Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday and welcome back!! I feel refreshed and ready to finish out the year strong!!! I hope the kids feel the same way. It was nice to see all their smiling faces back in the classroom. We have had a crazy schedule this week due to the cross walk, sedar meal, and rosary for the Sharp family. We are praying everyday for family and friends of the Sharp's. All instigated by the students. We are lucky to be at a school where prayer plays a role in our day. I ask that at home you keep them in your thoughts. In case some of you didn't know, Kadley, was a first cousin to Kevin. So keep the Bailey's in your thoughts and prayers.
Language Arts - This week we came back to one of my favorite stories in this book. It is called The World According to Humphrey. It is a chapter book and we read only a portion of it. It is a fantasy because the story is told by a Hamster, named Humphrey. It is a fun light-hearted story. I feel they enjoyed it and we will see some elevated test scores due to that. The few I have seen had increased for sure. We talked about comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs this week for grammar. This was a review for them but the questions on the test were complex. We talked about context clues for our vocabulary strategy. I feel like I crammed everything into 4 days but we did it and I think successfully! Next week we will be working on writing an essay for Dollars for Scholars along with our next story.
Math - We worked on remainders with division this week. We spent a couple days learning about them. I started with manipulatives to help them actually see what it meant, then we moved on to solving problems without them. We were unable to fit math in today due to Sedar Meal and this being our "Friday" end of week testing in Langauge arts. The story was longer than normal. Next week we will move on with division. We will be dividing tens, hundreds and thousands to begin with. Them we will move into some strategies for division. I hope to get a couple things in next week that will help them with division problems on Iowa Assessments, which is the following week.
Social Studies - We have read the last lesson in Chapter 7. We will be taking a test next week. We will work on the study guide on Monday, check it on Tuesday, and Test Wednesday. This will finish up our unit on Southeast. We will then move onto the Midwest. They are excited about getting to the Midwest for sure.
Iowa Assessments - These assessments will take place the week of the 9th-13th. We will spend most of our days testing in the morning and then we will do different subjects in the afternoon to fit them all in.
Conferences - Thank you for coming in and seeing what your child is doing in 4th grade. I had 100% attendance. Also, thank you very much to all those who bought a book from the book fair for the classroom! I appreciate it. I like to keep my shelf as up to date as I can. Your donations help tremendously!
I hope all of you have a blessed Easter this weekend! I am looking forward to getting together with my family and most of all, having my college kids under my roof again!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! Another week almost over! We are quickly approaching Spring Break. I hope everyone is looking forward to a nice relaxing week whether that be at home or on a short vacation. I am heading to Dallas, Texas to my cousin's house. I have done this for the last 4 years. She has a pool in back yard and a hot tub. These are my relaxing days! I look forward to my time with her. We are one year off in age, she is older. We both have teaching degrees and like similar things. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my break then with her. Not sure the weather will cooperate much while we are there but I don't care. She keeps us busy with craft projects inside. Looks to be upper 60's lower 70"s. I will take that! I hope everyone enjoys their time off!
Parent/Teacher Conferences - I only have 3 parents not signed up for conferences. I have asked your kids to remind you of signing up. I love meeting with each of you to discuss growth and areas where growth is still needed. Here is the link to my sign-up.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-4thgrade4
Book Fair - The book fair will be in the gym next week during conferences! Your child will get a chance to look at the fair during their library time. Maybe there will be a book there for book reports or something they will want to read over Spring Break. The teachers will also have wish lists for their classrooms.
Food Pantry- We have been gathering toilet paper, paper towels, and kleenex for the Food Pantry this week. We do not have very much down there. Thank you to those who have purchased items all ready. One box of Kleenex or one roll of paper towels would sure help. We will collect these items until the first week in April.
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Sacagawea. It is a very interesting story about her role in the Louis and Clark Corps of Discovery team. She really did quite a bit to help them along their journey. I think the kids found some interest in this story. In grammar this week we have focused on abbreviations. We covered abbreviations of People, places, mailing addresses, and measurement. These did include days of week, months, hour, minute, second, states, street, lane, avenue, inch, foot, yard, ect. They learned they mostly begin with a capitol letter and have a period at the end of the abbreviation. This was a rather easy grammar lesson week. I told them Unit 5 which we will start after Spring Break and the grammar is all review. We will be reviewing all the things we have all ready touched upon this year. Next week will be the Unit 4 test week. We will test over a 3 day period on the unit. I will also assign to them their next book report. We will go over my expectations on books and the project next week. That way if they are laying around on Spring Break they can work on their book report book. Some are very anxious for me to get this going. I like to see them excited about reading. Sad thing is some of them are excited but don't choose to pick up a book on their own and just read it. Hopefully that will change.
Math - We finished up perimeter and area and will begin Division tomorrow or Monday. This chapter is not an easy chapter for 4th graders. The best part is we are getting some in before the Iowa Assessments. Usually we don't have much division under our belts but this year we will for sure. That will be very helpful. Everyone took a pretest on this chapter and they found it frustrating because they didn't know a lot about what they were doing. Some of them were just downright mad because we don't give any help on a pretest. I am testing what they know and not knowing it is something I figure out on the pretest. This means I really need to watch for mastery and do my best to teach this chapter. Good Luck to us!
Social Studies - We are talking about a lot of historical things in the Southeast in this lesson. They learned about 3 settlements: St. Augustine, Roanoke Island, and Jamestown Virginia and they learned about 3 important people from the Southeast: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson We talked a little about Thomas Jefferson's famous home "Monticello". They have gone online and looked up videos about Monticello. Many have loved this and found them very interesting. They are coming to me and telling me stories of things from the videos that they are enjoying. Now that is learning at work!
This will be my last blog until after Spring Break. Next week since we are meeting for conferences I won't put one out. I may put some announcements out if there are things I need you to know. I hope you have a great week with your kids.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! Another week almost over! We are quickly approaching Spring Break. I hope everyone is looking forward to a nice relaxing week whether that be at home or on a short vacation. I am heading to Dallas, Texas to my cousin's house. I have done this for the last 4 years. She has a pool in back yard and a hot tub. These are my relaxing days! I look forward to my time with her. We are one year off in age, she is older. We both have teaching degrees and like similar things. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my break then with her. Not sure the weather will cooperate much while we are there but I don't care. She keeps us busy with craft projects inside. Looks to be upper 60's lower 70"s. I will take that! I hope everyone enjoys their time off!
Parent/Teacher Conferences - I only have 3 parents not signed up for conferences. I have asked your kids to remind you of signing up. I love meeting with each of you to discuss growth and areas where growth is still needed. Here is the link to my sign-up.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-4thgrade4
Book Fair - The book fair will be in the gym next week during conferences! Your child will get a chance to look at the fair during their library time. Maybe there will be a book there for book reports or something they will want to read over Spring Break. The teachers will also have wish lists for their classrooms.
Food Pantry- We have been gathering toilet paper, paper towels, and kleenex for the Food Pantry this week. We do not have very much down there. Thank you to those who have purchased items all ready. One box of Kleenex or one roll of paper towels would sure help. We will collect these items until the first week in April.
Language Arts - This week we are reading a story called Sacagawea. It is a very interesting story about her role in the Louis and Clark Corps of Discovery team. She really did quite a bit to help them along their journey. I think the kids found some interest in this story. In grammar this week we have focused on abbreviations. We covered abbreviations of People, places, mailing addresses, and measurement. These did include days of week, months, hour, minute, second, states, street, lane, avenue, inch, foot, yard, ect. They learned they mostly begin with a capitol letter and have a period at the end of the abbreviation. This was a rather easy grammar lesson week. I told them Unit 5 which we will start after Spring Break and the grammar is all review. We will be reviewing all the things we have all ready touched upon this year. Next week will be the Unit 4 test week. We will test over a 3 day period on the unit. I will also assign to them their next book report. We will go over my expectations on books and the project next week. That way if they are laying around on Spring Break they can work on their book report book. Some are very anxious for me to get this going. I like to see them excited about reading. Sad thing is some of them are excited but don't choose to pick up a book on their own and just read it. Hopefully that will change.
Math - We finished up perimeter and area and will begin Division tomorrow or Monday. This chapter is not an easy chapter for 4th graders. The best part is we are getting some in before the Iowa Assessments. Usually we don't have much division under our belts but this year we will for sure. That will be very helpful. Everyone took a pretest on this chapter and they found it frustrating because they didn't know a lot about what they were doing. Some of them were just downright mad because we don't give any help on a pretest. I am testing what they know and not knowing it is something I figure out on the pretest. This means I really need to watch for mastery and do my best to teach this chapter. Good Luck to us!
Social Studies - We are talking about a lot of historical things in the Southeast in this lesson. They learned about 3 settlements: St. Augustine, Roanoke Island, and Jamestown Virginia and they learned about 3 important people from the Southeast: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson We talked a little about Thomas Jefferson's famous home "Monticello". They have gone online and looked up videos about Monticello. Many have loved this and found them very interesting. They are coming to me and telling me stories of things from the videos that they are enjoying. Now that is learning at work!
This will be my last blog until after Spring Break. Next week since we are meeting for conferences I won't put one out. I may put some announcements out if there are things I need you to know. I hope you have a great week with your kids.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday!! It is very happy because we have had a full week of school! This of course makes me happy but not so much the kids! We have been busy this week. The kids have worked hard! I am super proud of the way they have come back and worked. We will continue to work hard through Spring Break! We only have like 11 days until then. I have not pointed that out to the kids. I am afraid they will go on break early.
Book It - The February Calendars are due by Monday, March 5th to receive a pizza certificate. We are ready for our last month of keeping track. March is the last one with a goal of 600 minutes!
Conferences - It is that time of year again and they are fast approaching! Here is the link to my sign up. Please be sure you get your name on a time you want. I have a couple times on Tuesday after school I am doing. I am gone Monday at a track meet in Ames for Molly and Wednesday I have my own high school conference, so Tuesday was my only extra day. So go check it out.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-4thgrade4
Language Arts - This week we are finishing up what we started last Monday. We are reading Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez. It tells us the story of how migrant workers living conditions and pay were pretty poor. Cesar Chavez decided he wanted change and marched from Delano, California to Sacramento. He started with 67 followers and not very popular but then at the end he had 10,000 followers and also created a Migrant Workers Union. He also got a contract for them to work for better pay and better conditions. The kids found this story interesting. I had one student who watched a show on TV about Cesar on Wednesday night. This topic also appeared in our read aloud book this week! Such great timing for it all! We are talking about some pretty heavy content in grammar. Independent and dependent clauses and focusing on the relative pronouns and adverbs they start with. This is some pretty complicated content and we only spend about 3 days on it. We did 2 of the 3 worksheets together and was able to discuss each one. The worksheets are harder than what the students will do on the assessment. I assured them they would do great! Our vocabulary strategy this week was on reference materials. The focus was no learning to look up a word in the dictionary and also understand all that a dictionary entry provides to the student. It tells what part of speech the word is, gives the definition(s) of the word, may tell synonyms or antonyms, how to pronounce the word and what part of the word is stressed! That is a lot of stuff. Yes, I made them use actual dictionaries and not a digital dictionary. From what I have seen the actual book has more information than what the internet provides. Tomorrow will be our normal Friday with a spelling post test and end of week assessment over the story.
Math - We have completed what I need to teach in Chapter 13. It consisted of 3 lessons. Learning Perimeter and Area and then area of combined rectangles. We have spent the last two days reviewing perimeter and area. Today we will do a review then I plan to have them test over this tomorrow. I will write the formulas for perimeter and area on the board so they can refer to it when doing their test. There will not be as many questions on the test since we didn't cover all the lessons. We also did not take a pretest over this material.
Social Studies - They are moving through lesson one in Chapter 7. They are learning about the Cherokee Native Americans right now. Today they learned about Sequoyah, the Native American that wrote an alphabet for their language. This made the Cherokee learn to read and write. They were the only Native American group to have their own alphabet. We will finish this lesson tomorrow and they will do the worksheet that covers the information. We will start the week next week with putting a state in their notebooks. We are moving through this quite well. I hope to finish up the Southeast before Spring Break so we can hit the Midwest as soon as we come back. We have 3 more regions to go. We are picking up the pace a little bit.
Auction - The auction is this Saturday night!! We ended up getting more donations this week! Thank you so much. The 3-5 Garden Basket is looking fabulous! Lots of great items in it! Also our silent auction item turned out great. I love it. Lots of silent auction items this year were pictures of students, their hands, crosses, ect. They are a lot of fun!
Dress Code - Yes, it is March and the dress code now allows shorts. Please please keep in mind just because they can doesn't mean they should. We still go outside so wearing shorts in 40 degree weather is not a good idea. They will be awful cold outside. I tell my students this exact thing. If it is going to be 60 great but it is just not necessary to do when it's 40 just because you can. Save that for home on the weekends.
I will not be attending the auction this year. I have only missed like 3 in my 20 years. All had to do with my kids. This weekend in Mom's weekend for Jami's sorority and Mom's Day for Josie's. I will spend the weekend at Jami's but go to Josie's for like 2 hours on Saturday. Best part is Josie does get to participate in Jami's house activities. I think Saturday we are going to the Blank Park Zoo. We have lunch catered by Hickory Park (my fav) and Saturday night the Cyclone Theater is showing "The Greatest Showman" which I have seen twice but love and can't wait to see it again!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday!! It is very happy because we have had a full week of school! This of course makes me happy but not so much the kids! We have been busy this week. The kids have worked hard! I am super proud of the way they have come back and worked. We will continue to work hard through Spring Break! We only have like 11 days until then. I have not pointed that out to the kids. I am afraid they will go on break early.
Book It - The February Calendars are due by Monday, March 5th to receive a pizza certificate. We are ready for our last month of keeping track. March is the last one with a goal of 600 minutes!
Conferences - It is that time of year again and they are fast approaching! Here is the link to my sign up. Please be sure you get your name on a time you want. I have a couple times on Tuesday after school I am doing. I am gone Monday at a track meet in Ames for Molly and Wednesday I have my own high school conference, so Tuesday was my only extra day. So go check it out.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a5a72ca1fe3-4thgrade4
Language Arts - This week we are finishing up what we started last Monday. We are reading Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez. It tells us the story of how migrant workers living conditions and pay were pretty poor. Cesar Chavez decided he wanted change and marched from Delano, California to Sacramento. He started with 67 followers and not very popular but then at the end he had 10,000 followers and also created a Migrant Workers Union. He also got a contract for them to work for better pay and better conditions. The kids found this story interesting. I had one student who watched a show on TV about Cesar on Wednesday night. This topic also appeared in our read aloud book this week! Such great timing for it all! We are talking about some pretty heavy content in grammar. Independent and dependent clauses and focusing on the relative pronouns and adverbs they start with. This is some pretty complicated content and we only spend about 3 days on it. We did 2 of the 3 worksheets together and was able to discuss each one. The worksheets are harder than what the students will do on the assessment. I assured them they would do great! Our vocabulary strategy this week was on reference materials. The focus was no learning to look up a word in the dictionary and also understand all that a dictionary entry provides to the student. It tells what part of speech the word is, gives the definition(s) of the word, may tell synonyms or antonyms, how to pronounce the word and what part of the word is stressed! That is a lot of stuff. Yes, I made them use actual dictionaries and not a digital dictionary. From what I have seen the actual book has more information than what the internet provides. Tomorrow will be our normal Friday with a spelling post test and end of week assessment over the story.
Math - We have completed what I need to teach in Chapter 13. It consisted of 3 lessons. Learning Perimeter and Area and then area of combined rectangles. We have spent the last two days reviewing perimeter and area. Today we will do a review then I plan to have them test over this tomorrow. I will write the formulas for perimeter and area on the board so they can refer to it when doing their test. There will not be as many questions on the test since we didn't cover all the lessons. We also did not take a pretest over this material.
Social Studies - They are moving through lesson one in Chapter 7. They are learning about the Cherokee Native Americans right now. Today they learned about Sequoyah, the Native American that wrote an alphabet for their language. This made the Cherokee learn to read and write. They were the only Native American group to have their own alphabet. We will finish this lesson tomorrow and they will do the worksheet that covers the information. We will start the week next week with putting a state in their notebooks. We are moving through this quite well. I hope to finish up the Southeast before Spring Break so we can hit the Midwest as soon as we come back. We have 3 more regions to go. We are picking up the pace a little bit.
Auction - The auction is this Saturday night!! We ended up getting more donations this week! Thank you so much. The 3-5 Garden Basket is looking fabulous! Lots of great items in it! Also our silent auction item turned out great. I love it. Lots of silent auction items this year were pictures of students, their hands, crosses, ect. They are a lot of fun!
Dress Code - Yes, it is March and the dress code now allows shorts. Please please keep in mind just because they can doesn't mean they should. We still go outside so wearing shorts in 40 degree weather is not a good idea. They will be awful cold outside. I tell my students this exact thing. If it is going to be 60 great but it is just not necessary to do when it's 40 just because you can. Save that for home on the weekends.
I will not be attending the auction this year. I have only missed like 3 in my 20 years. All had to do with my kids. This weekend in Mom's weekend for Jami's sorority and Mom's Day for Josie's. I will spend the weekend at Jami's but go to Josie's for like 2 hours on Saturday. Best part is Josie does get to participate in Jami's house activities. I think Saturday we are going to the Blank Park Zoo. We have lunch catered by Hickory Park (my fav) and Saturday night the Cyclone Theater is showing "The Greatest Showman" which I have seen twice but love and can't wait to see it again!
I hope everyone has a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Friday, February 23, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Friday! This has been a nonexistent week for school! That ice is a scary thing for sure but I never thought we would have 3 ice days! I hope everyone is enjoying their 4 day weekend! I guess I am! I will be ready for Monday! I hope your kids are. I don't have much to report on the blog, since we didn't have much school.
Language Arts - We started the week reading Harvesting Hope: The story of Cesar Chavez and Migrant Workers Union. We read the story and worked on vocabulary words. We will pick up where we left off on Monday. On the late start day, I gave the kids the CRS Test. This test is Constructed Response Supplement. The kids read a story and answer 8 questions about the story. The questions are not multiple choice or true false. They actually have to write out answers. Sometimes they need to write a sentence or two and sometimes just a couple words will answer the question. The key is answer the question completely. We had a full classroom so Wednesday was the best option since I had no idea what the rest of the week would bring. Thank goodness I did it. I will be gone on March 5 to go to Des Moines and help score these tests with all other 4th grade teachers in the diocese. I will not be scoring my own tests. I will score ones from other schools.
Math - We only had math once this week due to the late start. We are trying to finish up combined rectangles and finding area. I told them I had a worksheet that was a challenging activity that we would be doing next. Some were looking forward to this and we didn't get to do it, but we will next week for sure.
Social Studies - Please be sure to sign your students test so they can return it. I plan for them to put one more state in their notebook before we begin the next chapter. Again, if your student didn't do well on the states and capitals map section please work with them so they can learn them. It is important cause at the end of the year they take a test over all 50!
Auction Basket - The auction donations were due today but since we are not in school we will move the deadline to Monday. They were hoping to do some shopping this weekend. We have not had a very turn out for donations. We joined 3-5 together for this reason and have received even less than normal. Please send what you can, a gardening item or cash donation even if it is $5. We can use all the help we can. The Silent Auction item is all ready taken care of. All money will go towards the Auction Basket. Thank you very much to all who have all ready donated it is greatly appreciated and to those who plan to donate.
I hope we have a full week next week. We do have a guest speaker on Wednesday. Scott Boyle who was at NCYC this fall will be here to talk to the kids. He will be at school for a 45 minute session and then at the church that night for another session.
Happy Friday! This has been a nonexistent week for school! That ice is a scary thing for sure but I never thought we would have 3 ice days! I hope everyone is enjoying their 4 day weekend! I guess I am! I will be ready for Monday! I hope your kids are. I don't have much to report on the blog, since we didn't have much school.
Language Arts - We started the week reading Harvesting Hope: The story of Cesar Chavez and Migrant Workers Union. We read the story and worked on vocabulary words. We will pick up where we left off on Monday. On the late start day, I gave the kids the CRS Test. This test is Constructed Response Supplement. The kids read a story and answer 8 questions about the story. The questions are not multiple choice or true false. They actually have to write out answers. Sometimes they need to write a sentence or two and sometimes just a couple words will answer the question. The key is answer the question completely. We had a full classroom so Wednesday was the best option since I had no idea what the rest of the week would bring. Thank goodness I did it. I will be gone on March 5 to go to Des Moines and help score these tests with all other 4th grade teachers in the diocese. I will not be scoring my own tests. I will score ones from other schools.
Math - We only had math once this week due to the late start. We are trying to finish up combined rectangles and finding area. I told them I had a worksheet that was a challenging activity that we would be doing next. Some were looking forward to this and we didn't get to do it, but we will next week for sure.
Social Studies - Please be sure to sign your students test so they can return it. I plan for them to put one more state in their notebook before we begin the next chapter. Again, if your student didn't do well on the states and capitals map section please work with them so they can learn them. It is important cause at the end of the year they take a test over all 50!
Auction Basket - The auction donations were due today but since we are not in school we will move the deadline to Monday. They were hoping to do some shopping this weekend. We have not had a very turn out for donations. We joined 3-5 together for this reason and have received even less than normal. Please send what you can, a gardening item or cash donation even if it is $5. We can use all the help we can. The Silent Auction item is all ready taken care of. All money will go towards the Auction Basket. Thank you very much to all who have all ready donated it is greatly appreciated and to those who plan to donate.
I hope we have a full week next week. We do have a guest speaker on Wednesday. Scott Boyle who was at NCYC this fall will be here to talk to the kids. He will be at school for a 45 minute session and then at the church that night for another session.
Enjoy your 4 day weekend. I miss all of you!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! What a week! I feel like it has been a very quick week. Tuesday full of making donuts and Valentine Party, Wednesday being Ash Wednesday and today I spent my morning at hospital with Molly. She was getting an MRI on her shoulder. Love that X-ray staff. So very nice and explained everything so well to both of us. She had to have injection into the joint for the scans. Kinda interesting to watch. I understood immediately why I teach kids!! I am back for the afternoon.
Language Arts - We are reading Hercules Quest this week. It is the story of Hercules. I planned to show the movie on Friday but I am not sure I will get to it. It is a fun story the kids like it. Lots of hard words to read. The names of people especially. We are working on prepositions and prepositional phrases in grammar this week. It's a hard concept to teach and only spend 3 days on! Our vocabulary strategy was adages and proverbs which help teach figurative language. We also read a fun story called Zomo's Friends. I love this little story. Some of the kids loved it and others didn't at all. Tomorrow we will have our normal Friday with the story, spelling post test and end of week test. Study study!
Math - This week we finished off perimeter and started Area. These are concepts that are not that hard but hard to keep separate. We will finish up area either tomorrow or Monday. We will then move on to a lesson on combined rectangles. It will be like blue print of a house and they will find area of the rooms. We do one worksheet that is totally like that. I find that stuff fun because it challenges me, others do not think that way! I try to tell the kids that this chapter is meant to be fun and relaxing after all the hard work we did in Chapters 2 and 3.
Social Studies - Today they tested over chapter 6. They will make corrections tomorrow. We will then put another state in their notebooks and then move on into Chapter 7. I hope to get us through this chapter so that we can start talking about the Midwest states which are the next region of study. They will like this section because it is more close to home.
Food Pantry - We did not get to go to Food Pantry last week due to the temperatures. This week we are going to go instead of the 5th graders. I asked students to wear their boots cause it is a slushy mess. They are excited to go! Thank you in advance.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! What a week! I feel like it has been a very quick week. Tuesday full of making donuts and Valentine Party, Wednesday being Ash Wednesday and today I spent my morning at hospital with Molly. She was getting an MRI on her shoulder. Love that X-ray staff. So very nice and explained everything so well to both of us. She had to have injection into the joint for the scans. Kinda interesting to watch. I understood immediately why I teach kids!! I am back for the afternoon.
Language Arts - We are reading Hercules Quest this week. It is the story of Hercules. I planned to show the movie on Friday but I am not sure I will get to it. It is a fun story the kids like it. Lots of hard words to read. The names of people especially. We are working on prepositions and prepositional phrases in grammar this week. It's a hard concept to teach and only spend 3 days on! Our vocabulary strategy was adages and proverbs which help teach figurative language. We also read a fun story called Zomo's Friends. I love this little story. Some of the kids loved it and others didn't at all. Tomorrow we will have our normal Friday with the story, spelling post test and end of week test. Study study!
Math - This week we finished off perimeter and started Area. These are concepts that are not that hard but hard to keep separate. We will finish up area either tomorrow or Monday. We will then move on to a lesson on combined rectangles. It will be like blue print of a house and they will find area of the rooms. We do one worksheet that is totally like that. I find that stuff fun because it challenges me, others do not think that way! I try to tell the kids that this chapter is meant to be fun and relaxing after all the hard work we did in Chapters 2 and 3.
Social Studies - Today they tested over chapter 6. They will make corrections tomorrow. We will then put another state in their notebooks and then move on into Chapter 7. I hope to get us through this chapter so that we can start talking about the Midwest states which are the next region of study. They will like this section because it is more close to home.
Food Pantry - We did not get to go to Food Pantry last week due to the temperatures. This week we are going to go instead of the 5th graders. I asked students to wear their boots cause it is a slushy mess. They are excited to go! Thank you in advance.
I hope everyone has a great weekend!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! We are working hard this week. I feel our room has been pretty lucky. We were missing 2 kids on Monday but that was really it. We have not been hit too bad by the flu but I feel it moving in on us. Please be sure to keep your child home if they had a fever the night before. If you don't you are just "gifting" the other students with it. They are saying you are contagious a very long time. Kids diagnosed with Influenza A are told 7 days contagious and are to stay home from school. I know this can be an inconvenience to a working parent but please listen to the doctors, they are trying to prevent the spread of it. We are disinfecting our rooms and desks about twice a day. The kids do it every morning and afternoon and even if someone in area sneezes they clean. Hand washing is also being pushed, not the use of GermX but actual soap and water on their hands! We want to escape the sickness!!
Language Arts- This week we are reading a story that is interesting the first time but not so interesting the other 2 times we read it. It is called The Right Dog for the Job and it is about the process a dog takes to become a service dog. It is interesting to hear some of the things that a dog goes through to become a service dog. Working in a classroom is one of the interesting things. We have learned about adverbs and the questions they answer this week. We also talked about suffixes. We are sharing book reports slowly this week. I gave each student a rubric to follow that showed exactly what was expected and how they would be graded. Some of them followed the rubric and some of them didn't bother to look at it. Grades will reflect this. I will put on power school as they present them.
Math - We have started into some fun items today. Perimeter is our lesson today. Yes it is easy to teach that to find perimeter you add all the sides together which is how I introduced it, but you must use the perimeter formulas in this chapter. P=(2XL) + (2XW) for a rectangle and P= 4 X one side for a square. This is showing them the algebraic way of finding perimeter. Tomorrow we will work on the same and then Monday I will partner them and send them around the building to find 3-5 things to measure and find perimeter. This is the fun part, it gets them out of the room and moving around the building. I talked about people's jobs that require them to use perimeter. Some of you may talk to your child about it if you use it on a regular basis. We will then learn Area in the same way. We will learn it on paper then apply it to real world by measuring things and finding their area.
Social Studies - We are talking about animals and products found in the Southeast Region. The students will have a map test on Monday. They will need to be able to label the Southeast map with states and capitals. Please help your child study. I gave them last Friday to make an answer key and study on practice maps. We will also put another state in our notebooks. Tomorrow I plan to give them a state and allow them time to study their maps.
Food Pantry - We go to the Food Pantry tomorrow if weather permits. Please be sure your student brings their boots tomorrow for the walk down there. Some of them chose not to bring boots today. They have to have them tomorrow. If they don't they may be asked to stay back. I need them to have hats and mittens also. The first part of their work is done outside and then they unload things and shelve them inside. We need to be prepared. Thank you!
Tuesday, February 13th - This is "Fat Tuesday"!! The 4th graders make and plate donuts for the entire school. We spend a couple hours in the morning doing this. It is a tradition we have had for many many years. Well at least 19-20 since I have been here. It is just a fun treat before Ash Wednesday and fasting begins. Also we will be celebrating Valentine's Day on this day in the afternoon. We are doing this due to Ash Wednesday being on Valentine's Day. Not a big deal we are just going to celebrate a day early. Our party consists of a snack and a drink and the kids exchanging valentine's at the end of the day. So we start the day with food and end the day with food. I will say because we provide a snack I do NOT allow the kids to eat any candy from their valentines at school. I feel the parent can decide how much candy they eat.
I pray we all continue to stay healthy!! I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend! I pray the weather doesn't put a damper on any of our plans. I am suppose to do dinner and movie with my best friend in Des Moines tomorrow and I am praying the snow quits. I am looking forward to some time with my friend.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Happy Thursday! We are working hard this week. I feel our room has been pretty lucky. We were missing 2 kids on Monday but that was really it. We have not been hit too bad by the flu but I feel it moving in on us. Please be sure to keep your child home if they had a fever the night before. If you don't you are just "gifting" the other students with it. They are saying you are contagious a very long time. Kids diagnosed with Influenza A are told 7 days contagious and are to stay home from school. I know this can be an inconvenience to a working parent but please listen to the doctors, they are trying to prevent the spread of it. We are disinfecting our rooms and desks about twice a day. The kids do it every morning and afternoon and even if someone in area sneezes they clean. Hand washing is also being pushed, not the use of GermX but actual soap and water on their hands! We want to escape the sickness!!
Language Arts- This week we are reading a story that is interesting the first time but not so interesting the other 2 times we read it. It is called The Right Dog for the Job and it is about the process a dog takes to become a service dog. It is interesting to hear some of the things that a dog goes through to become a service dog. Working in a classroom is one of the interesting things. We have learned about adverbs and the questions they answer this week. We also talked about suffixes. We are sharing book reports slowly this week. I gave each student a rubric to follow that showed exactly what was expected and how they would be graded. Some of them followed the rubric and some of them didn't bother to look at it. Grades will reflect this. I will put on power school as they present them.
Math - We have started into some fun items today. Perimeter is our lesson today. Yes it is easy to teach that to find perimeter you add all the sides together which is how I introduced it, but you must use the perimeter formulas in this chapter. P=(2XL) + (2XW) for a rectangle and P= 4 X one side for a square. This is showing them the algebraic way of finding perimeter. Tomorrow we will work on the same and then Monday I will partner them and send them around the building to find 3-5 things to measure and find perimeter. This is the fun part, it gets them out of the room and moving around the building. I talked about people's jobs that require them to use perimeter. Some of you may talk to your child about it if you use it on a regular basis. We will then learn Area in the same way. We will learn it on paper then apply it to real world by measuring things and finding their area.
Social Studies - We are talking about animals and products found in the Southeast Region. The students will have a map test on Monday. They will need to be able to label the Southeast map with states and capitals. Please help your child study. I gave them last Friday to make an answer key and study on practice maps. We will also put another state in our notebooks. Tomorrow I plan to give them a state and allow them time to study their maps.
Food Pantry - We go to the Food Pantry tomorrow if weather permits. Please be sure your student brings their boots tomorrow for the walk down there. Some of them chose not to bring boots today. They have to have them tomorrow. If they don't they may be asked to stay back. I need them to have hats and mittens also. The first part of their work is done outside and then they unload things and shelve them inside. We need to be prepared. Thank you!
Tuesday, February 13th - This is "Fat Tuesday"!! The 4th graders make and plate donuts for the entire school. We spend a couple hours in the morning doing this. It is a tradition we have had for many many years. Well at least 19-20 since I have been here. It is just a fun treat before Ash Wednesday and fasting begins. Also we will be celebrating Valentine's Day on this day in the afternoon. We are doing this due to Ash Wednesday being on Valentine's Day. Not a big deal we are just going to celebrate a day early. Our party consists of a snack and a drink and the kids exchanging valentine's at the end of the day. So we start the day with food and end the day with food. I will say because we provide a snack I do NOT allow the kids to eat any candy from their valentines at school. I feel the parent can decide how much candy they eat.
I pray we all continue to stay healthy!! I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend! I pray the weather doesn't put a damper on any of our plans. I am suppose to do dinner and movie with my best friend in Des Moines tomorrow and I am praying the snow quits. I am looking forward to some time with my friend.
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Thursday! I don't know about you but I am worn out! Catholic Schools Week is always so much fun but also so very exhausting. Today was a big day! Roller Skating in Des Moines! It was lots of fun. Most all 4th graders stayed out on the floor most of the time. There were a few who tired out or just got bored with it. I loved it. I went every Friday night from about 2nd grade through 6th grade! It was our entertainment. Henry's Skateland was the place to be on Friday night. It brought back some fun memories for sure. Our week is almost over! Tomorrow is it! We end the week with Grandparents/special guest day! Such a wonderful way to end the week, with our loved ones. Tomorrow we also honor teachers who have put in 5, 10, 15, 20.....years here at St. Malachy. Hang on cause Mrs. Levine is being honored for 40 years of service at St. Malachy. I will also get my 20 year pin. Hard to believe that my years are half of what Levine as put in. She is awesome! Remember tomorrow is dress up day. We need to look our best!
Language Arts - We did not cover a story this week because 3 days of class is not enough time at all to do that. We have started a new read aloud book called One Crazy Summer. It has won a ton of awards. There are 4 showing on the cover. Since February is Black History Month my daughter told me I needed to read it. Josie just finished a children't literature class in Ames and they talked a lot about this book and that it is a popular read aloud so we are doing it! So far so good. We do some predicting after we read each day. I feel like it is a sad book but I am predicting a happy ending. Not everyone in the class thinks like me. It's fun reading something new with them. Plus, I can model my thought process in things first hand. We got into partners and rolled a die for parts of a story. They rolled to find their character, setting and conflict. I had a paper that had them written on it and they rolled the die and matched it to those areas. Some are creating some fully stories like a zookeeper, who found a magical hat in a Jelly Bean Factory. I hope to finish the stories on Friday and get them to type them up. Next week we will get back to week 17 story in the book.
Math- We have spent the week reviewing when we could. The kids have done a practice test in the book and an extra practice sheet we will go over tomorrow. They will take their test over chapter 3 on Monday! After that we will begin chapter 13 on Area and Perimeter.
Social Studies - This week we have focused on putting states into our interactive notebooks. They have worked on North Carolina and Kentucky. Tomorrow we will end the week with some map work. I want them to start to practice the Southeast States on a map. Again they will need to locate them and label the capital.
I hope everyone has had a great week this week. We are gearing up for Lent to begin. The 4th graders will be making donuts on Feb. 13th, Fat Tuesday, and we give them out to the entire school. I have been doing this for many years. It is a great tradition here. Most kids look forward to the donuts. I also plan to have our Valentine's Day party on the 13th. Since the 14th is Ash Wednesday there are Catholic traditions on that day which is fasting and only eating 3 meals that day with no snacking in between. The whole school is celebrating on Tuesday instead. It is also bring a friend to school day. If you are wanting to bring a friend make sure you fill out the form and turn it in to the office please. It will help us have an idea of how many extras we will have!!
Happy Thursday! I don't know about you but I am worn out! Catholic Schools Week is always so much fun but also so very exhausting. Today was a big day! Roller Skating in Des Moines! It was lots of fun. Most all 4th graders stayed out on the floor most of the time. There were a few who tired out or just got bored with it. I loved it. I went every Friday night from about 2nd grade through 6th grade! It was our entertainment. Henry's Skateland was the place to be on Friday night. It brought back some fun memories for sure. Our week is almost over! Tomorrow is it! We end the week with Grandparents/special guest day! Such a wonderful way to end the week, with our loved ones. Tomorrow we also honor teachers who have put in 5, 10, 15, 20.....years here at St. Malachy. Hang on cause Mrs. Levine is being honored for 40 years of service at St. Malachy. I will also get my 20 year pin. Hard to believe that my years are half of what Levine as put in. She is awesome! Remember tomorrow is dress up day. We need to look our best!
Language Arts - We did not cover a story this week because 3 days of class is not enough time at all to do that. We have started a new read aloud book called One Crazy Summer. It has won a ton of awards. There are 4 showing on the cover. Since February is Black History Month my daughter told me I needed to read it. Josie just finished a children't literature class in Ames and they talked a lot about this book and that it is a popular read aloud so we are doing it! So far so good. We do some predicting after we read each day. I feel like it is a sad book but I am predicting a happy ending. Not everyone in the class thinks like me. It's fun reading something new with them. Plus, I can model my thought process in things first hand. We got into partners and rolled a die for parts of a story. They rolled to find their character, setting and conflict. I had a paper that had them written on it and they rolled the die and matched it to those areas. Some are creating some fully stories like a zookeeper, who found a magical hat in a Jelly Bean Factory. I hope to finish the stories on Friday and get them to type them up. Next week we will get back to week 17 story in the book.
Math- We have spent the week reviewing when we could. The kids have done a practice test in the book and an extra practice sheet we will go over tomorrow. They will take their test over chapter 3 on Monday! After that we will begin chapter 13 on Area and Perimeter.
Social Studies - This week we have focused on putting states into our interactive notebooks. They have worked on North Carolina and Kentucky. Tomorrow we will end the week with some map work. I want them to start to practice the Southeast States on a map. Again they will need to locate them and label the capital.
I hope everyone has had a great week this week. We are gearing up for Lent to begin. The 4th graders will be making donuts on Feb. 13th, Fat Tuesday, and we give them out to the entire school. I have been doing this for many years. It is a great tradition here. Most kids look forward to the donuts. I also plan to have our Valentine's Day party on the 13th. Since the 14th is Ash Wednesday there are Catholic traditions on that day which is fasting and only eating 3 meals that day with no snacking in between. The whole school is celebrating on Tuesday instead. It is also bring a friend to school day. If you are wanting to bring a friend make sure you fill out the form and turn it in to the office please. It will help us have an idea of how many extras we will have!!
Have a great weekend!!!
God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels
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