Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I hope everyone had a very enjoyable Spring Break! I know my family sure did. We went to Dallas, Texas to stay with my cousin and her family. We had a great time. The weather was 80-90 each day. We enjoyed relaxing by the pool and reading books, shopping, playing with virtual reality, and eating different places Iowa does not offer. We went to a fondue restaurant which was quite an experience.
The students all seemed to come back tan and relaxed from their break. The first few days were great!! They were glad to be hear and were quiet and paid attention. They are still doing a great job, just a little more chatty than the first two days. We have put in some good work time this week and will continue until the end of the year. We have a lot to accomplish before 5th grade!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called I Could Do That! This is a biography about Esther Morris. She was a women who believed women should have the right to vote. She was the person who made it happen in the state of Wyoming. Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote. This happened about 51 years before women were granted the right to vote by the U. S. Government. We even looked her up on the computer and learned more information about her. We have talked about contractions and negative words this week in grammar. We learned to not use two negative words in the same sentence. We talked about ways to change sentences with 2 negatives to make it correct. We also read a small story on the constitution. I reminded us that the government was made up of 2 branches and that citizens have rights and responsibilities. I love this story and I may have triggered an idea for some of the girls in the room, who seemed interested in Esther. Next year they will need to read a biography book and do a report. This is a person they may want to find a book about.
Math - This week we completed our mid-chapter review. We also started the job readiness section for BizTown and will soon be applying for jobs. Today we will begin the next lesson in the chapter which is on using repeated subtraction and multiples to find quotients. We will probably spend a couple days on this lesson. The last half of this chapter will get a little heavy and I want to be sure they are understanding the content before I move forward. Please remember, if you are struggling with helping your student at home, I am available in the mornings before school to help them. This will also keep them from getting any late slips because they didn't understand what they were doing.
Social Studies- We are in the 2nd lesson of chapter 6 on the Southeast states. We talked about the climate of Florida, we talked about the Florida Keys, and we talked about Hurricanes a little bit. The students have their assignment dates for their projects. They have about 4-6 weeks to work on them. Some students have brought in their poste rboard for me to trace their state on. That is only if they are doing a poster or a person. We will be doing BizTown activities on Fridays during Social studies. With our days off in April this field trip will come upon us pretty quickly.
BizTown - We have been working on BizTown, we are working on the Job Readiness section. We talked about interests the students have and skills they need to have. I talked a lot about me and how I came to be a teacher. I talked about all my interests and the skills I need to do my job. We talked about jobs being "people jobs', "ideas jobs", "things jobs", and "data jobs. People jobs are jobs that have you working with people, idea jobs involve coming up with new ideas or thinking about solutions to complex problems, thing jobs are poeple who like to work with things such as machines or tools. They enjoy making, fixing or building things, and working outdoors. The data job involves working with numbers and information. People who like solving math problems and working on gathering information are good at these jobs. The students will be introduced to the jobs available at BizTown. They will choose their top 3 choices of jobs when filling out the application. Students will then be put through an interview process. There will be a panel of people making the decision on who gets what jobs. The kids are very excited for this process.
April 3rd - Just a reminder that there is NO school on Monday, April 3rd. It is an inservice day for the teachers.
As most of you have probably all ready heard, I lost my last grandparent on Monday evening. Grandma was 94 and lived a good full long life. she has been without my grandpa for over 30 years. It was time for our to join him. I had family away so funeral arrangements will be made today. I will most likely be attending a funeral Monday instead of professional development. Worse case scenario is I would be gone Tuesday for the funeral instead. I will know for sure tonight.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! I am not sure I have much to share this week. It has been a big week of testing! Iowa Assessments are under our belts!! Tomorrow we will be completing one more thing for the Iowa Assessments and then taking a CRS test. Please see below for that. I can't wait to get scores back and see their growth from last year.
Language Arts - We have spent our language arts time on Iowa Assessment this week. Wednesday we didn't do any testing so we started writing our Dollars for Scholars Essay. This is an essay contest put on by the Dollars for Scholars group here in Creston. The students are writing an essay called "What Education Means to Me". This essay will be written solely at school. The essay is due tomorrow. I will help them to edit their essays by checking spelling only. I will not change their words. This essay should be based on their thoughts, no matter how they put them down on paper. After we have edited them we will then learn how to use Googledocs. The students will type their essay in and share it with me so I can print it out. The student names will not be on the essays and they are then give to 3 teacher in the building to pick their favorite three. When the top three have been chosen, those 3 will go on to the Dollars For Scholars group where they will judge them and pick a#1 essay. One person in this room is guaranteed a $50.00 savings bond. This is so exciting!!
Math - This week we have been doing math this week. We have done ST Math and BizTown math. This week in BizTown we have learned about banks and what they have to offer, we are learning to write deposit slips, and checks and keep track of them in a check register. Some are really struggling with their registers! We practiced writing checks and filling out a check register today. We have also talked about "bad" checks or bouncing a check. They are having fun learning adult things but have a hard time wanting to listen. We do some game playing with BizTown and when we do a lot of them don't want to calm down to come back to the lesson. I have warned them that I would stop playing the games if they couldn't come back to the lesson. I hope they figure out that I am serious.
Social Studies - We have not done much of this subject this week. We have been testing so much. We have finished a lesson and done a worksheet on it. I have assigned another state to be put into their notebooks. We will be sure it gets glued into our notebooks. Next week we will definitely choose our next state project. We may get to it on Friday but if not for sure on Monday or Tuesday.
CRS Testing - This is called the Constructed Response Supplement Test. It is a reading test and is used as our 2nd assessment for reading. The students will be reading a non fiction story and answering 8 questions. They can go back and find the answers in the text of the story. We will be taking this test also.
REMINDER!! WE WILL BE IN SCHOOL TOMORROW!! The public school is not having school so there are no buses running. Please be sure you have made arrangements.
Conferences! Also please remember conferences are next Thursday. I have just have one or two that have not signed up. Please be sure to get that done. Thank you!
I hope you all have a great weekend! SNOW!! UGH!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! I am not sure I have much to share this week. It has been a big week of testing! Iowa Assessments are under our belts!! Tomorrow we will be completing one more thing for the Iowa Assessments and then taking a CRS test. Please see below for that. I can't wait to get scores back and see their growth from last year.
Language Arts - We have spent our language arts time on Iowa Assessment this week. Wednesday we didn't do any testing so we started writing our Dollars for Scholars Essay. This is an essay contest put on by the Dollars for Scholars group here in Creston. The students are writing an essay called "What Education Means to Me". This essay will be written solely at school. The essay is due tomorrow. I will help them to edit their essays by checking spelling only. I will not change their words. This essay should be based on their thoughts, no matter how they put them down on paper. After we have edited them we will then learn how to use Googledocs. The students will type their essay in and share it with me so I can print it out. The student names will not be on the essays and they are then give to 3 teacher in the building to pick their favorite three. When the top three have been chosen, those 3 will go on to the Dollars For Scholars group where they will judge them and pick a#1 essay. One person in this room is guaranteed a $50.00 savings bond. This is so exciting!!
Math - This week we have been doing math this week. We have done ST Math and BizTown math. This week in BizTown we have learned about banks and what they have to offer, we are learning to write deposit slips, and checks and keep track of them in a check register. Some are really struggling with their registers! We practiced writing checks and filling out a check register today. We have also talked about "bad" checks or bouncing a check. They are having fun learning adult things but have a hard time wanting to listen. We do some game playing with BizTown and when we do a lot of them don't want to calm down to come back to the lesson. I have warned them that I would stop playing the games if they couldn't come back to the lesson. I hope they figure out that I am serious.
Social Studies - We have not done much of this subject this week. We have been testing so much. We have finished a lesson and done a worksheet on it. I have assigned another state to be put into their notebooks. We will be sure it gets glued into our notebooks. Next week we will definitely choose our next state project. We may get to it on Friday but if not for sure on Monday or Tuesday.
CRS Testing - This is called the Constructed Response Supplement Test. It is a reading test and is used as our 2nd assessment for reading. The students will be reading a non fiction story and answering 8 questions. They can go back and find the answers in the text of the story. We will be taking this test also.
REMINDER!! WE WILL BE IN SCHOOL TOMORROW!! The public school is not having school so there are no buses running. Please be sure you have made arrangements.
Conferences! Also please remember conferences are next Thursday. I have just have one or two that have not signed up. Please be sure to get that done. Thank you!
I hope you all have a great weekend! SNOW!! UGH!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! The weekend is here and it is the St. Malachy Gala and Auction!!! Such a fun time of year! I really enjoy our auction. We have some great items to put up for auction this year!! I hope all of you are planning to attend. Tickets are $35 per person and can be purchased in the school office if you haven't all ready picked yours up! I hope to see all of you there!
March 10th - This is next Friday and is a day that the public school doesn't have school but we do! So therefore, you must get your child to school and from school that day, due to no buses!
Shorts- Yes, according to the dress code shorts are allowed in March but I would hope that you would not let your child wear them on cold days. We go outside for recess and will still do so even if it is cold and kids are wearing shorts. That 20 minutes will be very long if they are freezing cause they are in shorts. I told the kids I was very proud of them for not wearing shorts today. It was too cold. They all thought it was nuts to wear them today. I am glad to know they will be smart about it. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Language Arts - This week we did not read a story, we were taking the Unit 4 Assessment. You will receive results from week 20 and the Unit assessment next week. This week we have completed the unit test, made donuts for the entire school, and shared book reports that were due on Wednesday. It has been a busy week for Language Arts.
Math - We are all ready up to lesson 5 in division. We have been focusing on estimating quotients. We started by using a multiplication table to do the work, then moved away from using that to using compatible numbers. We also investigated remainders. We used several different counters to help us play around with division and see remainders. This activity has them visually seeing division and the remainders they may have. It was fun because they "played" with items and they learn because they see it in action. In the 2nd half of the chapter we will begin to use the different strategies for division.
Social Studies - We finished the unit on the Northeast Region. We are now moving onto the Southeast Region. If your child struggled with labeling the northeast states and naming the capitals, they need to continue to practice because we are moving on to the next region. They will now need to work on studying this region. Now that we have more of a routine on the Interactive notebooks we will move quickly through this chapter. We need to or we won't get all the regions covered.
JA BizTown - The 4th and 5th graders will be attending JA BizTown as their field trip this year. We will be going on Tuesday, April 25th. This is a great experience for your kiddos. It is fun day but a huge learning experience. Here is a little overview about it:
Junior Achievement USA empowers young people to own their economic success. Since its founding in 1919, JA has contributed to the business and economic education of more that 100 million young people in the United States and throughout the world.
JA's programs span the K-12 educational spectrum. The programs help students assess their personal skills, interests, and values; understand the economic benefits of education; explore career options; learn job-hunting skills; respect and understand business ethics; and practice personal and business financial management. Junior Achievement's Capstone Programs introduce studnts to the principal characteristics of a market economy and the roles that consumers and producers play in the free enterprise system.
Junior Achievement used hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. IN partnership with educators and business, JA brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential.
This is a great day for the kids to experience. I will be preparing them for their big day. We will do some financial literacy during math and some items about philanthropy during social studies. They will learn how to get paid, how to use a check book and write a check, and why taxes are removed from their checks. They will have to apply for jobs and interview. They will be given a job they must fulfill that day. The kids actually run the town. We have adults that will be working in each business to help guide the kids if needed. Ms. Surma and I have all the volunteers we need for that day all ready.
I wanted to let you know a little bit about BizTown before I get started teaching it to the students. I hope to see all of you at the Gala and Auction this weekend. Enjoy the weather!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! The weekend is here and it is the St. Malachy Gala and Auction!!! Such a fun time of year! I really enjoy our auction. We have some great items to put up for auction this year!! I hope all of you are planning to attend. Tickets are $35 per person and can be purchased in the school office if you haven't all ready picked yours up! I hope to see all of you there!
March 10th - This is next Friday and is a day that the public school doesn't have school but we do! So therefore, you must get your child to school and from school that day, due to no buses!
Shorts- Yes, according to the dress code shorts are allowed in March but I would hope that you would not let your child wear them on cold days. We go outside for recess and will still do so even if it is cold and kids are wearing shorts. That 20 minutes will be very long if they are freezing cause they are in shorts. I told the kids I was very proud of them for not wearing shorts today. It was too cold. They all thought it was nuts to wear them today. I am glad to know they will be smart about it. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Language Arts - This week we did not read a story, we were taking the Unit 4 Assessment. You will receive results from week 20 and the Unit assessment next week. This week we have completed the unit test, made donuts for the entire school, and shared book reports that were due on Wednesday. It has been a busy week for Language Arts.
Math - We are all ready up to lesson 5 in division. We have been focusing on estimating quotients. We started by using a multiplication table to do the work, then moved away from using that to using compatible numbers. We also investigated remainders. We used several different counters to help us play around with division and see remainders. This activity has them visually seeing division and the remainders they may have. It was fun because they "played" with items and they learn because they see it in action. In the 2nd half of the chapter we will begin to use the different strategies for division.
Social Studies - We finished the unit on the Northeast Region. We are now moving onto the Southeast Region. If your child struggled with labeling the northeast states and naming the capitals, they need to continue to practice because we are moving on to the next region. They will now need to work on studying this region. Now that we have more of a routine on the Interactive notebooks we will move quickly through this chapter. We need to or we won't get all the regions covered.
JA BizTown - The 4th and 5th graders will be attending JA BizTown as their field trip this year. We will be going on Tuesday, April 25th. This is a great experience for your kiddos. It is fun day but a huge learning experience. Here is a little overview about it:
Junior Achievement USA empowers young people to own their economic success. Since its founding in 1919, JA has contributed to the business and economic education of more that 100 million young people in the United States and throughout the world.
JA's programs span the K-12 educational spectrum. The programs help students assess their personal skills, interests, and values; understand the economic benefits of education; explore career options; learn job-hunting skills; respect and understand business ethics; and practice personal and business financial management. Junior Achievement's Capstone Programs introduce studnts to the principal characteristics of a market economy and the roles that consumers and producers play in the free enterprise system.
Junior Achievement used hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. IN partnership with educators and business, JA brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential.
This is a great day for the kids to experience. I will be preparing them for their big day. We will do some financial literacy during math and some items about philanthropy during social studies. They will learn how to get paid, how to use a check book and write a check, and why taxes are removed from their checks. They will have to apply for jobs and interview. They will be given a job they must fulfill that day. The kids actually run the town. We have adults that will be working in each business to help guide the kids if needed. Ms. Surma and I have all the volunteers we need for that day all ready.
I wanted to let you know a little bit about BizTown before I get started teaching it to the students. I hope to see all of you at the Gala and Auction this weekend. Enjoy the weather!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! I hope you have all enjoyed the weather! I know I took advantage of it. I walked a couple of times. The nice weather is over! It is all ready getting colder today. Please, please, please make sure your child goes out of the house with a coat tomorrow. The high is only to be like 35. That is not sweatshirt weather, that is coat weather. Maybe even hat and mittens. I am a wimp and think today is cold, but it is compared to what we have had. I am glad we are not getting the snow they will be getting about 100 miles away. I do have to travel to Ames on Saturday and hope I don't run into much there. I am attending Josie's, mother-daughter day at her sorority. She is an Alpha Gamma Delta and lives in the house as a Freshman. She was lucky they had an opening. I was never into the sorority stuff so this is a new experience for me. I am looking forward to it.
Language Arts - This week is week 20 and so marks the end of unit 4. We read the story Sacagawea, this week. It is a biography about her and her part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was a very interesting story. Most students didn't know that she was stolen from her Shoshone tribe by the Hidatsa people. When she is on the expedition she is reunited with her brother, who was now Chief of the Shoshone. She still returns back to the HIdatsa though. We spent our week learning and reviewing abbreviations in grammar. Next week we will take the Unit 4 assessment. The following week will be the Iowa Assessments so we will not cover a story but work on a writing project.
Math - We started division this week. The students took a pretest over division. It was pretty bad. They were highly frustrated with it. Most of them didn't understand even where to begin. They were showing their frustration. I had one person pass the test and all others failed, which is fine. It shows me where we need to do the most work. We have a lot of work to do. We started lesson one yesterday and finished it today. This lesson is estimating quotients. I taught them to use a multiplication table to find the estimates. We struggle the first day but had it by the second day. This will be a very heavy chapter for us. We will have to work very hard to get through it. I told them they should ask questions at school and not bring questions home because we are learning more things than what the parents learned and they may not be able to help. I reminded them that I was always in the room before school to help them when needed. So if they come home and are struggling send them back to me.
Social Studies- We are finishing up the Northeast Region. Their interactive notebooks are completed for this region. We will start a new region next week. We will move a little faster through this region so we can get to the others. Now that we have a routine with the interactive notebooks we will integrate that easier than the last time. There will also be a social studies project they will complete for this region. That will all be coming up quickly. They need to be sure to study their Northeast maps and capitals tonight. They will do the 2nd part of test tomorrow over those two items. I forgot to remind them to study those two things so gave them tonight to do so.
Iowa Assessments - We will be taking Iowa Assessments the week of March 6-10 this year. Yes this seems early but this is the only week in March with a full 5 days! We will have snacks for students and I will provide other "brain breaks" that week.
Friday, March 10 - This day is another day that the public school has off for Professional Development but we are still in session. There will be no buses that day so please make arrangements to get your child to and from school that day. Why you ask is this the 2nd day we are in session and they are not? Look at your calendar in April. The Mon.- Wed. after Easter we are not in session. The teachers will be in St. Louis at a National Catholic Teachers Education Convention. So that is why we are making up days up! What a nice Easter break.
I hope all of you have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! I hope you have all enjoyed the weather! I know I took advantage of it. I walked a couple of times. The nice weather is over! It is all ready getting colder today. Please, please, please make sure your child goes out of the house with a coat tomorrow. The high is only to be like 35. That is not sweatshirt weather, that is coat weather. Maybe even hat and mittens. I am a wimp and think today is cold, but it is compared to what we have had. I am glad we are not getting the snow they will be getting about 100 miles away. I do have to travel to Ames on Saturday and hope I don't run into much there. I am attending Josie's, mother-daughter day at her sorority. She is an Alpha Gamma Delta and lives in the house as a Freshman. She was lucky they had an opening. I was never into the sorority stuff so this is a new experience for me. I am looking forward to it.
Language Arts - This week is week 20 and so marks the end of unit 4. We read the story Sacagawea, this week. It is a biography about her and her part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was a very interesting story. Most students didn't know that she was stolen from her Shoshone tribe by the Hidatsa people. When she is on the expedition she is reunited with her brother, who was now Chief of the Shoshone. She still returns back to the HIdatsa though. We spent our week learning and reviewing abbreviations in grammar. Next week we will take the Unit 4 assessment. The following week will be the Iowa Assessments so we will not cover a story but work on a writing project.
Math - We started division this week. The students took a pretest over division. It was pretty bad. They were highly frustrated with it. Most of them didn't understand even where to begin. They were showing their frustration. I had one person pass the test and all others failed, which is fine. It shows me where we need to do the most work. We have a lot of work to do. We started lesson one yesterday and finished it today. This lesson is estimating quotients. I taught them to use a multiplication table to find the estimates. We struggle the first day but had it by the second day. This will be a very heavy chapter for us. We will have to work very hard to get through it. I told them they should ask questions at school and not bring questions home because we are learning more things than what the parents learned and they may not be able to help. I reminded them that I was always in the room before school to help them when needed. So if they come home and are struggling send them back to me.
Social Studies- We are finishing up the Northeast Region. Their interactive notebooks are completed for this region. We will start a new region next week. We will move a little faster through this region so we can get to the others. Now that we have a routine with the interactive notebooks we will integrate that easier than the last time. There will also be a social studies project they will complete for this region. That will all be coming up quickly. They need to be sure to study their Northeast maps and capitals tonight. They will do the 2nd part of test tomorrow over those two items. I forgot to remind them to study those two things so gave them tonight to do so.
Iowa Assessments - We will be taking Iowa Assessments the week of March 6-10 this year. Yes this seems early but this is the only week in March with a full 5 days! We will have snacks for students and I will provide other "brain breaks" that week.
Friday, March 10 - This day is another day that the public school has off for Professional Development but we are still in session. There will be no buses that day so please make arrangements to get your child to and from school that day. Why you ask is this the 2nd day we are in session and they are not? Look at your calendar in April. The Mon.- Wed. after Easter we are not in session. The teachers will be in St. Louis at a National Catholic Teachers Education Convention. So that is why we are making up days up! What a nice Easter break.
I hope all of you have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! What a week! I feel like this week has been crazier than any other and I am not sure why. Well, I guess the flu has hit the teachers and aids so we have had a lot of absences and we are all trying to be helpful to make things still function. It can be a little stressful when we do that. I am getting to this letter late in the day and have to have it done by 3:00 so it goes out today. Any time after that and it doesn't go out until tomorrow. Ugh! I apologize if it is not as long as normal. On a happy note, how about the weather! Yes, loving the nice days! I took a recess duty today and thoroughly enjoyed it! Bring on some more!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called Harvesting Hope. It is about Cesar Chavez and all he did to help the migrant workers in California. It is a sad story about a family being happy. Living in a nice house, having plenty of food and farming as a family. Well a drought hits and ruins the crops. They can no longer live in their house and barely have enough to eat. They become migrant worker who move to wherever the work takes them. Cesar Chavez helped to get a union to protect the workers from the land owners that hire them. This is a biography so a true story. We learned about dependent clauses this week. We read a fun story about a school that has a garden for kids to care for and learn to use the vegetables in meals. They learn to prepare the vegetable and to eat healthy. We also read a story from last week called Zomo's Friends. This was a folktale that had a lesson to it about being a good friend. I love the story and we didn't cover it last week but I feel it is an important one to share. Tomorrow is spelling test and end of the week test!
Math - Oh WOW! We took a math test this week. I had 4 people pass. So.... I gave everyone an opportunity to better their scores by taking another version of the test. We are still working on that. I have more students asking questions the 2nd time around. Some struggle keeping straight the area formula and the perimeter formula. Some just struggle with the finding area of combined rectangles and then there are some harder problems. I am hoping to see some improvement in scores. I will put the best score out of the two tests in the grade book. We are working hard. Next Chapter will cover division. That will be a heavy chapter.
Social Studies - We are working hard on finishing up our interactive notebook for the Northeast. We will have it finished and all put together on Monday. Tuesday we will start a study guide for this chapter. We will take a test about next Thursday and end our time in the Northeast. We will move a little quicker through the next region, now that we know how the notebook works. We have a lot of work to finish all 50 states!!!! We will get there! We will also have a new set of projects coming up soon.
Trivia Night - PTO is sponsoring their 2nd Annual Trivia Night. It is being held Friday, February, 25th at the Lobby in Creston. It will begin at 6:00 P.M. with social hour and pizza. The fun will begin at 7:00. You can reserve a table as a team with up to 8 people. Individual /couples will be placed with a team. The fee is $20 per person. Come join in the fun! Last year was a blast according to those who were there. There is a team all ready to walk away the winners this year! Hope you are up for a little friendly competition!!
Book Report - Just a reminder that our book reports are due Wednesday, March 1st. I am really trying to push people to be reading and get finished up. The character sketch is not a project that you can wait until the night before and accomplish and do well on it. Please make sure your student is working on this. If the child receives a late slip for not having it done, there are 5 points automatically taken off the score. They have had a long time to complete this project. Some need to learn how to manage their time more wisely. Please, help them to do that.
I hope all of you are getting out and enjoying this lovely weather!! Have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! What a week! I feel like this week has been crazier than any other and I am not sure why. Well, I guess the flu has hit the teachers and aids so we have had a lot of absences and we are all trying to be helpful to make things still function. It can be a little stressful when we do that. I am getting to this letter late in the day and have to have it done by 3:00 so it goes out today. Any time after that and it doesn't go out until tomorrow. Ugh! I apologize if it is not as long as normal. On a happy note, how about the weather! Yes, loving the nice days! I took a recess duty today and thoroughly enjoyed it! Bring on some more!
Language Arts - This week we read a story called Harvesting Hope. It is about Cesar Chavez and all he did to help the migrant workers in California. It is a sad story about a family being happy. Living in a nice house, having plenty of food and farming as a family. Well a drought hits and ruins the crops. They can no longer live in their house and barely have enough to eat. They become migrant worker who move to wherever the work takes them. Cesar Chavez helped to get a union to protect the workers from the land owners that hire them. This is a biography so a true story. We learned about dependent clauses this week. We read a fun story about a school that has a garden for kids to care for and learn to use the vegetables in meals. They learn to prepare the vegetable and to eat healthy. We also read a story from last week called Zomo's Friends. This was a folktale that had a lesson to it about being a good friend. I love the story and we didn't cover it last week but I feel it is an important one to share. Tomorrow is spelling test and end of the week test!
Math - Oh WOW! We took a math test this week. I had 4 people pass. So.... I gave everyone an opportunity to better their scores by taking another version of the test. We are still working on that. I have more students asking questions the 2nd time around. Some struggle keeping straight the area formula and the perimeter formula. Some just struggle with the finding area of combined rectangles and then there are some harder problems. I am hoping to see some improvement in scores. I will put the best score out of the two tests in the grade book. We are working hard. Next Chapter will cover division. That will be a heavy chapter.
Social Studies - We are working hard on finishing up our interactive notebook for the Northeast. We will have it finished and all put together on Monday. Tuesday we will start a study guide for this chapter. We will take a test about next Thursday and end our time in the Northeast. We will move a little quicker through the next region, now that we know how the notebook works. We have a lot of work to finish all 50 states!!!! We will get there! We will also have a new set of projects coming up soon.
Trivia Night - PTO is sponsoring their 2nd Annual Trivia Night. It is being held Friday, February, 25th at the Lobby in Creston. It will begin at 6:00 P.M. with social hour and pizza. The fun will begin at 7:00. You can reserve a table as a team with up to 8 people. Individual /couples will be placed with a team. The fee is $20 per person. Come join in the fun! Last year was a blast according to those who were there. There is a team all ready to walk away the winners this year! Hope you are up for a little friendly competition!!
Book Report - Just a reminder that our book reports are due Wednesday, March 1st. I am really trying to push people to be reading and get finished up. The character sketch is not a project that you can wait until the night before and accomplish and do well on it. Please make sure your student is working on this. If the child receives a late slip for not having it done, there are 5 points automatically taken off the score. They have had a long time to complete this project. Some need to learn how to manage their time more wisely. Please, help them to do that.
I hope all of you are getting out and enjoying this lovely weather!! Have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!!! Best part is...tomorrow is Friday!! I am actually home sick today. My cough has returned with a vengeance! I hope going home and getting some good rest will help calm it down. Mrs. Bearden is there to take good care of the kids! Valentine's Day is just around the corner!! We will be celebrating here in the classroom next Tuesday, February 14th! Read further for details!
Language Arts - This week we have read the story Hercules' Quest. It tells a story about Hercules and how he is put to the test to earn his place on Mount Olympus with his father Zeus. They were confused at first about it being different then the movie Hercules which brought us to the discussion of how many movies are not like the books and how the books are a lot more detailed! We talked about prepositions and prepositional phrases this week for grammar. This is a hard one to teach and get the kids to grasp. I feel like they did a good job the first day! Today they were getting more in depth. The students also took some FAST testing this week. It is statewide testing that a lot of schools use to show fluency and comprehension in reading. I tested each student individually over the last couple weeks then today they all took a test online. This required them to have earbuds and listen to what it was telling and asking. The tricky thing with this testing is we only have like a 3-4 week window that we can give the test. We will do this same routine again in the Spring.
Math - We are finished with our Area and Perimeter chapter. The students started their review today. We will go over it tomorrow and they will take their test on Monday. I look forward to seeing the improvement from the prestest they took at the beginning of the chapter. Our next chapter we will tackle is going to be on Division. It is a very big heavy chapter. This class will do a great job getting the content. I try to make it seem very exciting so they want to learn the new concepts. If we are negative about what we are learning it will rub off on the kids and then they will struggle. If you are struggling at home helping them, just take a break and send the child to school to me and we will work it out. If it is stressful at home, it will be a very negative experience. They more positive we are the better accepted it is by the kids. That is what we are here for!
Social Studies - We continue to work on our interactive notebooks. Looking up information about the different states and cutting and pasting it into a notebook they can keep forever!! We are starting the last lesson in this chapter so a test will be in the works for next week for sure. Probably towards the end of the week. Our next chapter begins the Southeast Region. We will have a new round of projects and new flags to color! Thank goodness for our computers! I am so thankful we have them, they can pull them out at anytime to look up information and practice their vocabulary words on Quizlet.
Quizlet - I have gotten the students on a sight called Quizlet. I put their vocab words and spelling words for Language Arts on there every week. I also have put the vocabulary words for Social Studies on it. They go on Quizlet at school and play games that help them learn their vocabulary words. I tried to send it to your emails to be used at home. I am not sure I recommend it. You will get a ton of spam like emails. So far the scores on Friday tests for vocab have picked up and shown improvement. I am hoping to see huge improvement on the Social Studies test in the vocabulary section. This will tell me whether it is worth it or not. There is time at school for them to get on and do the activities so there is really no need to try it at home. Although I am sure they would love to be able to do it at home also. Sad thing is I don't have all the answers to why it works and why it doesn't.
Valentine's Day, Tuesday, February 14th. We will celebrate Valentine's Day at the end of the day. The students have made bags to place their valentines in. We will take the time to share the valentines and have a snack. I am looking for a couple of volunteers to bring in our treat for the day. I am asking for someone to bring a treat/snack and one to bring in a drink. We eat the snack and drink and pass out valentines. I do not allow them to eat candy from their bags. That is to go home and be eaten at your discretion. Please email if you are willing to supply the class with either of these items for their party. Thanks in advance.
Wednesday, February 15th. This is an important day on the calendar. It is such, because the public school does not have school that day. They have PD scheduled. We ARE having school that day. There will be no buses running that day! Which means you have to make sure your student gets to and from school that day. This also happens to be the wrestling day. If you are planning on taking your child to support the Panthers at State Duals, you will need to let us know in advance. A note on Monday will be fine, so we can gather their homework on Tuesday and they do not fall behind. Thank you!!
Auction Basket - We are still gathering items and cash donations for our auction basket. Please send any donations you may have to school. Also keep in mind, next week I will need their bible verse. I will talk to the kids about it tomorrow or Monday. The silent auction item is the kids writing a favorite bible verse on a block of wood and those pieces of wood will be put together and made into a cross. It is a very cool idea. You can find it on pinterest. If you have any questions about either of these contact Kiki Scarberry for the basket, Danielle Steele for the silent auction, or myself, I can answer about both. Next Friday Danielle plans to come in and the students write on the blocks. Then she will take them and finish them.
I feel like I had a lot to report this week! I hope all of you have a great weekend! I plan to take it easy and rest and try to shake what ever it is I have.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!!! Best part is...tomorrow is Friday!! I am actually home sick today. My cough has returned with a vengeance! I hope going home and getting some good rest will help calm it down. Mrs. Bearden is there to take good care of the kids! Valentine's Day is just around the corner!! We will be celebrating here in the classroom next Tuesday, February 14th! Read further for details!
Language Arts - This week we have read the story Hercules' Quest. It tells a story about Hercules and how he is put to the test to earn his place on Mount Olympus with his father Zeus. They were confused at first about it being different then the movie Hercules which brought us to the discussion of how many movies are not like the books and how the books are a lot more detailed! We talked about prepositions and prepositional phrases this week for grammar. This is a hard one to teach and get the kids to grasp. I feel like they did a good job the first day! Today they were getting more in depth. The students also took some FAST testing this week. It is statewide testing that a lot of schools use to show fluency and comprehension in reading. I tested each student individually over the last couple weeks then today they all took a test online. This required them to have earbuds and listen to what it was telling and asking. The tricky thing with this testing is we only have like a 3-4 week window that we can give the test. We will do this same routine again in the Spring.
Math - We are finished with our Area and Perimeter chapter. The students started their review today. We will go over it tomorrow and they will take their test on Monday. I look forward to seeing the improvement from the prestest they took at the beginning of the chapter. Our next chapter we will tackle is going to be on Division. It is a very big heavy chapter. This class will do a great job getting the content. I try to make it seem very exciting so they want to learn the new concepts. If we are negative about what we are learning it will rub off on the kids and then they will struggle. If you are struggling at home helping them, just take a break and send the child to school to me and we will work it out. If it is stressful at home, it will be a very negative experience. They more positive we are the better accepted it is by the kids. That is what we are here for!
Social Studies - We continue to work on our interactive notebooks. Looking up information about the different states and cutting and pasting it into a notebook they can keep forever!! We are starting the last lesson in this chapter so a test will be in the works for next week for sure. Probably towards the end of the week. Our next chapter begins the Southeast Region. We will have a new round of projects and new flags to color! Thank goodness for our computers! I am so thankful we have them, they can pull them out at anytime to look up information and practice their vocabulary words on Quizlet.
Quizlet - I have gotten the students on a sight called Quizlet. I put their vocab words and spelling words for Language Arts on there every week. I also have put the vocabulary words for Social Studies on it. They go on Quizlet at school and play games that help them learn their vocabulary words. I tried to send it to your emails to be used at home. I am not sure I recommend it. You will get a ton of spam like emails. So far the scores on Friday tests for vocab have picked up and shown improvement. I am hoping to see huge improvement on the Social Studies test in the vocabulary section. This will tell me whether it is worth it or not. There is time at school for them to get on and do the activities so there is really no need to try it at home. Although I am sure they would love to be able to do it at home also. Sad thing is I don't have all the answers to why it works and why it doesn't.
Valentine's Day, Tuesday, February 14th. We will celebrate Valentine's Day at the end of the day. The students have made bags to place their valentines in. We will take the time to share the valentines and have a snack. I am looking for a couple of volunteers to bring in our treat for the day. I am asking for someone to bring a treat/snack and one to bring in a drink. We eat the snack and drink and pass out valentines. I do not allow them to eat candy from their bags. That is to go home and be eaten at your discretion. Please email if you are willing to supply the class with either of these items for their party. Thanks in advance.
Wednesday, February 15th. This is an important day on the calendar. It is such, because the public school does not have school that day. They have PD scheduled. We ARE having school that day. There will be no buses running that day! Which means you have to make sure your student gets to and from school that day. This also happens to be the wrestling day. If you are planning on taking your child to support the Panthers at State Duals, you will need to let us know in advance. A note on Monday will be fine, so we can gather their homework on Tuesday and they do not fall behind. Thank you!!
Auction Basket - We are still gathering items and cash donations for our auction basket. Please send any donations you may have to school. Also keep in mind, next week I will need their bible verse. I will talk to the kids about it tomorrow or Monday. The silent auction item is the kids writing a favorite bible verse on a block of wood and those pieces of wood will be put together and made into a cross. It is a very cool idea. You can find it on pinterest. If you have any questions about either of these contact Kiki Scarberry for the basket, Danielle Steele for the silent auction, or myself, I can answer about both. Next Friday Danielle plans to come in and the students write on the blocks. Then she will take them and finish them.
I feel like I had a lot to report this week! I hope all of you have a great weekend! I plan to take it easy and rest and try to shake what ever it is I have.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday of Catholic Schools Week! Whew! The week is almost over! What a week it has been! Such great fun and activities we have had!! I hope your kids talked about the movie because we had a great discussion about the things we saw! They were very weary of the racism and sexism that took place. Also they were very in tune to the great things all 3 of those women accomplished and in a time where they weren't suppose to do it! We had a great day of play in the gym! Today we celebrate students and their talents on the "Big" stage! Tomorrow we end the week as we began it! We have grandparents/special guest day Mass at the church. Mass will start at 1:30, students will arrive at church at 1:00. If your student doesn't have anyone coming please let me know. We have some "adoptive" grandparents on hand to sit with kids. What a great way to make a new friend! This week wears all of us out, kids and adults alike!! I hope they all have a restful weekend and back at it hard on Monday.
Auction Items- Again we have things planned out for the auction. Yesterday I sent a link to a sign up genius where you can sign up for a movie or snack or both. Anything that goes a long with movie night in your house! I will add the link on here also in case you missed my email. Monetary donations are accepted. Please make checks payable to Kiki Scarberry. She is in charge of this activity. We also need small donations like $2.00 a kid for our silent auction item. Danielle Steele is in charge of it. Remember be helping your child think of a favorite bible verse they find inspiring or helpful to them. We will put those on wooden blocks then glue them in the shape of a cross. Just write the verse on a notecard and send to school. Make sure we know the book on bible chapter and verse. Thank you very much.
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/30E0E4CA8A729A2F85-movie
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called The Right Dog For the Job. It is a short story about how a puppy becomes a service dog. It is an interesting read for anyone who has every wondered how a dog is trained to become a service dog. Some may find it not very because at this age kids are usually only interested in the things that directly affect them. We studied adverbs this week. We learned what the describe and what questions they answer. I have placed this weeks vocabulary and spelling words on Quizlet so they can study both items online. Last week the scores on the vocabulary section were amazing. I am attributing that success to the use of quizlet. This week I hope to see some better spelling scores from a few. We really use our computers several times a day now that we have our own! It was such a blessing for us to have been given the money for these computers.
Math- We have had a great week in math. We have learned how to find the area of a floor plan. They have learned to divide areas into rectangles or squares and finding the area. That is always a fun lesson to show them they can do something that looks difficult and make it very easy. We also did a little algebra this week. I gave them either the perimeter or area of a figure and the length of just one side. They had to use the formula for area or perimeter to find the missing side. Area is simple for them but perimeter was a struggle. We are still working on that. We will finish that up probably on Monday. We will be reviewing for a math test next week and possible testing next week. This was a fun quick chapter to do during this busy time.
Social Studies- We have started our interactive notebooks for the United States. They are working on the first state to enter the Union which is Delaware. They have to use their computers to locate some basic facts about the state, do some coloring, and then cut and past their information into the notebook. We have colored all the flags of the Northeast all ready. We are also putting those in the notebook. This is a fun way for them to gather facts and keep all they have learned about their state in one place. We are also still working on vocabulary words which are on Quizlet for them to practice, and reading the lessons in the book. We are very busy when it comes to social studies. We are also singing everyday. I apologize if they are singing at home and driving you crazy!
This has been a great week to celebrate Catholic Schools! I hope you are finding pictures everyday on Facebook of the class. I take a group photo and post it at some point everyday. This class has done a great job of participating in all the dress up days!! Thank you! It makes the week more fun. I even have pajamas on today! Have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday of Catholic Schools Week! Whew! The week is almost over! What a week it has been! Such great fun and activities we have had!! I hope your kids talked about the movie because we had a great discussion about the things we saw! They were very weary of the racism and sexism that took place. Also they were very in tune to the great things all 3 of those women accomplished and in a time where they weren't suppose to do it! We had a great day of play in the gym! Today we celebrate students and their talents on the "Big" stage! Tomorrow we end the week as we began it! We have grandparents/special guest day Mass at the church. Mass will start at 1:30, students will arrive at church at 1:00. If your student doesn't have anyone coming please let me know. We have some "adoptive" grandparents on hand to sit with kids. What a great way to make a new friend! This week wears all of us out, kids and adults alike!! I hope they all have a restful weekend and back at it hard on Monday.
Auction Items- Again we have things planned out for the auction. Yesterday I sent a link to a sign up genius where you can sign up for a movie or snack or both. Anything that goes a long with movie night in your house! I will add the link on here also in case you missed my email. Monetary donations are accepted. Please make checks payable to Kiki Scarberry. She is in charge of this activity. We also need small donations like $2.00 a kid for our silent auction item. Danielle Steele is in charge of it. Remember be helping your child think of a favorite bible verse they find inspiring or helpful to them. We will put those on wooden blocks then glue them in the shape of a cross. Just write the verse on a notecard and send to school. Make sure we know the book on bible chapter and verse. Thank you very much.
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/30E0E4CA8A729A2F85-movie
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called The Right Dog For the Job. It is a short story about how a puppy becomes a service dog. It is an interesting read for anyone who has every wondered how a dog is trained to become a service dog. Some may find it not very because at this age kids are usually only interested in the things that directly affect them. We studied adverbs this week. We learned what the describe and what questions they answer. I have placed this weeks vocabulary and spelling words on Quizlet so they can study both items online. Last week the scores on the vocabulary section were amazing. I am attributing that success to the use of quizlet. This week I hope to see some better spelling scores from a few. We really use our computers several times a day now that we have our own! It was such a blessing for us to have been given the money for these computers.
Math- We have had a great week in math. We have learned how to find the area of a floor plan. They have learned to divide areas into rectangles or squares and finding the area. That is always a fun lesson to show them they can do something that looks difficult and make it very easy. We also did a little algebra this week. I gave them either the perimeter or area of a figure and the length of just one side. They had to use the formula for area or perimeter to find the missing side. Area is simple for them but perimeter was a struggle. We are still working on that. We will finish that up probably on Monday. We will be reviewing for a math test next week and possible testing next week. This was a fun quick chapter to do during this busy time.
Social Studies- We have started our interactive notebooks for the United States. They are working on the first state to enter the Union which is Delaware. They have to use their computers to locate some basic facts about the state, do some coloring, and then cut and past their information into the notebook. We have colored all the flags of the Northeast all ready. We are also putting those in the notebook. This is a fun way for them to gather facts and keep all they have learned about their state in one place. We are also still working on vocabulary words which are on Quizlet for them to practice, and reading the lessons in the book. We are very busy when it comes to social studies. We are also singing everyday. I apologize if they are singing at home and driving you crazy!
This has been a great week to celebrate Catholic Schools! I hope you are finding pictures everyday on Facebook of the class. I take a group photo and post it at some point everyday. This class has done a great job of participating in all the dress up days!! Thank you! It makes the week more fun. I even have pajamas on today! Have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
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