April 3, 2025

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday!! Here we are again. It is later in the day and I am worn out. I love field trips but they are tiring. Just doing something out of the normal routine tends to wear a person out. The field trip was great, the kids were great and the Glass Blower was amazing. He had a sense of humor and was very good at demonstrations. He allowed for questions and kept working while answering them. The kids may tell you he made me practically jump out of my skin when he turned a blow torch on quite close to me. It startled me. The bus ride is the thing I think that wears you out. I did get some reading done and tried to take a little nap. I hope your kids have good things to say about today.

Language Arts

We are reading a story about the Beatles. It talks about their fame and Beatlemania. It mentions a lot of their most popular music and I shared the songs with them from youtube. The story really likes to point out how they were a very determined and hard working group but they also had a sense of humor. Grammar has been about Modal Auxilary words. Spelling words have focused on adding -ed and -ing. This is the 2nd week doing this so they are should do well and have this spelling skill down. I will try to keep you posted on when the spelling post test will be. It will be sometime next week. With the testing going on I never know what subject I will get to and which one I will not. Sometimes it takes everyone a long time to test and other times not so much. I have to keep the day pretty scheduled so I plan for everything in case I have the time. I am thinking Tuesday or Wednesday. Again I will try to keep you posted.

Math

We have just skimmed the surface of division. They may be able to use some of what we have learned so far to make a very good educated guess on any problems concerning division. I hope to begin learning a little more about this . Again that will depend on testing and how long the students are taking. It is a rule that I can't move on until all students have completed the test. They can not move about the room or anything until all students are done. I do plan on completing a couple math lessons next week no matter what.

Social Studies

We are moving right through this chapter, which is good. Then we can move into the Southwest. We have 8 weeks left and two regions so I gotta find a way to really keep us moving. I will get this subject taught next week each day before we begin testing. I don't start testing until 9:00. This ensures I keep moving. We will be having a study guide and test coming up maybe around the end of next week. Usually I work on my lesson plans on Thursday but we were gone all day so that didn't get to happen. I will work on that tomorrow.

ISASP Testing

We will take ISASP tests next week on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We will take one test a day. We have taken the practice test for reading all ready. Tomorrow we will take the practice test for Math and Language Arts. They actually got to see their scores for the practice test and then I told them what was failing and what was proficient. It opened up some of their eyes. Please be sure they get a good night's sleep and some brain food in the morning. I always hear eggs are good brain food. Students will all be spread around the room and have dividers on their desk for privacy. I will talk to them about the written parts of their tests tomorrow. We will go over how they are scored.

Dollars for Scholars

The students will be working on an Essay contest for the Dollars for Scholars group. We will work on it during the school day. One of the students in this class will win $50.00. I will pass the essays around the building to 3 teachers and they will choose their top 3. We send those to the DFS group and they are judged and one person out of those 3 will be the winner. They are awarded the prize at the last Mass of the school year.

Spirit day.

Tomorrow is a Spirit Day. The high is to be about 52 degrees so a perfect time to wear sweats! Bring your Dollars! I wish I could wear sweats tomorrow. Jeans it will be for me.

Bank Poster

We will be working on a poster contest for Northwest Banks. I hope to have them work on those during their free time during testing next week.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I am going to babysit on Saturday night with my sweet grand baby Maddyn. Jami is in charge of Prom at her school and that is Saturday. I am very happy to take over the duties. Especially at bed time when I get to rock her to sleep. I wish this weather would warm up and stay warm. I also wish the wind would go away. I am very much tired of all this wind.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels