Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I know we did. We traveled to Chicago to my sister-in-law's house. We had a great meal and then did some Black Friday shopping! I got a few really good deals. In Chicago, Black Friday is not as big a deal as it is here. No lines waiting to get into stores or for certain items. We always come home with a very full car. Report cards are finished and will be available online to you soon. You will need to watch for information to come.
Language Arts - We are reading a story called The Earth Dragon Awakes this week. It is a historical fiction piece written about the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. It really is a very detailed story of what happens to a father and son. I explained it is not true but all other things discussed about the actual earthquake is true. I also told them they could look up the topic and read more about it or at lease figure out what was truth. The story kind of scares me talking about buildings burying people alive. In the end they are rescued but it is pretty nerve wracking. In grammar this week we have talked about possessive nouns. We focused on Singular possessives and plural possessives. Some nouns have to have the spelling changed in order to make them plural like child/children or words that don't change like moose/moose. We talked about how to make them possessive also! Remember tomorrow is a spelling post test and end of the week test! We are back into a full routine! So happy to have a full week of school and the fact that I am done traveling!
Math - This week we reviewed partial product and then moved on to the standard algorithm of Multiplication. Which is the way you learned to do it growing up. The kids caught on pretty quickly, which could be that they have learned it at home. We have only worked on 2 digits times a single digit right now. We will move on to 3 digits times a single digit next week. We are getting ready to end a chapter which means a test will be coming soon. I doubt it will be next week. But it will be the next for sure then I have some fun Christmas math activities the students will do before we start the next chapter. I will say chapter 3 will go quickly because we are taking strategies we all ready know but applying it to double digit multiplication.
Social Studies - This week we are working on our interactive notebook and getting some more states in there. We also started on maps. The students were given 4 blank maps of the Northeast Region. They are to make an answer key map where they label each area with correct state and capital. Then they have 3 practice maps to practice labeling. We will have a map test next week. It will be the exact same map that they must label with states and capitals. I try to get them to memorize a region at a time so at the end of the year the entire 50 states and capitals are not so overwhelming. Please be sure your child is studying these!
Food Pantry - From November 30 - December 15th we will be collecting items for the food pantry to help boost their inventory. The items asked for are toothpaste, toilet paper, kleenex, and Food. The Food needs to be non-perishable canned fruits and veggies or boxed meals like Hamburger Helper, tuna helper, suddenly salad,ect. Monetary donations are also accepted. Please send an item or more than one with your child to help the food pantry provide for our community. Thank you very much.
Christmas Program - Our Christmas Program is fast approaching! It is Wednesday, December 6th at 6:30 pm. This event is being held at the Creston High School. I love our program, it definitely gets me in the spirit of the season. I have heard the 4th graders singing and they are fabulous. I am very proud of them and know they will do a great job!
Class Tree - I have a classroom tree which is just a tree on a bulletin board but I would like the students to bring in a Christmas ornament and I will hang it on our tree. Yes, real ornaments but you might send one that is not breakable or totally special to them. Lots of things can happen in their bags on way to school and if it would fall off the tree it would break. I have never had any fall of the tree only students dropping them and breaking them. They will bring the ornament back home with them at Christmas Break. Thank you!
I hope everyone is getting their shopping done and decorations put up. Molly and I went and purchased our tree Tuesday night. It is in a bucket in my garage right now but we hope to get it up tonight or tomorrow. The decorating of the tree will take place Saturday. I have a lot of my shopping done. Have a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!!! Remember I am gone today and tomorrow. I am attending NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference) in Indianapolis, Indiana. I left on a bus at 5:30 this morning. I am going with 10 Creston youths and another chaperone. We will spend tonight at a concert by TobyMac who is a christian Hip Hop singer. We will then spend Friday and Saturday with some keynote speakers, at mass, in small group sessions of the student's choice, and in fellowship with other students from around our Diocese. One night we will have a pizza dinner with Bishop Pates. I look forward to attending some of the sessions and hope I learn some things that I can apply to my classroom and youth group on Wednesday nights. Some of the sessions sound very interesting and very in tune to what goes on in today's world. Mainly with the phones! I know one was about taking selfies. Pray for all of us while we are away. I know I will be praying for all my students while I am gone. I absolutely hate being away from the classroom. I know me being gone really throws a wrench into their routine and I hate to do that to the students too. This class has come such a long way from 3rd grade! They have matured and are learning to be very good students. I will honestly miss them all while I am away. I gave them half hugs today before they left for the day.
Geography Bee- The 4th graders get the opportunity to participate this year in our annual Geography Bee. What happens is the 4th-8th grade students are split up between 3 rooms and put through 7 rounds of geography questions. The top 10 scorers of the preliminary rounds will move on to the Finals. The Finals will be held on a Wednesday after Mass in December. The official date will come later. I have had 4th graders make it to the finals in the past. It is the luck of the questions. This is not something the kids can opt out of. They will all participate. This will happen Tuesday morning of next week. I will run the 4th graders through a practice couple of rounds in our own room Monday, so they know exactly what to expect.
Language Arts- We took a Unit 2 Test this week. We completed it on Wednesday. Your child knows how they did. Sounds like some are very proud of their score. I will try and look at those while I am gone but will definitely dig into them on Monday. Since I will be gone for two days we are starting the next story Thursday and will cover it until Tuesday. They will have a spelling pretest today and the post test will be on Tuesday. Due to the nature of the week, meaning the story is split by a weekend and Tuesday we really don't have enough time, we will not be taking an end of the week test over this story. This story is a nonfiction or informational text on Hurricanes. The students will be interested in some of the content but not a lot and I feel like the cover a lot in a short amount of pages, which makes it difficult to understand it completely. It will try to teach them how a hurricane is formed and what it needs to increase in intensity and what causes it to decrease. The terminology is very high tech. We will just enjoy this one as best we can!
Math - We are halfway through chapter 2!! Today they will take the Mid-Chapter Checkpoint which is a review over what we have learned so far. They will work on it today in class then check it on Friday. My intent is to see how they did and if not too well, I will do some reviewing of the material before Thanksgiving Break so we start the second half of the chapter when we return. If they do well, then by all means, we will move on. My goal is to definitely have chapter 2 complete before Christmas and be into Chapter 3 before we go on Christmas Break. Let's hope it all works out like that! Friday I plan to have them do some flash card work with multiplication. This helps them to memorize their facts so when we are learning these strategies and processes they are not stressing about basic facts. Playing with these basic facts at home would also be a plus for them.
Social Studies - We are working on putting the Northeast Region in our interactive notebooks. The students are finally getting the hang of how to do it. I am finding small errors like not capitalizing a city name or the 2 letter postal abbreviation, or sometimes they put periods in the postal abbreviation. I make them fix those errors. We have talked about when to use capital letters and when not to. They know the difference they are just being forgetful or lazy. We will be starting Chapter 5 this week. They will begin to do vocabulary and learning about the Narragansett Native Americans that were in the Northeast Region. They lived in present day Rhode Island. They will learn how they used cooperation to survive. They will learn what they lived in and what food they ate. I plan on giving them the lyrics to the States and Capitals song when we return from Thanksgiving Break. We will also begin practicing for our first map test. It will only cover the Northeast Region. Monday will be a practice run through of the geography bee and Tuesday will be the real thing.
Monday Nov. 20th Lunch - This day is a special day and will most likely be our last lunch to celebrate the lives of Nate and T.J. Frey. The boys untimely passing happened on November 30th and we are going to have a pizza lunch on the 20th to remember the boys and eat one of their favorite meals. TJ would have graduated from 8th grade last year and Nate would be an 8th grader this year. So hard to believe! We are glad to help Corey and his family celebrate their lives. So hear is a pizza toast to Nathan and TJ Frey! Love you boys!
Reminder that we have school Monday and Tuesday of next week but the kids are off on Wednesday! I hope everyone enjoys their break. My girls and I travel to Chicago every year for Thanksgiving. It is our favorite time of the year. We do our black Friday shopping in Chicago and believe it or not, it is not half as crowded as it is in Iowa! The girls also get to do some sort of craft while at their aunt's house. We are always excited for what the craft will be. One year they made stand up mirrors for their dorm rooms. Who knows what this year will bring. I know I heard "sewing" mentioned. If you are traveling, I hope all of you have a safe trip!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!!! Remember I am gone today and tomorrow. I am attending NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference) in Indianapolis, Indiana. I left on a bus at 5:30 this morning. I am going with 10 Creston youths and another chaperone. We will spend tonight at a concert by TobyMac who is a christian Hip Hop singer. We will then spend Friday and Saturday with some keynote speakers, at mass, in small group sessions of the student's choice, and in fellowship with other students from around our Diocese. One night we will have a pizza dinner with Bishop Pates. I look forward to attending some of the sessions and hope I learn some things that I can apply to my classroom and youth group on Wednesday nights. Some of the sessions sound very interesting and very in tune to what goes on in today's world. Mainly with the phones! I know one was about taking selfies. Pray for all of us while we are away. I know I will be praying for all my students while I am gone. I absolutely hate being away from the classroom. I know me being gone really throws a wrench into their routine and I hate to do that to the students too. This class has come such a long way from 3rd grade! They have matured and are learning to be very good students. I will honestly miss them all while I am away. I gave them half hugs today before they left for the day.
Geography Bee- The 4th graders get the opportunity to participate this year in our annual Geography Bee. What happens is the 4th-8th grade students are split up between 3 rooms and put through 7 rounds of geography questions. The top 10 scorers of the preliminary rounds will move on to the Finals. The Finals will be held on a Wednesday after Mass in December. The official date will come later. I have had 4th graders make it to the finals in the past. It is the luck of the questions. This is not something the kids can opt out of. They will all participate. This will happen Tuesday morning of next week. I will run the 4th graders through a practice couple of rounds in our own room Monday, so they know exactly what to expect.
Language Arts- We took a Unit 2 Test this week. We completed it on Wednesday. Your child knows how they did. Sounds like some are very proud of their score. I will try and look at those while I am gone but will definitely dig into them on Monday. Since I will be gone for two days we are starting the next story Thursday and will cover it until Tuesday. They will have a spelling pretest today and the post test will be on Tuesday. Due to the nature of the week, meaning the story is split by a weekend and Tuesday we really don't have enough time, we will not be taking an end of the week test over this story. This story is a nonfiction or informational text on Hurricanes. The students will be interested in some of the content but not a lot and I feel like the cover a lot in a short amount of pages, which makes it difficult to understand it completely. It will try to teach them how a hurricane is formed and what it needs to increase in intensity and what causes it to decrease. The terminology is very high tech. We will just enjoy this one as best we can!
Math - We are halfway through chapter 2!! Today they will take the Mid-Chapter Checkpoint which is a review over what we have learned so far. They will work on it today in class then check it on Friday. My intent is to see how they did and if not too well, I will do some reviewing of the material before Thanksgiving Break so we start the second half of the chapter when we return. If they do well, then by all means, we will move on. My goal is to definitely have chapter 2 complete before Christmas and be into Chapter 3 before we go on Christmas Break. Let's hope it all works out like that! Friday I plan to have them do some flash card work with multiplication. This helps them to memorize their facts so when we are learning these strategies and processes they are not stressing about basic facts. Playing with these basic facts at home would also be a plus for them.
Social Studies - We are working on putting the Northeast Region in our interactive notebooks. The students are finally getting the hang of how to do it. I am finding small errors like not capitalizing a city name or the 2 letter postal abbreviation, or sometimes they put periods in the postal abbreviation. I make them fix those errors. We have talked about when to use capital letters and when not to. They know the difference they are just being forgetful or lazy. We will be starting Chapter 5 this week. They will begin to do vocabulary and learning about the Narragansett Native Americans that were in the Northeast Region. They lived in present day Rhode Island. They will learn how they used cooperation to survive. They will learn what they lived in and what food they ate. I plan on giving them the lyrics to the States and Capitals song when we return from Thanksgiving Break. We will also begin practicing for our first map test. It will only cover the Northeast Region. Monday will be a practice run through of the geography bee and Tuesday will be the real thing.
Monday Nov. 20th Lunch - This day is a special day and will most likely be our last lunch to celebrate the lives of Nate and T.J. Frey. The boys untimely passing happened on November 30th and we are going to have a pizza lunch on the 20th to remember the boys and eat one of their favorite meals. TJ would have graduated from 8th grade last year and Nate would be an 8th grader this year. So hard to believe! We are glad to help Corey and his family celebrate their lives. So hear is a pizza toast to Nathan and TJ Frey! Love you boys!
Reminder that we have school Monday and Tuesday of next week but the kids are off on Wednesday! I hope everyone enjoys their break. My girls and I travel to Chicago every year for Thanksgiving. It is our favorite time of the year. We do our black Friday shopping in Chicago and believe it or not, it is not half as crowded as it is in Iowa! The girls also get to do some sort of craft while at their aunt's house. We are always excited for what the craft will be. One year they made stand up mirrors for their dorm rooms. Who knows what this year will bring. I know I heard "sewing" mentioned. If you are traveling, I hope all of you have a safe trip!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! I hope you are all having a great week! The weather has turned chilly and looks to remain that way. It is November so we should expect it. I hope everyone has dug out their winter coats, hats and mittens. Looks to be a cold one tomorrow at recess. Please be sure your child brings their coats so they can enjoy recess. It's not much fun when you are freezing. Also remember, if your child is not feeling well, and running a low fever, please keep them at home until they are fever free for 24 hours! If we send your child home at 10:00 in the morning with a fever, we should not see your child back at school until after 10:00 the next day. We are trying to help prevent the spread of illness. We won't be able to do that but we try to take precaution. I will also really start pushing for the hand washing and use of germ-x! I am trying to watch out for all of you! We have had great attendance so far. Today, we have a student gone due to illness but we haven't had very many at all. That is a good thing!
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Jose`! Born to Dance. This is a biography about a famous dancer Jose` Limon. No, the students are not very interested in this story. I like the way it reads but it is considered nonfiction so the kids are not responding well. It tells some of the struggles his family faced as he was a child and how he overcame and went on to dance. We have talked about Author's purpose this week and why Author's write stories and also that they may have more than one reason to write something. Pronouns have been our focus in grammar. They learned there are 5 different groups of pronouns: subject, object, possessive, reflexive, and demonstrative. I only had to cover 3 groups but we did talk about all five. We also learned about an antecedent, which is what the pronoun is replacing or what noun the pronoun stands for. Remember that all vocabulary for this week are on Quizlet. Our spelling post test and end of week test are tomorrow as normal.
Math - This week we have started working our way into some new strategies for multiplying. These strategies work very well and the students understand what they are doing. They are realizing that they are learning to multiply very slowly. Some are struggling with basic facts but understanding the processes that I am teaching them. We focused on using expanded form, which we learned in chapter 1, to multiply. It makes it pretty easy. The amount of writing they do is more than what they want but it really gives them the beginning foundation of how multiplication really works. Keep in mind we are only working on single digit multiplication. But I also know they pick up on double-digit quicker due to what we are learning now! I hope they keep up the good work.
Social Studies - Yes, we have a test tomorrow. We have worked on the study guide and corrected it. Their vocabulary words are in their packets and also on Quizlet so they can study. Some of them have been working on them on Quizlet for a while. This test is mainly matching, multiple choice and 2 quick essay questions. I hope to give them a few minutes to study with a partner today in class. Chapter 5 also focuses on the Northeast Region. We have a lot to finish. We have states to put into the interactive notebook and start working on our states and capitals. I have a song we will use to help them with that. It is called States and Capitals song by Macho Nacho. It is on itunes and last I knew it was free. I will give them a copy of the lyrics and we will start singing almost every day in class. We will also work on locating all states on a map of the Northeast. Lots of work to finish off this region before we move on to the Southeast.
STEM NIGHT! Remember that STEM night is tonight from 5:30-7:30 in the gym. It is a great time, hope to see you all there.
Appreciation Dinner - The Food Pantry is putting on a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner this Saturday night 5-7 in the O'Riley Center. You received an invitation last week in the folder for this event. All our students 3-5 and their families are invited since we go down and help unload the truck on Fridays. It sounds like it will be an excellent meal. I hope some of you can attend.
November 16 - 17 - I am just letting you know that I will be gone next Thursday and Friday. I am attending NCYC (National Catholic Youth Council) in Indianapolis with the High School Youth Group. It is a great opportunity for me to be with the students as they attend sessions to better their knowledge and relationship with God. I am looking forward to the trip and all that I will see. Please pray for us on our travels. I will be back the next Monday. Mrs. Bearden will be in the room with them.
The High School is putting on the musical The Wedding Singer this weekend. This is the first time I have had a child participate in a musical and I am excited about it. I had to dress her in 80's costumes and do her hair in 80's style. I am a pro at that since I lived that era! I almost forgot how to use a curling iron! I did have to go buy one that was more like what I used to use. They will perform the show Friday at 7:00, Saturday at 7:00 and Sunday at 2:00. This is where I will be all weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! I hope you are all having a great week! The weather has turned chilly and looks to remain that way. It is November so we should expect it. I hope everyone has dug out their winter coats, hats and mittens. Looks to be a cold one tomorrow at recess. Please be sure your child brings their coats so they can enjoy recess. It's not much fun when you are freezing. Also remember, if your child is not feeling well, and running a low fever, please keep them at home until they are fever free for 24 hours! If we send your child home at 10:00 in the morning with a fever, we should not see your child back at school until after 10:00 the next day. We are trying to help prevent the spread of illness. We won't be able to do that but we try to take precaution. I will also really start pushing for the hand washing and use of germ-x! I am trying to watch out for all of you! We have had great attendance so far. Today, we have a student gone due to illness but we haven't had very many at all. That is a good thing!
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Jose`! Born to Dance. This is a biography about a famous dancer Jose` Limon. No, the students are not very interested in this story. I like the way it reads but it is considered nonfiction so the kids are not responding well. It tells some of the struggles his family faced as he was a child and how he overcame and went on to dance. We have talked about Author's purpose this week and why Author's write stories and also that they may have more than one reason to write something. Pronouns have been our focus in grammar. They learned there are 5 different groups of pronouns: subject, object, possessive, reflexive, and demonstrative. I only had to cover 3 groups but we did talk about all five. We also learned about an antecedent, which is what the pronoun is replacing or what noun the pronoun stands for. Remember that all vocabulary for this week are on Quizlet. Our spelling post test and end of week test are tomorrow as normal.
Math - This week we have started working our way into some new strategies for multiplying. These strategies work very well and the students understand what they are doing. They are realizing that they are learning to multiply very slowly. Some are struggling with basic facts but understanding the processes that I am teaching them. We focused on using expanded form, which we learned in chapter 1, to multiply. It makes it pretty easy. The amount of writing they do is more than what they want but it really gives them the beginning foundation of how multiplication really works. Keep in mind we are only working on single digit multiplication. But I also know they pick up on double-digit quicker due to what we are learning now! I hope they keep up the good work.
Social Studies - Yes, we have a test tomorrow. We have worked on the study guide and corrected it. Their vocabulary words are in their packets and also on Quizlet so they can study. Some of them have been working on them on Quizlet for a while. This test is mainly matching, multiple choice and 2 quick essay questions. I hope to give them a few minutes to study with a partner today in class. Chapter 5 also focuses on the Northeast Region. We have a lot to finish. We have states to put into the interactive notebook and start working on our states and capitals. I have a song we will use to help them with that. It is called States and Capitals song by Macho Nacho. It is on itunes and last I knew it was free. I will give them a copy of the lyrics and we will start singing almost every day in class. We will also work on locating all states on a map of the Northeast. Lots of work to finish off this region before we move on to the Southeast.
STEM NIGHT! Remember that STEM night is tonight from 5:30-7:30 in the gym. It is a great time, hope to see you all there.
Appreciation Dinner - The Food Pantry is putting on a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner this Saturday night 5-7 in the O'Riley Center. You received an invitation last week in the folder for this event. All our students 3-5 and their families are invited since we go down and help unload the truck on Fridays. It sounds like it will be an excellent meal. I hope some of you can attend.
November 16 - 17 - I am just letting you know that I will be gone next Thursday and Friday. I am attending NCYC (National Catholic Youth Council) in Indianapolis with the High School Youth Group. It is a great opportunity for me to be with the students as they attend sessions to better their knowledge and relationship with God. I am looking forward to the trip and all that I will see. Please pray for us on our travels. I will be back the next Monday. Mrs. Bearden will be in the room with them.
The High School is putting on the musical The Wedding Singer this weekend. This is the first time I have had a child participate in a musical and I am excited about it. I had to dress her in 80's costumes and do her hair in 80's style. I am a pro at that since I lived that era! I almost forgot how to use a curling iron! I did have to go buy one that was more like what I used to use. They will perform the show Friday at 7:00, Saturday at 7:00 and Sunday at 2:00. This is where I will be all weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! We actually have a full week this week! Remember next week is conference week. If you have not signed up for a conference please be sure to do so. I will put the link to the sign up page following this paragraph. I have to do my own conference for my daughter Molly at the High School at 9:00 so I have signed myself up for the 8:40 and 9:00 time slots. I need to be able to drive there. I apologize if that is a time you would want. I look forward to talking to you about your student and how they are doing. Here is the link: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-mrs
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Me and Uncle Romie. This is a fun loving fictional story. The kids should be enjoying this story this week. It is an easy read that is very realistic. It's a story about love and family and also fine arts. It discusses collage art, which is a form of art that I compare to scrapbooking. You use paint and other items like paper, cloth, tickets, feathers, flowers, anything you want to put with it. Collage art is to tell a story. There were a few examples in the story also. We were talking about present progressive and past progressive verbs this week and our vocabulary strategy was on proverbs and adages,which are figures of speech like an idiom. Saying things like, he was as good as gold, I am head over heals for him, and hang in there. This week I have put their vocabulary words on Quizlet which is a website that helps them to study their words in many different ways. They get to choose how they study or what game they will play to help them better know their words. I hope to see some improvement in vocabulary scores this week due to this new study tool. Tomorrow is post test in spelling and also end of the week assessment.
Math - We have been studying comparison word problems this week in math. The next lesson will be over multiplying tens, hundreds and thousands. This is an easy lesson for them. It teach them the strategies in the book but also the short version of looking at the basic fact and counting the zeros. They will find this lesson fun because they will pick up on it very quickly. Most students love when the get something very quickly and are more eager to work with it. This might be the easiest lesson in this chapter so we better enjoy it. I feel like they are doing a great job listening and paying attention in Math class. I tell them every day how important it is to follow what I am doing. I move from the front of the room to the back of the room a lot during math to keep their eyes moving with me. I don't think they realize what I am doing but it seems to work!!
Social Studies - We have now put two states in our interactive notebook. The students should be getting better at understanding what they are to do with the pages and how to cut and paste them in the notebook. Which means we will move a little faster with this. They will get a state assigned to them and be expected to find the information, color what needs colored and also cut and paste on their own. We are talking about the resources that are found in the Northeast Region. We will learn about a few important items that come from these states. Items that we use here and most likely get from the Northeast states.
Halloween! Next Tuesday is Halloween. We will celebrate here at St. Malachy. The students are to bring their costumes and we will have our annual parade at 2:30. We also have Halloween activities that we go the Middle School and participate in. The homeroom teacher is going to supply us with treats and juice boxes while we wait our turn for activities. What an exciting day!
It is Homecoming for Iowa State! I am headed up to tailgate the game. I bought an alumni shirt for the weekend and probably will be covering with a coat, hat and mittens. They look to have a little snow on the ground. Another reason I will be in Ames to see SNOW. You will quickly learn I love snow and want to have some this year. I grew up playing in the snow and snowmobiling every weekend. I loved being outside then coming inside to hot chocolate and the furnace in our house. Now that was winter! I feel if it has to be cold then we should have snow. I hope everyone has a great weekend and stops in to the Vendor Fair! I bet you can find some great Christmas Gifts! I am sorry I am missing it.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! We actually have a full week this week! Remember next week is conference week. If you have not signed up for a conference please be sure to do so. I will put the link to the sign up page following this paragraph. I have to do my own conference for my daughter Molly at the High School at 9:00 so I have signed myself up for the 8:40 and 9:00 time slots. I need to be able to drive there. I apologize if that is a time you would want. I look forward to talking to you about your student and how they are doing. Here is the link: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-mrs
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Me and Uncle Romie. This is a fun loving fictional story. The kids should be enjoying this story this week. It is an easy read that is very realistic. It's a story about love and family and also fine arts. It discusses collage art, which is a form of art that I compare to scrapbooking. You use paint and other items like paper, cloth, tickets, feathers, flowers, anything you want to put with it. Collage art is to tell a story. There were a few examples in the story also. We were talking about present progressive and past progressive verbs this week and our vocabulary strategy was on proverbs and adages,which are figures of speech like an idiom. Saying things like, he was as good as gold, I am head over heals for him, and hang in there. This week I have put their vocabulary words on Quizlet which is a website that helps them to study their words in many different ways. They get to choose how they study or what game they will play to help them better know their words. I hope to see some improvement in vocabulary scores this week due to this new study tool. Tomorrow is post test in spelling and also end of the week assessment.
Math - We have been studying comparison word problems this week in math. The next lesson will be over multiplying tens, hundreds and thousands. This is an easy lesson for them. It teach them the strategies in the book but also the short version of looking at the basic fact and counting the zeros. They will find this lesson fun because they will pick up on it very quickly. Most students love when the get something very quickly and are more eager to work with it. This might be the easiest lesson in this chapter so we better enjoy it. I feel like they are doing a great job listening and paying attention in Math class. I tell them every day how important it is to follow what I am doing. I move from the front of the room to the back of the room a lot during math to keep their eyes moving with me. I don't think they realize what I am doing but it seems to work!!
Social Studies - We have now put two states in our interactive notebook. The students should be getting better at understanding what they are to do with the pages and how to cut and paste them in the notebook. Which means we will move a little faster with this. They will get a state assigned to them and be expected to find the information, color what needs colored and also cut and paste on their own. We are talking about the resources that are found in the Northeast Region. We will learn about a few important items that come from these states. Items that we use here and most likely get from the Northeast states.
Halloween! Next Tuesday is Halloween. We will celebrate here at St. Malachy. The students are to bring their costumes and we will have our annual parade at 2:30. We also have Halloween activities that we go the Middle School and participate in. The homeroom teacher is going to supply us with treats and juice boxes while we wait our turn for activities. What an exciting day!
It is Homecoming for Iowa State! I am headed up to tailgate the game. I bought an alumni shirt for the weekend and probably will be covering with a coat, hat and mittens. They look to have a little snow on the ground. Another reason I will be in Ames to see SNOW. You will quickly learn I love snow and want to have some this year. I grew up playing in the snow and snowmobiling every weekend. I loved being outside then coming inside to hot chocolate and the furnace in our house. Now that was winter! I feel if it has to be cold then we should have snow. I hope everyone has a great weekend and stops in to the Vendor Fair! I bet you can find some great Christmas Gifts! I am sorry I am missing it.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! What a week of nice weather! I think the kids have enjoyed the time outside. I know I have walked every day enjoying the last of the warm days. Sounds like temperature is due to drop, Please get out the kid's coats. Some of them, during the last cold spell, only showed up in a sweatshirt. That is not enough when the high is only in the 40's. I watch the weather and remind the kids when they need to bring in heavy coats. I don't want anyone outside shivering. That is no fun for them. It is hard to enjoy recess when you are freezing. The rest of this week looks to be great but next week is a different story.
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Coming Distractions: Questioning Movies. This is an informational story about what we see in movies is not always reality. It points out movies like Charlie's Angels where Cameron Diaz is fighting bad guys in high heels and doing a fabulous job at it. It also points out that when a family has something bad happen like a mother or father loses a job, they do not make any adjustments to their lifestyle in a movie and in real life, life styles have to change. Grammar lesson are based on verbs again. We are looking at the verb tenses (past, present, and future). We talked about latin words parts found in our language, those parts are phon, photo, auto, tele, graph, and their meanings or words they are linked to. It may help them to better understand the words these parts are found in. Tomorrow will be a normal Friday. They will take a spelling post test and end of the week assessment.
Math- This week in Math we have learned multiplication comparisons and will move on to relate that to comparison problems. We will now move onto word problems that use multiplication comparisons to find an answer. We spent several days understanding this topic to hopefully make the word problems easier for us. We will begin the lesson today and hopefully get more into it or finish tomorrow. Again this chapter is pretty heavy and I want everyone to understand exactly what we are doing in each lesson before moving on, which is why this chapter takes so long. Multiplication is one of the main content areas at the 4th grade level that they need to learn and will make them feel like a "big" kid. It is amazing the number of times I hear the students say, " I feel like a real big kid learning multiplication." It makes it fun for me to hear them say it. I am so glad they realize they really are learning things!
Social Studies- We are working on covering lesson 1 which discusses Niagara Falls and its importance to the state of New York. It looks at all the important mountain ranges that are a part of the Appalachian Mountains in the Northeast. It also talks about the coastline and how it looks different from Maine to New Jersey. This week the students started their interactive notebooks. These are notebooks that will be full of information about the 50 states. We are walking through how to look up the information and what is expected on their fact sheets. They will learn how to put these items in their notebooks tomorrow. Once they get used to it, the process won't take them very long at all. We are studying the Northeast Region so those are the first states they put in the notebook and I have them put them in order of statehood. The first one they did was Connecticut. Yes Delaware is the very first state but it is not part of the New England States and that is where we started. I love it when the kids are researching and asking each other questions about the states. The other item they have to do is color in the state flag. This allows them to see how certain regions have similar flags. A lot of them have them same colors in them. Again, I love this notebook cause it's so full of great information.
Spaghetti Supper - Don't forget the Spaghetti Supper is Saturday night. If you signed up to help or bring an item remember to do it. Also remember all families are asked to bring in a dessert for the supper or something for the cake walk! Hope to see you there!
Conferences: I have sent out a Sign up to your emails for conferences. Please take a minute to sign up for a time that works for you. I have given all the times I am available including some time on Tuesday and Wednesday, if Thursday just doesn't work for you. People were signing up as soon as I sent it out so hurry and get there or your time time you are wanting may be taken.Thank you in advance for signing up, I look forward to meeting with you. In case you didn't see the email here is the sign up link.
https://mrssickelsstmalachy.blogspot.com/
I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am very happy that next week is back to a normal week. But then the next is a short week again! It seems we are not in session a lot recently. The rest of the year will move very quickly. Once conferences are over than it is Thanksgiving Break, then we move to Christmas Break and then BOOM! A whole new year! I am really enjoying your children. I thank you for sharing them with me this year.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! What a week of nice weather! I think the kids have enjoyed the time outside. I know I have walked every day enjoying the last of the warm days. Sounds like temperature is due to drop, Please get out the kid's coats. Some of them, during the last cold spell, only showed up in a sweatshirt. That is not enough when the high is only in the 40's. I watch the weather and remind the kids when they need to bring in heavy coats. I don't want anyone outside shivering. That is no fun for them. It is hard to enjoy recess when you are freezing. The rest of this week looks to be great but next week is a different story.
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Coming Distractions: Questioning Movies. This is an informational story about what we see in movies is not always reality. It points out movies like Charlie's Angels where Cameron Diaz is fighting bad guys in high heels and doing a fabulous job at it. It also points out that when a family has something bad happen like a mother or father loses a job, they do not make any adjustments to their lifestyle in a movie and in real life, life styles have to change. Grammar lesson are based on verbs again. We are looking at the verb tenses (past, present, and future). We talked about latin words parts found in our language, those parts are phon, photo, auto, tele, graph, and their meanings or words they are linked to. It may help them to better understand the words these parts are found in. Tomorrow will be a normal Friday. They will take a spelling post test and end of the week assessment.
Math- This week in Math we have learned multiplication comparisons and will move on to relate that to comparison problems. We will now move onto word problems that use multiplication comparisons to find an answer. We spent several days understanding this topic to hopefully make the word problems easier for us. We will begin the lesson today and hopefully get more into it or finish tomorrow. Again this chapter is pretty heavy and I want everyone to understand exactly what we are doing in each lesson before moving on, which is why this chapter takes so long. Multiplication is one of the main content areas at the 4th grade level that they need to learn and will make them feel like a "big" kid. It is amazing the number of times I hear the students say, " I feel like a real big kid learning multiplication." It makes it fun for me to hear them say it. I am so glad they realize they really are learning things!
Social Studies- We are working on covering lesson 1 which discusses Niagara Falls and its importance to the state of New York. It looks at all the important mountain ranges that are a part of the Appalachian Mountains in the Northeast. It also talks about the coastline and how it looks different from Maine to New Jersey. This week the students started their interactive notebooks. These are notebooks that will be full of information about the 50 states. We are walking through how to look up the information and what is expected on their fact sheets. They will learn how to put these items in their notebooks tomorrow. Once they get used to it, the process won't take them very long at all. We are studying the Northeast Region so those are the first states they put in the notebook and I have them put them in order of statehood. The first one they did was Connecticut. Yes Delaware is the very first state but it is not part of the New England States and that is where we started. I love it when the kids are researching and asking each other questions about the states. The other item they have to do is color in the state flag. This allows them to see how certain regions have similar flags. A lot of them have them same colors in them. Again, I love this notebook cause it's so full of great information.
Spaghetti Supper - Don't forget the Spaghetti Supper is Saturday night. If you signed up to help or bring an item remember to do it. Also remember all families are asked to bring in a dessert for the supper or something for the cake walk! Hope to see you there!
Conferences: I have sent out a Sign up to your emails for conferences. Please take a minute to sign up for a time that works for you. I have given all the times I am available including some time on Tuesday and Wednesday, if Thursday just doesn't work for you. People were signing up as soon as I sent it out so hurry and get there or your time time you are wanting may be taken.Thank you in advance for signing up, I look forward to meeting with you. In case you didn't see the email here is the sign up link.
https://mrssickelsstmalachy.blogspot.com/
I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am very happy that next week is back to a normal week. But then the next is a short week again! It seems we are not in session a lot recently. The rest of the year will move very quickly. Once conferences are over than it is Thanksgiving Break, then we move to Christmas Break and then BOOM! A whole new year! I am really enjoying your children. I thank you for sharing them with me this year.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! I hope all of you are enjoying the week. Today is our last day of the week! Two short weeks in a row! I know the kids will enjoy their long 4 day weekend! I told them to think of me when I was still here working. Friday we will be here in our building working on literacy professional development and Monday we go to Des Moines to work with all the other Catholic School Teachers in the Diocese. I hope they all come back rested and ready to go on Tuesday!
Language Arts - This week we read a very interesting story. It is called Invasion From Mars. It is an excerpt from War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. On October 30, 1938, they broadcast this portion of the book as a radio play. Many Americans did not turn on their radios to hear the introduction of the radio show and if you turned on in the middle of the show you thought that aliens had landed in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. It cause a little bit of panic in America. You can listen to the actual broadcast on youtube. Google War of the Worlds October 30, 1938. The piece we read happens at about 10:12. We listened to it once at school. It is an interesting story for the kids to hear. I think some of them were very intrigued about it really being on the radio and scaring some people. In grammar we learned about action verbs, helping verbs, and linking verbs. Today is our post test and end of week assessment since we do not have school tomorrow.
Math - We have taken our chapter 2 pretest this week. We have went over the beginning pages to review and also preview the next chapter. Today I plan on starting the first lesson in chapter 2. It is covering comparison problems. They will be given a comparison statement and from that they will draw a picture to match the statement. It is a very good lesson that is like a skill needed before we are able to do certain word problems. This multiplication chapter is 14 lessons long. Some lessons will only take us a day and some will take 2-3 days. I am very picky about moving on. I want all the kids to master the lesson before I move forward because in this chapter all the lessons build up from one another. I have to teach one thing because you will use it to do the next. I hope and pray we can complete this chapter in good time to get in 3 before Christmas. We start messing with the schedule soon though. Once we hit conferences then we hit Thanksgiving Break and in no time it is Christmas break. When you are planning lesson it all seems very quick.
Social Studies - We have completed our first test. I am happy with all the scores. Some maybe could have spent more time on their vocabulary words but overall it was pretty good. We have begun talking about the Northeast Region. We have listed the 11 states that make up the region in our notebooks. We also put them into New England States and Middle Atlantic State. We have begun talking about Niagara Falls and that it is not just beautiful but also very helpful to the state of New York for providing electricity. We also are talking about the Appalachain Mountains being the oldest mountain range in the U.S. I am also pointing out it is not the highest because that is the Rocky Mountains. We will talk about the different mountain ranges found in the Northeast Region and where they are. We will work on locating these states on a map. I will have them practice and even do a practice test over this region before the first real test. They will work on labeling the map with states and capitals. We will also begin putting together our interactive notebook. This notebook will have all 50 states in it and some facts about each one that the student will look up on their own. We end up doing a lot of cutting and pasting! The best part is they will walk away with a book full of information that they may keep.
I hope all of you enjoy your weekend and the kids take advantage of their long weekend to rest up and be ready for next week! We are picking up the twins and heading to Iowa City this weekend to see family. My sister-in-law from Chicago is coming and my nephew lives in Iowa City. I get to spend some time with my wild and crazy great niece.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! I hope all of you are enjoying the week. Today is our last day of the week! Two short weeks in a row! I know the kids will enjoy their long 4 day weekend! I told them to think of me when I was still here working. Friday we will be here in our building working on literacy professional development and Monday we go to Des Moines to work with all the other Catholic School Teachers in the Diocese. I hope they all come back rested and ready to go on Tuesday!
Language Arts - This week we read a very interesting story. It is called Invasion From Mars. It is an excerpt from War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. On October 30, 1938, they broadcast this portion of the book as a radio play. Many Americans did not turn on their radios to hear the introduction of the radio show and if you turned on in the middle of the show you thought that aliens had landed in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. It cause a little bit of panic in America. You can listen to the actual broadcast on youtube. Google War of the Worlds October 30, 1938. The piece we read happens at about 10:12. We listened to it once at school. It is an interesting story for the kids to hear. I think some of them were very intrigued about it really being on the radio and scaring some people. In grammar we learned about action verbs, helping verbs, and linking verbs. Today is our post test and end of week assessment since we do not have school tomorrow.
Math - We have taken our chapter 2 pretest this week. We have went over the beginning pages to review and also preview the next chapter. Today I plan on starting the first lesson in chapter 2. It is covering comparison problems. They will be given a comparison statement and from that they will draw a picture to match the statement. It is a very good lesson that is like a skill needed before we are able to do certain word problems. This multiplication chapter is 14 lessons long. Some lessons will only take us a day and some will take 2-3 days. I am very picky about moving on. I want all the kids to master the lesson before I move forward because in this chapter all the lessons build up from one another. I have to teach one thing because you will use it to do the next. I hope and pray we can complete this chapter in good time to get in 3 before Christmas. We start messing with the schedule soon though. Once we hit conferences then we hit Thanksgiving Break and in no time it is Christmas break. When you are planning lesson it all seems very quick.
Social Studies - We have completed our first test. I am happy with all the scores. Some maybe could have spent more time on their vocabulary words but overall it was pretty good. We have begun talking about the Northeast Region. We have listed the 11 states that make up the region in our notebooks. We also put them into New England States and Middle Atlantic State. We have begun talking about Niagara Falls and that it is not just beautiful but also very helpful to the state of New York for providing electricity. We also are talking about the Appalachain Mountains being the oldest mountain range in the U.S. I am also pointing out it is not the highest because that is the Rocky Mountains. We will talk about the different mountain ranges found in the Northeast Region and where they are. We will work on locating these states on a map. I will have them practice and even do a practice test over this region before the first real test. They will work on labeling the map with states and capitals. We will also begin putting together our interactive notebook. This notebook will have all 50 states in it and some facts about each one that the student will look up on their own. We end up doing a lot of cutting and pasting! The best part is they will walk away with a book full of information that they may keep.
I hope all of you enjoy your weekend and the kids take advantage of their long weekend to rest up and be ready for next week! We are picking up the twins and heading to Iowa City this weekend to see family. My sister-in-law from Chicago is coming and my nephew lives in Iowa City. I get to spend some time with my wild and crazy great niece.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! Sounds like we are going to start getting a little wet! We need the rain for sure but not sure we want as much as we are suppose to get. I am suppose to be traveling to Sidney, Iowa tomorrow for a workshop, and I am not too thrilled about going anymore. Two reasons: 1) We have had a big week of testing this week and some unfinished business I hate leaving for a substitute, 2) Sidney is in the area that there will be flooding. Not sure I want to go and then be stuck. I counted and there are 6 rivers to cross between here and there. Ms. Surma is going to workshop also. We are making a decision today whether we are going to attend or not. I told the kids you may or may not know what teacher will be in here when you get here tomorrow.
Language Arts- We have spent the week testing on the Unit 1 Benchmark test. It is a very long test that I break up into 3 parts. We take a section a day for 3 days. I feel the students do a better job this way. I will have results of this testing to you next week. I apologize I didn't send home scores last week for week 4. I totally forgot! This week in the folder you will find week 4 and 5 results. I feel like our Friday testing is not where it should be. I have had a couple of kids improve and some fall backwards. I don't think they take them very seriously. I am trying to talk to them about the importance of these tests. I am also discussing that we use this data for a lot of decision making. These tests help us to decide how they are doing with comprehension and whether they need extra help in these areas. We also started a writing project this week. They will be writing a Halloween story based off a fairy tale or children's story. I shared with them the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then shared a former student's story that she created from it. I will also share some other stories that are easy to convert to Halloween stories. This is meant to be a fun writing activity. The stories will be on display in our room!
Book Report- I also assigned them a book report that will be due November 7th. These book reports are cereal box reports. I explained the assignment to the students. They are to read the book in it's entirety first, then come to me for the rest of the items. I have pieces they are to fill out and put onto their cereal box, plus I have a grading rubric they can follow to put it together to make sure they are getting the score they want. Please be sure to save a cereal box that is in good shape and nice sized for this project.
Book It! - We are participating in this program this year. I love this program. It is a good way to get kids to read. One way I challenge the kids is, I tell them to beat me! I read a lot, not as much as I did in the summer but still a lot. I will give a prize to any kid that can beat me in the amount of minutes I read. There is a goal every month on minutes to be read. They all have their own calendar to keep track of their minutes on. Goals for each month will go each month. The Goal for October is 350 minutes, November will be 400, December will be 450, January 500, February 550 and March will end with 600 minutes. I figured it our, we start reading 12 minutes a day and by March they should be reading 20 minutes per day. I have already read 603 minutes this month. That will slow down though. I will begin to get busier so it will slow down.
Math- This week we have focused on testing over chapter 1. We took the test Wednesday, and we hope to make some corrections on Thursday. I will be sure to share the students pretest and post test scores with them so they may see if they improved or not. There was a lot of room for improvement by all. It is always fun to see their faces when they see how much they learned. We will begin chapter 2 next week. This chapter covers multiplication. It is a very long chapter and a very deep one. There is a lot of strategies and new concepts that the students will learn in this chapter. It usually takes a very long time to get through. It is made up of about 14 lessons and a lot of those take us a couple of days to get through if I want full understanding. So we are in it for the long haul. I will talk to the students about it being a long process but also talk about all the things they are learning and how each one is important. I will say this is definitely where we will see struggles. Please work flash cards at home if you have any. This will help them with the process. At least it will make it easier on them.
Social Studies - We just finished chapter 2. We will be taking a test over it tomorrow. They students had a study guide to work on and that study guide is just like last year and will cover everything they will see on the test. We will correct that today so the students have the correct answers to study. These tests are just like last year's tests. The students should know exactly what to expect. We will begin the Northeast Region next week!!
WOW! What a week! I can tell it is a full moon! It didn't help that this was a testing week in many things. We did a lot of reading which is great because it adds to our Book It minutes! Have a great weekend! I have one kid coming home to watch her sister in a volleyball tournament.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! Sounds like we are going to start getting a little wet! We need the rain for sure but not sure we want as much as we are suppose to get. I am suppose to be traveling to Sidney, Iowa tomorrow for a workshop, and I am not too thrilled about going anymore. Two reasons: 1) We have had a big week of testing this week and some unfinished business I hate leaving for a substitute, 2) Sidney is in the area that there will be flooding. Not sure I want to go and then be stuck. I counted and there are 6 rivers to cross between here and there. Ms. Surma is going to workshop also. We are making a decision today whether we are going to attend or not. I told the kids you may or may not know what teacher will be in here when you get here tomorrow.
Language Arts- We have spent the week testing on the Unit 1 Benchmark test. It is a very long test that I break up into 3 parts. We take a section a day for 3 days. I feel the students do a better job this way. I will have results of this testing to you next week. I apologize I didn't send home scores last week for week 4. I totally forgot! This week in the folder you will find week 4 and 5 results. I feel like our Friday testing is not where it should be. I have had a couple of kids improve and some fall backwards. I don't think they take them very seriously. I am trying to talk to them about the importance of these tests. I am also discussing that we use this data for a lot of decision making. These tests help us to decide how they are doing with comprehension and whether they need extra help in these areas. We also started a writing project this week. They will be writing a Halloween story based off a fairy tale or children's story. I shared with them the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then shared a former student's story that she created from it. I will also share some other stories that are easy to convert to Halloween stories. This is meant to be a fun writing activity. The stories will be on display in our room!
Book Report- I also assigned them a book report that will be due November 7th. These book reports are cereal box reports. I explained the assignment to the students. They are to read the book in it's entirety first, then come to me for the rest of the items. I have pieces they are to fill out and put onto their cereal box, plus I have a grading rubric they can follow to put it together to make sure they are getting the score they want. Please be sure to save a cereal box that is in good shape and nice sized for this project.
Book It! - We are participating in this program this year. I love this program. It is a good way to get kids to read. One way I challenge the kids is, I tell them to beat me! I read a lot, not as much as I did in the summer but still a lot. I will give a prize to any kid that can beat me in the amount of minutes I read. There is a goal every month on minutes to be read. They all have their own calendar to keep track of their minutes on. Goals for each month will go each month. The Goal for October is 350 minutes, November will be 400, December will be 450, January 500, February 550 and March will end with 600 minutes. I figured it our, we start reading 12 minutes a day and by March they should be reading 20 minutes per day. I have already read 603 minutes this month. That will slow down though. I will begin to get busier so it will slow down.
Math- This week we have focused on testing over chapter 1. We took the test Wednesday, and we hope to make some corrections on Thursday. I will be sure to share the students pretest and post test scores with them so they may see if they improved or not. There was a lot of room for improvement by all. It is always fun to see their faces when they see how much they learned. We will begin chapter 2 next week. This chapter covers multiplication. It is a very long chapter and a very deep one. There is a lot of strategies and new concepts that the students will learn in this chapter. It usually takes a very long time to get through. It is made up of about 14 lessons and a lot of those take us a couple of days to get through if I want full understanding. So we are in it for the long haul. I will talk to the students about it being a long process but also talk about all the things they are learning and how each one is important. I will say this is definitely where we will see struggles. Please work flash cards at home if you have any. This will help them with the process. At least it will make it easier on them.
Social Studies - We just finished chapter 2. We will be taking a test over it tomorrow. They students had a study guide to work on and that study guide is just like last year and will cover everything they will see on the test. We will correct that today so the students have the correct answers to study. These tests are just like last year's tests. The students should know exactly what to expect. We will begin the Northeast Region next week!!
WOW! What a week! I can tell it is a full moon! It didn't help that this was a testing week in many things. We did a lot of reading which is great because it adds to our Book It minutes! Have a great weekend! I have one kid coming home to watch her sister in a volleyball tournament.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
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