Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday! This has been a short week!  We are trying very hard to get used to the routines of 4th grade.  Some are really struggling and some are all ready there.  The beginning of the year tends to be difficult getting them back in the swing of things. They have begun getting homework this week.  I know I will be giving out late slips.  It will be fine.  They will learn quickly once they see the late slips going out.  Please be patient with your students. Sign the slips for them but know that we are working on getting organized.  Please be sure everything stays in the expanded file.  The only times things are thrown away from them is if we do it at school.  IF you think it's too full, have them come to me and I will help them clean it out.  Many important items get tossed when parents clean out the folders.    I am looking forward to a great year! Thank you for sharing your children with me.

Language Arts -  We are finishing up our first story. It is a fun story.  I was hoping the movie was still on Netflix so I could show it but it is not.  Let's talk about spelling.  I do not send a list of spelling words home each week for the students.  They have a spot on their assignment book where they can write them.  It also appears on the worksheets that come home on Tuesday and Thursday for homework. You are welcome to copy that.  Because students all learn at different levels and certain spelling rules are harder for some then others, I change up my spelling for those who struggle.  All students will take the pretest of 20 words on Monday.  If they miss more than 10 words they will get a shortened list.  I will give them a printout of the words and highlight 10 words that they will practice for Friday.  Your student may get a shortened list one week but not another.  I need for these lists to stay in their expanded file because we will pull them out and use them on Wednesdays.  If you have any questions about spelling and how it works let me know.  I have them students take their language arts tests online.  We will be doing that every Friday.  
We worked on prefixes re-, un-, and dis- this week, a little bit with subjects and predicates, and focused on nouns. 

Math -  We have been working on base ten blocks, and place value charts this week.  The students struggle putting a number onto a place value chart. This is the basis for all math so I am not comfortable moving on.  I like to be sure students are fulling grasping the concept before we go on. This chapter is meant for review but I am finding I may need to find some time to really review it.  That's okay.  I want them to learn, understand and feel confident about what they are doing.  This may be a slow moving subject for a while.

Social Studies -  We are reviewing the 5 regions of the United States.  We are only covering the first lesson in chapter 1 because that is the most important.  We will then move into chapter 2 and cover the whole chapter and test over it.  This is focusing on the Government and other important things about the USA.  I try to get us quickly to the regions so we can make sure we are focusing on the regions of the United States and learning those.  We learn a lot with each region.

We have practiced our tornado drill and fire drill twice all ready.  I walked them to our spots one day and then we have done a school wide practice for each.  Today we will be doing a practice of walking to our "safe" place if there was an emergency that would cause us to evacuate the building.  You should have received a letter from Mrs. Simmons about this.  It could be as small as a train derailment to as big as a school shooter.  I hate even saying that but we have to.  In the world we live in, we just have to prepared for anything.  We found out this summer you as families need to be prepared or thinking just when in Wal-Mart.  

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Hello!!  Welcome to 4th grade!!!
    I am so excited to get a new year started!!  My class is always an adjustment.  We will work hard to get used to the routines and expectations of 4th grade.  I feel like such a meanie sometimes.  Trying to get used to a new schedule and new class is sometimes a very slow process.   The schedule makes me feel like we are coming and going a lot, but our afternoons are all to ourselves. I am very happy to be teaching your children this year.    They have a new classmate and I feel like they have done a nice job of welcoming him and making him feel comfortable.  Kudos to the kids!!

Facebook -  I have a Facebook page called St. Malachy Fantastic 4th Grade.  You can go on and like the page.  I have a first day of school picture on there.  I have to accept you to the page so the only ones seeing this page are parents unless you let me know a grandparent would like to see the page.  We keep the page private otherwise.  Last year's parents also have access.  Please go on and request to like it.  I will put different things on here that we are doing or just some pics of the kids during different activities.  Just another way for you to see what we are doing in 4th grade.

Language Arts -  The story we will be starting  this week is called Because of Winn-Dixie.  It is a chapter book written by Kate DiCamillo.  This story has been made into a movie.    It is a fun story about moving to a new town, not having any friends, making friends with a dog and the librarian.  It is funny how her and the librarian become friends!  We are working on story structure, so character, setting, and plot and also summarizing.  The students will actually work on summarizing each week with every story.  In grammar we are refreshing our memories on sentences, subjects, predicates, and nouns.  They will take an end of the week test on Friday along with a post test in spelling!

Math -  This week in math we have taken a Chapter 1 pretest to see what the kids all ready know about Place Value.  This is taking a couple days to complete.  I take all my math tests online in the same place they take their Language Arts tests.  I hope to have the students complete the beginning pages of chapter 1 in their book.  These pages just refresh the kids memory on topics we will be discussing in this chapter.  

Social Studies-   Our whole year will be spent learning about the United States.  We will learn all 50 states, where they are on the map and their capitals.  We will learn them a region at a time.  We will learn about a Native American tribe who settled the region, we will learn about resources in the region, we will learn about climate, and what the regions offer today. The students will have an interactive notebook that we will work on that will have all 50 states in them and some facts about the states.  They will color the state's flag too.  It is a fun way to walk away from 4th grade with a book to keep about the states.  Right now the first few lessons are on the United States as a whole.  We are talking about landforms and then we will move on to discuss our government.  We just skim the surface about that.  We discuss the three levels and three branches and what the purpose of each branch is and what they do. It will be a fun yet very busy year for the students! 

There is a lot of adjusting for kids to do this year.  Organization is the key to be successful.  I will help them get there.  I know the first couple months seem very stressful sometimes but the students will catch  on and it will be easy for them.  We all just need to patient and help the students learn the new routine and expectations.  We work on all of it everyday.  Some need a little more help then others and this is expected.  I am still working on figuring all of them out also.   I hope everyone has a great long, safe weekend with whatever you do.

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy LAST Thursday of 4th grade!!  I can't believe it is here and I am very sad!  I hate to see these kids move on.  I want to keep them!  I just have a few things to let you know today. Thank you for sharing your precious children with me!  I have truly enjoyed being a part of their lives for this year!  

Language Arts -  We finished off the year reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and we watched the movie and had popcorn, pop, and chocolate. They were a great audience.  They laughed together and watched intently.  I heard one student say it was the best movie they have ever seen! We had fun a lot of fun with this. It is always a great end to the year.  Please keep reading over the summer.  Statistics show that if you read nothing you can lose up to 2 months worth of comprehension skills! We do NOT want that.  I would also hate to see them lose any fluency they have spent the year building!

Math-  We have finished the year doing division!  Some have picked up on it and some have not.  We have practiced it every day for over a week.  I highly recommend having your child do some division over the summer.  In the beginning of 5th grade they will dig into it and it will only help them if they practice, practice, practice.  Also any basic facts you can do with them would be great.  Multiplication and division would be the best.

Social Studies- We did it! They finished their interactive notebooks.  They have a book of facts about all 50 states that they can keep!  We also took our end of the year states and capitals test.  Most did very well, I had a couple that did not.  Those tests are in their folders for you to look at.  It has been a fun year learning about the 50 states.

Friday, May 31st -  We will begin our day together, then we will go to mass at 9:15.  At the end of mass there will be awards and a reception for Father and Kay.  Lunch will be burgers from the grill of Thane and Rachel Glynn.  At 12:45 we will begin field day.  We will play games for the rest of the afternoon.  I am trying to finish our read aloud book so I will do a lot of that tomorrow.  I am not sure I can get it done but I will try.

Have a great summer!  I have had a great year and wish these kids nothing but great things in their future!  I am thankful I get to teach them at least one class next year!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  Only 6 days left including today!! Hard to believe!  This weather does not help!  If it were warm all the time, I would be ready but this rain and cold is not making me anxious for summer.  Plus I just keeping thinking about missing these kiddos too much!!    We have a lot that we are doing to finish up our year.  I sure will miss seeing them every day! They have definitely been a joy to have!

Language Arts -  We are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!  We have been covering 5 chapters a day.  I read to them, they read out loud, they read in partners or groups.  We are doing it all.  Every day they have something to read on their own. I also have comprehension items they work on.  Most are loving the book and can't wait to watch the movie.  I plan to show the movie next Thursday!  On Wednesday of next week, we will be having a spelling bee.  The 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades will hold a spelling bee in their rooms and then we will take the top winners from each room and hold one big spelling bee to narrow it down to a winner.  That winner will be entered into the State Fair Spelling Bee.  That student will go and compete at the State Fair on the first OR second day of the fair.  IF  the winner is unable to attend we will go to the runner up and give them the opportunity to participate.  It is a great experience.  I have heard some say they don't want to go.  It really is a great learning experience for them.  All students will be required to participate in the classroom.  We will run the bee just like a normal spelling contest. Also, on that Wednesday they will take a Unit Test over the Charlie book.  It is not hard but will make the kids think.  I feel the hardest part is keeping the book separate from the movie. Most have seen the movie and try to answer based on that and find that their answers are wrong.  If you haven't read the book I recommend that you do.  I will show the 1960's movie with Gene Wilder.  It is my favorite and the newer version is just  a little disturbing to show kids, but Tim Burton movies always have a little bit of a dark side to them.  These last days will be fun in language arts.

Math- I am working on teaching them the standard algorithm or regrouping strategy for division.  We know it as long division.  IT is the way that we learned to divide. Actually, the only way we learned to divide. I will most likely spend the rest of this week working on this.  Next week we will do any lessons we can and we will possibly get in a chapter 4 test by the last day.  I would like that data for report cards to fairly give you information on how your child is doing in this area. 

Social Studies - We have read some important things about the Southwest and took a map test.  Now we are reading some important lessons about the West.  There will not be time for a map test for this region. I will give the kids a map so they can use it to study but the next map test will be next Thursday and it will be over the entire 50 states!  The kids are fully aware this is coming.  We have been gearing up for it all year.  Today they read about the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone National Park.  Some have visited places that we were talking about and some have not.  These are great ideas for family vacations if you are looking for ideas.  Sorry, learning about the states lends itself to talking about cool places to visit.  I love family vacations so I am always making suggestions.

Spirit Day -  Mrs. Simmons has decided tomorrow will be a spirit day!  You can wear sweats or a hat for $1.00.  It is our last day to collect money for our Pay it Forward Program. It  looks to be warm but rainy so let's celebrate in comfort!!  

Memorial Day -  Remember we do NOT have school on Monday to honor Memorial Day.

Thursday, May 30th -  We will be watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the morning.  We will be turning in all books that need turned in.  We will be cleaning out the desks and taking all our belongings home.  Please be sure to send an extra bag with them in case all their stuff does not fit in their school bag.  Keep in mind some of your kids have sweatshirts and extra things here.  We will also clean out the lockers.  

Last Day of school -  The last day of school will be a very busy one.  We will have mass at 9:15.  This will be our last mass of the year.  Sports awards will be given out at this time and we will enjoy a small cookie reception in honor or Father Halbur and Kay Boden the Parish business manager who is retiring.  Lunch is provided by Thane and Rachel Glynn.  They will grill our for us.  Field Day will take place 12:45-2:30 on the playground. The 8th grade clap out will begin at 3:00. Students will be dismissed at 3:10. That is  a lot going on. Hopefully in that time the students can clean all the desks and chairs for me and we will get them stacked up out of the way. 

I am sad the year is ending but looking forward to a summer to take a couple classes and reboot my brain for a new year.  I will be taking a writing class this summer and a classroom strategies class.  I will be enjoying my children and reading some good books!  That is my favorite part of summer, my summer reading list!  I have a shelf full of books and have been in a reading slump lately.  I am just too busy and the end of the year is just too crazy to focus on reading.    Have a great summer and enjoy your children at home because I will miss seeing them every day!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!  I am "out of the office" today.  I am at the State Track Meet today!  Funny last Thursday it was too cold and conditions were too poor to run, and this Thursday there is a heat advisory!  Crazy Iowa weather!!  I don't plan on whining about being too hot!  I told the kids I may come back with a sunburn though.  I will be watching the 4X800 team at 11:20 and then Peyton Rice run the open 400 at 1:20.  Then I will find a mall with air conditioning and a pedicure place!!  I want to wear capri pants and sandals and I haven't yet, due to my nasty winter toes!  Only 2 more Thursdays, can you believe it?  I can't  I am not ready. It's been a great year and I hate to see these kiddos move on.  It is exciting for them but sad for me, they are such a great class.  Thank God, I get to still teach them one class a day! 

Language Arts -  This week in language arts we have been taking the unit 5 test and sharing book reports.  They have also done some free reading, and some handwriting.  The book reports have been fun!  They are creative students and some of their scenes are really interesting.  I am impressed because there are 14 totally different boxes.  Each unique in their own way.  I plan on finishing book reports on Friday.  The results for the Unit 5 test will go home in next Thursday's folder.  Next week we will begin reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for fun.  We will get to do just a couple fun activities with the book but really there is barely enough time left to read the whole book and of course, show the movie!  I love watching the 1960's version of it.  Gene Wilder is so good and the kids fit their parts perfectly. I hope to be showing that movie on May 30th.  We will have to read like crazy and even read some for homework to finish.  

Math -  We are beginning to get into long division.  We have spent the last 3 days working on partial quotient.  The kids are subtracting, familiar chunks of numbers from the dividend to get their answers.  I tell them there is not right/wrong way to get it as long as you are using the strategy.  Some people can do it with small amount of work and others have to show a lot more work to get the quotient.  This leads us right into long division.  Ms. Surma and I went over chapter 4 and picked out the necessary things to teach out of the chapter before the end of the year.  We should be able to get a test in over chapter 4 by the end of the year.  That is our goal for sure.

Social Studies - We are making our way quickly through the Southwest Region of the United States.  It only consists of 4 states: Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.  They will be getting their maps today to study 4 states for a map test on Monday.  We will be moving into the West next week.  Please, remember that on Thursday of the last week of school the kids will be taking their map test over the 50 states and capitals.  They have exactly two weeks to get all 50 down on where they are on the map and name the capital.  This is a pretty big test and is one standard/benchmark on the report card.  I would be sure they are studying a little bit every night from here on until May 30th.

Spirit Day-  Friday the 17th is a Spirit day.  You may wear sweats (too hot) but you can wear a hat for $1.00!  Bring in your dollar bills and wear a fun hat.

Spring Music Concert:  This concert will be held next Wednesday, May 22nd at the High School.  There is a reception to follow in honor of Father Halbur.

Well, only 2 more blogs coming from me for this class.  I hope you have found this helpful and informational about what goes on in my classroom!   have a great weekend! Hopefully it is a warm one for all of us!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  Not really when it is chilly again today.  I have state qualifying track tonight and they are talking wind chills of 23 degrees.  I don't know that anyone is going to be running any spectacular times tonight!  I will be enjoying my car more than the track meet most likely! I am ready for track to be over and things to warm up and stay warmed up!!  I am sure all of you are also.  Time is dwindling down for 4th grade. It is hard to believe! It has been a great year!!

Language Arts -  Our last story in unit 5 is called "The Fun They Had".  This is a great story about kids from the future finding a "book".  Books in the future go across a television screen like a teleprompter.  The book is about school long ago, which is school today.  It is a fun short story!  The kids liked it.  It is science fiction.  We are reviewing in grammar. We talked about ending punctuation, capitalizing words in titles and whether to put title in quotes or underline it, and also commas with coordinating conjunctions.  The vocabulary strategy was on Greek and Latin word parts: therm, meter, aud, and fac.  They learned therm means "heat", meter means "measure", aud means "to hear", and fac means "to make" or "to do".  So the word thermometer is to measure heat.  We worked with several words containing these word parts and figured out their definitions.  Tomorrow will be our normal Friday with spelling posttest and end of week test!  This is our last week!  Next week we will test over Unit 5 and start reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a class for fun!  I have a book for each student.  We will read some together, some in partners, and some on our own.  I will put in some activities throughout the book also.  At the end I will share the 1960's movie with them.  One of my all time favorite movies!  So much fun!

Math- We are working through the division chapter.  We have learned how to estimate division problems using compatible numbers.  I have taught them how to use a multiplication chart to help them find answers also.  They use this as a resource.  We will continue to work and learn about division until the end of the year.  Tomorrow they will work on division flash cards to help with them with fluency which is very important when learning long division.

Social Studies - Tomorrow is a Map Test over the Midwest!  I have warned them all week.  They should be practicing their states and capitals.  We are working through a couple lessons this week on Native Americans in the Midwest, the Ojibwa.  We also talked about a Land Rush in Wapello County Iowa.  We are working on getting our states in our notebooks.  We have more states than days left so they will have to double up some days.  Tomorrow I will be assigning two states after their map test. 

Elk"s Track Meet -  This track meet for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders will be held on Monday, May 13th at the High School track.  This is a fun track meet to introduce track and field to our young people.  Ms. Lesan will be at the track on Saturday, May  11th from 10:00 - 11:00 am to practice the high jump, long jump and any running events.  This is awesome of her to take the time to help the kids!  It truly is a fun event.  I remember participating as a kid. 

Spirit Day -  Tomorrow is a Spirit day!  Again the kids may wear sweats and a hat for $1.00.  It's a bargain!  Also they may just wear one or the other!  All Friday's this month are spirit days excluding the 24th.  

Absent -  I will be absent tomorrow.  I am attending graduation at Iowa State for my daughter's boyfriend.  He is graduated with an education degree and has accepted a position in Lenox, Iowa.  I always love my days in Ames and especially on Campus.  I wouldn't be teaching if I wouldn't have attended here and got my education degree!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels

Dear Parents!
     Happy Thursday!  I am crazy today.  It is Lap-a-thon Day which throws me for a loop!  I almost forgot to post a blog! Of course, that wouldn't be the first time.  We ran the sidewalks this morning.  Your child might be a little sore.  Some of them did not have appropriate running shoes for the event.  The kids all ran their hearts out.  I am super proud of all of them.  I have a track meet to attend tonight so I wore my track clothes to school.  I told them it was to support their running today!  They were all very genuinely thankful, even though I was trying to be funny.  They were rewarded with freeze pops when they were finished running. I feel very successful!

Language Arts-  This week we are reading a nonfiction story called Owen and Mzee.  You can look them up and find their story online and see videos of the two animals on youtube.  The kids have watched some of the videos.  The story is about Owen, a hippo who was left alone after his entire pod of hippos was wiped out due to a tsunami.  Owen was left stranded on a dry strip of land.  He was taken to an animal refuge where he was put into an area with an aldabra Tortoise named Mzee.  They are two animals who in normal conditions would not be friends.  Becauase the hippo was alone and scared, the two animals bonded and are still together today.  It is a cool story and the kids enjoyed it.  The grammar we worked on this week was on comma rules.  We reviewed when and where we use commas in a sentence.  The vocabulary strategy this week was the suffixes -ed, and -ly.  Tomorrow is a normal Friday. Please be sure the students are studying their vocabulary packet at home.  Spelling post test is also tomorrow.   There is more good news, our online system is up and running again so the kids will be able to take the test online and have instant feedback!

Math -  We started division this week.  We began with a lesson on estimation.  I taught them how to use multiples to find estimates.  I showed them how to use a multiplication chart to help them and if the chart wasn't big enough, what they needed to do to locate an answer.  They seem to like this lesson and understand it.  We had an observer in class that day so the students were totally in tune to me and what was going on.  Today we began work on division with remainders.  I started them using counters to help them to see what they were doing.  Then I tried to move them to doing the problems without counters.  They have a few problems they need to complete in their books.

Social Studies -  We will be checking a study guide tomorrow.  The test over chapter 8 will be on Monday.  I then plan to give them the map of the Midwest to begin work on memorizing where those states are located.  I also will quickly cover a lesson or two in chapter 9 but we will not test over this chapter.  I will then move on into Southwest.  We will test over one of those chapters but not the other.  Then it is a quick move  into the West.  We will be hurrying to finish up the interactive notebooks and map tests so we can have one giant map test at the end of the year.  Hard to believe I am making all my plans until the end but here we are!!

Spirit Day -  Tomorrow is a spirit day  Bring a $1.00 and wear your sweats or a hat!  Yes just one dollar gets you both items.  Lucky you!!  The money goes to a great cause.  We have had several teachers out with surgery this year! They have had a hip, knee and shoulder fixed!  With this fund we were able to give them a care package from the staff and students to brighten their day and help with a few meals at home.  

Last Day - Just a reminder that our last day of school will be Friday, May 31st!  Since we are not ending the same day as the public school, I feel like I need to keep putting a reminder out there, so there is no confusion.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  Graduation is upon us, and the parties are starting.  One of my children will be home Monday for the summer and the other one on Wednesday!  Definitely makes my heart happy!!  Jami will be home all summer but Josie is once again, working on staff at CYC camp. IF your child is attending they will see here there!  

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels