rest of the year.  We will see what the time allows us to do.

Social Studies - I told the kids we would be picking up the pace and moving and a quicker pace. We will be finishing up this chapter already and will start a study guide on Monday.  We will spend some time putting states into our notebooks then we will move into the next chapter, also over the Midwest.  I will also get their maps ready so they can practice and take a map test over the Midwest.  Then we will move into the Southwest which we will cover but may not test over.  So that we cover more in the book and learn more about each of the last regions.   

Earth Day - Remember tomorrow is Earth Day.  We will be working and cleaning up our grounds.  The kids can wear sweats and comfy clothes to work in.  We will be working, not goofing.  They also need to bring their rakes.  If they do not know how to rake they are going to learn tomorrow.  I would recommend sending gloves with them also so we prevent blisters.  We will be outside working from about 1:30-2:15. They are also asking for a $1.00 donation to the school to buy flowers to plant and help make our grounds more attractive. I love when the flowers are out and every yard looks more beautiful.  

Spirit Day -  Tomorrow will be a "Hat' Spirit Day.  This means they can pay the $1.00 to wear a hat all day.  We want them to be able to wear sweats today so they can get dirty and be comfy to work.

Thank you very much for those who have reached out about my father-in-law.  He was a great person who really taught my kids a lot of life lessons. He was always thinking about others and was just the kindest person you could meet.  We will miss him greatly.  I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend and I hope the weather perks up so we can all get outside and soak up some sun.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels