Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! Today is an exciting day! We have Pat McManus with Rockin' Prevention here for the afternoon. This is a rock band that uses music to teach kids about bully prevention and preventing use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. There are 15 high school kids who volunteered to come and help with the program. The 4th grade seems a little excited about it! I hope they come home and have lots to say! This program was sponsored by our very own PTO!!
Language Arts - This week has been a Unit test week. We are also sharing the book reports the students have. I am also using this week as a "catch all" week. I have had so many kids absent of Fridays that we are trying to make up tests. We made up the spelling tests all ready, I am trying to catch them up on end of week assessments. We are doing more DEAR time and read aloud this week also. The kids are totally loving me reading Harry Potter to them. I am sure it helps that I absolutely love reading them to the kids! Next week we will go back to reading a story and having spelling tests. We are heading into unit 5 which is the last unit in this book. Then we will pick up the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and read it together and use the skills and strategies we have learned with this book. I all ready have activities and things to do with it. That will take us up to the end of the year! Crazy thought!!
Math - We are working on taking a test over chapter 3 right now. We started it today and will finish it tomorrow. Monday we will spend class making corrections. Next week we will skip to the back and cover chapter 13. It is a quick chapter because it has few lessons in it and not sure I cover all of them. We focus on Perimeter and Area. So I am covering a little bit of the geometry I need to cover. It is really kind of a fun chapter plus if they understand area box they all ready know area!! This chapter is a good breather between such heavy topics. Plus area deals with multiplication. The next heavy topic is division!!!
Social Studies - We took a test this week and worked on corrections over chapter 6! I was very impressed, we had 6 perfect papers AND several that missed one or two! I would say this is a very successful chapter!! Most of them did an awesome job labeling the map with the states of the region. Those who struggled have another opportunity on the next chapter test to redeem themselves. For the next test they will have to list the capitals also. In this chapter we will talk about the Cherokee who had their homes in the Southeast,we will talk about Charleston, South Carolina and how the Civil War started there and why, we will also discuss cities of the Southeast and how they are still growing. The Midwest is next. Please be sure to pay attention to your child's social studies project and when it is due. IF they have a Southeast state they have due dates if it is part of the Midwest, it will definitely be after Spring Break and I will get those dates out soon.
Thank you very much for the donations that were given to our Auction Basket and thank yo to Meg Haines for Producing the music video for our Silent Auction item. The kids watched the video today and loved it! The basket I feel is a very nice one!! Hope to see you at the dinner and auction Saturday night!!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I hope all of you have had a great week! Mine, not so great! Starting out with being sick and gone 2 days was not what I wanted. I hate being gone. I will say, it was almost worth it. When you have 6-9 students tell you they missed or excited you are back, let's you know how much you are appreciated. That was so sweet! You have great kids!
Conferences - The conference sign up went out yesterday!! I hope all of you have seen it. I put it on the blog and sent you an email. There has been a great response so far. Keep it up. I look forward to visiting with you.
Language Arts - This week we read a story called Sacagawea. It is a biography that tells about her life on the Louis and Clark Expedition. It tells about all the things she did that were important to the success of the expedition. We have been going over abbreviations this week in grammar. Pretty much all abbreviations that are out there. Ones we use when addressing someone, mailing address abbreviations, time, measurement, months, days of the week, anything you can think of we have covered this week. We also talked about "shades of meaning". This is looking at synonyms yet realizing there is a difference in the meanings. If I say something is big or I say enormous, you get a different picture of what they may look like. We talked about different words that have different shades of meaning. Tomorrow is assessment day. Study the spelling words and vocab words!!
Math - We have finished lesson 6 in math. It just wanted kids to practice using the three strategies that we have learned. The area box, partial product and regrouping strategies were there choices. I told them to use them equally. We will move on today into lesson 7, which is problem solving and then it is time to get ready for a test. We will be having a test next week!! The next chapter we do will be chapter 13 focusing on area and perimeter, which is short and sweet. Then it is back to the grindstone with division. That will also be a longer process for us. I try to be sure I have everyone understanding before moving forward. So the pace may slow down a little bit.
Social Studies - We are at the end of the chapter!! We will begin the study guide tomorrow, check it on Monday, then test on Tuesday! Which means I will be getting their due dates for their projects out!! I told students today that if they have a Southeast state they need to be researching and not to wait for the due date to start. My plan is to have some due before spring break and then the rest due after. So some will only have a couple weeks to work on it. I will be working on those due dates next week to send home for sure! I have a few pieces of poster board from students that I will work on and have ready for Monday. Old projects will be coming home if they have been hanging in the hall. Some of the poor things have taken a beating! I apologize but it's mainly from kids leaning on them. Also remember since I put the Southeast and Midwest together your child will only be completing 3 projects instead of 4!!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! Thank you for those who donated to the Auction basket. I plan to go shopping on Saturday for items to fill it in! I am excited about the basket theme cause it is right up my alley. If you still want to donate, yesterday was the deadline, but I won't turn anything away today or tomorrow.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! I hope all of you have had a great week! Mine, not so great! Starting out with being sick and gone 2 days was not what I wanted. I hate being gone. I will say, it was almost worth it. When you have 6-9 students tell you they missed or excited you are back, let's you know how much you are appreciated. That was so sweet! You have great kids!
Conferences - The conference sign up went out yesterday!! I hope all of you have seen it. I put it on the blog and sent you an email. There has been a great response so far. Keep it up. I look forward to visiting with you.
Language Arts - This week we read a story called Sacagawea. It is a biography that tells about her life on the Louis and Clark Expedition. It tells about all the things she did that were important to the success of the expedition. We have been going over abbreviations this week in grammar. Pretty much all abbreviations that are out there. Ones we use when addressing someone, mailing address abbreviations, time, measurement, months, days of the week, anything you can think of we have covered this week. We also talked about "shades of meaning". This is looking at synonyms yet realizing there is a difference in the meanings. If I say something is big or I say enormous, you get a different picture of what they may look like. We talked about different words that have different shades of meaning. Tomorrow is assessment day. Study the spelling words and vocab words!!
Math - We have finished lesson 6 in math. It just wanted kids to practice using the three strategies that we have learned. The area box, partial product and regrouping strategies were there choices. I told them to use them equally. We will move on today into lesson 7, which is problem solving and then it is time to get ready for a test. We will be having a test next week!! The next chapter we do will be chapter 13 focusing on area and perimeter, which is short and sweet. Then it is back to the grindstone with division. That will also be a longer process for us. I try to be sure I have everyone understanding before moving forward. So the pace may slow down a little bit.
Social Studies - We are at the end of the chapter!! We will begin the study guide tomorrow, check it on Monday, then test on Tuesday! Which means I will be getting their due dates for their projects out!! I told students today that if they have a Southeast state they need to be researching and not to wait for the due date to start. My plan is to have some due before spring break and then the rest due after. So some will only have a couple weeks to work on it. I will be working on those due dates next week to send home for sure! I have a few pieces of poster board from students that I will work on and have ready for Monday. Old projects will be coming home if they have been hanging in the hall. Some of the poor things have taken a beating! I apologize but it's mainly from kids leaning on them. Also remember since I put the Southeast and Midwest together your child will only be completing 3 projects instead of 4!!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! Thank you for those who donated to the Auction basket. I plan to go shopping on Saturday for items to fill it in! I am excited about the basket theme cause it is right up my alley. If you still want to donate, yesterday was the deadline, but I won't turn anything away today or tomorrow.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Hello Parents,
Here is the link to sign up for Spring Conferences. I have emailed each of you personally but in case your email is not working or you don't get it, here it is again. The slots are 15 minutes long. I tried to put some breaks in to use a catch up time. I also put some time slots in for Tuesday, March 15th to help some of you out. If there are not any of these times that work for you contact me and we will work on something. Thank you!
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F0544A5A72CA1FE3-4thgrade1
Have a great day!
Mrs. Sickels
Here is the link to sign up for Spring Conferences. I have emailed each of you personally but in case your email is not working or you don't get it, here it is again. The slots are 15 minutes long. I tried to put some breaks in to use a catch up time. I also put some time slots in for Tuesday, March 15th to help some of you out. If there are not any of these times that work for you contact me and we will work on something. Thank you!
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F0544A5A72CA1FE3-4thgrade1
Have a great day!
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I bet you are tired of my little posts on the blog! Here is the normal weekly one for you!! How about this weather? I hope everyone enjoys today and tomorrow in some way! Who knows how long it will stick around. We had a great professional development on Wednesday! We are learning some great strategies to use in our classrooms. These will help make the kids a lot more engaged in their learning and it gets them up and moving around the room. Just the little I have done to make small changes in my room have great results. I feel kids are more attentive to me. It's learning how to not take advantage of Mrs. Sickels that is the struggle. Being able to do the fun things yet calm back down to focus on the job at hand, is where some have problems. We are working on this. I set timer to get them to regroup or transition to the next thing. It is working tremendously!! If you need something to get your kids to move quicker at home use a timer! They really focus and pick up the pace!
Silent Auction Video! I just want to report it coming along fine. Your kids are being very cooperative! Today, Meg had something come up and was unable to be hear. So the plan is tomorrow the kids need to wear western gear again!! I am okay that they are wearing the same thing each day, just be sure they don't wear it all night too. On Monday, we want kids to wear all St. Malachy shirts or sweatshirts. If your child doesn't have anything let me know as soon as you can and I will help find something for them. We have kids with extras but I have 3 kids with stuff at home. I will share for a day. This should hopefully wrap things up Monday. I can't wait to see the end product. I haven't received many donations! Remember the deadline is next Wednesday, March 24th. No donation is too small!
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Harvesting Hope. It is the story of Cesar Chavez and the work he did for the migrant farm workers in California. Their living conditions and pay was really poor. He started a march to the capital to protest. The march took place during a very important time that grapes needed harvested or they rotted. Well, the grapes rotted and because of that things happened and a union was set up for those migrant workers. Conditions were improved. In spelling we worked on words with suffixes this week. They did pretty well as a whole this week. In grammar we talked about independent and dependent clauses. We also read a short story about an "Edible Classroom". It is a classroom that takes place in a garden, kitchen and a classroom. They have to care for the fruits, vegetables and herbs in the garden. They learn to create healthy meals from the garden items and they cook them. I think what a fun experience but it wouldn't work here. Most of the harvest takes place over the summer. The kids were pretty interested in this short story. Tomorrow is the end of week assessment and spelling test!
Math - We have been working on the regrouping strategy or standard algorithm of multiplication this week. Double digits proves to be harder than the single digit. Some are taking a little longer to pick up on it which is just fine. Everyone learns at their own pace and also learn by mistakes. We will work on it again today and tomorrow is a correction day where they will be given back work to correct and I will have some one on one with those who need me. Next week I plan to finish out the chapter. We will then test and move onto to a little bit of geometry. Focusing on Area and perimeter.
Social Studies - We have picked our new states and projects!! I have had to make some changes to how I normally do this due to the amount of kids I have and the lack of time!! Some kids have Southeast state and some have a Midwest state. The Southeast state projects will be due first then those who have the Midwest will be due when we start the Midwest. Please make sure if you need posterboard you are getting it and start working on the project. I will give due dates next week. I may have some due before Spring Break, so let's not wait to begin. After next week I will have an idea of how long I will take on the next chapter. I will then give due dates. I will stress to the kids to make sure they are starting things. We will be finishing up this chapter next week and then testing. We have one more chapter on the Southeast Region. I will keep you posted on how we progress and when due dates are assigned!
I hope everyone has a great weekend!! Enjoy the sun!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! I bet you are tired of my little posts on the blog! Here is the normal weekly one for you!! How about this weather? I hope everyone enjoys today and tomorrow in some way! Who knows how long it will stick around. We had a great professional development on Wednesday! We are learning some great strategies to use in our classrooms. These will help make the kids a lot more engaged in their learning and it gets them up and moving around the room. Just the little I have done to make small changes in my room have great results. I feel kids are more attentive to me. It's learning how to not take advantage of Mrs. Sickels that is the struggle. Being able to do the fun things yet calm back down to focus on the job at hand, is where some have problems. We are working on this. I set timer to get them to regroup or transition to the next thing. It is working tremendously!! If you need something to get your kids to move quicker at home use a timer! They really focus and pick up the pace!
Silent Auction Video! I just want to report it coming along fine. Your kids are being very cooperative! Today, Meg had something come up and was unable to be hear. So the plan is tomorrow the kids need to wear western gear again!! I am okay that they are wearing the same thing each day, just be sure they don't wear it all night too. On Monday, we want kids to wear all St. Malachy shirts or sweatshirts. If your child doesn't have anything let me know as soon as you can and I will help find something for them. We have kids with extras but I have 3 kids with stuff at home. I will share for a day. This should hopefully wrap things up Monday. I can't wait to see the end product. I haven't received many donations! Remember the deadline is next Wednesday, March 24th. No donation is too small!
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Harvesting Hope. It is the story of Cesar Chavez and the work he did for the migrant farm workers in California. Their living conditions and pay was really poor. He started a march to the capital to protest. The march took place during a very important time that grapes needed harvested or they rotted. Well, the grapes rotted and because of that things happened and a union was set up for those migrant workers. Conditions were improved. In spelling we worked on words with suffixes this week. They did pretty well as a whole this week. In grammar we talked about independent and dependent clauses. We also read a short story about an "Edible Classroom". It is a classroom that takes place in a garden, kitchen and a classroom. They have to care for the fruits, vegetables and herbs in the garden. They learn to create healthy meals from the garden items and they cook them. I think what a fun experience but it wouldn't work here. Most of the harvest takes place over the summer. The kids were pretty interested in this short story. Tomorrow is the end of week assessment and spelling test!
Math - We have been working on the regrouping strategy or standard algorithm of multiplication this week. Double digits proves to be harder than the single digit. Some are taking a little longer to pick up on it which is just fine. Everyone learns at their own pace and also learn by mistakes. We will work on it again today and tomorrow is a correction day where they will be given back work to correct and I will have some one on one with those who need me. Next week I plan to finish out the chapter. We will then test and move onto to a little bit of geometry. Focusing on Area and perimeter.
Social Studies - We have picked our new states and projects!! I have had to make some changes to how I normally do this due to the amount of kids I have and the lack of time!! Some kids have Southeast state and some have a Midwest state. The Southeast state projects will be due first then those who have the Midwest will be due when we start the Midwest. Please make sure if you need posterboard you are getting it and start working on the project. I will give due dates next week. I may have some due before Spring Break, so let's not wait to begin. After next week I will have an idea of how long I will take on the next chapter. I will then give due dates. I will stress to the kids to make sure they are starting things. We will be finishing up this chapter next week and then testing. We have one more chapter on the Southeast Region. I will keep you posted on how we progress and when due dates are assigned!
I hope everyone has a great weekend!! Enjoy the sun!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016
Dear Parents,
Just a reminder tomorrow we will be shooting some of the video for our 4th grade silent auction item. Make sure your child wears western wear tomorrow. Also, make sure they have memorized their part to the song. Friday, I sent a sheet home with each of them showing the piece of the song they need to memorize and talked to them about locating western clothing. The song is John Mellancamp, John Deere and John 3:16 by Keith Urban. You can find it on Youtube. I am excite! This will be very fun! I like doing things that have never been done before! This has not! Thanks to the mom's who came up with the idea. Have a great Monday!!
Just a reminder tomorrow we will be shooting some of the video for our 4th grade silent auction item. Make sure your child wears western wear tomorrow. Also, make sure they have memorized their part to the song. Friday, I sent a sheet home with each of them showing the piece of the song they need to memorize and talked to them about locating western clothing. The song is John Mellancamp, John Deere and John 3:16 by Keith Urban. You can find it on Youtube. I am excite! This will be very fun! I like doing things that have never been done before! This has not! Thanks to the mom's who came up with the idea. Have a great Monday!!
Thursday, February 11, 2016
It’s that time of year! We are ready to put together the “Annual
Auction Basket”. We have chosen a theme:
Coffee Lovers Basket!! This basket already
has a couple great donations. We have a
brand new BUNN coffee maker and Keurig single cup coffee maker, one for the “I
need a whole pot of coffee” person and one for the” single cup” person. What a great start!
We are asking for your donations towards this
basket. Just think about anything coffee
and send it our way! If you would rather
give a monetary donation those are appreciated too. We can do the shopping and be sure we have a
good variety of items. Mrs. Sickels has
contacted her nephew who manages a Starbucks asking for a donation from
them. Here are just a few ideas for the
basket: coffee mugs, travel mugs,
filters for the Bunn, filter basket for the Keurig, flavored coffees, K-cups
for Keurig, creamers, hot chocolates for
Keurig, regular coffee, or gift
cards to coffee places in town or Starbucks.
Please have all donations sent to Mrs. Sickels by Wednesday, February
24th. We want plenty of time to shop and
put together the basket.
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)