April 6, 2023

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! I hope all of you are looking forward to Easter weekend! I am praying that Spring weather will kick in soon. It was very nice to have a warm day this week but the storms could have stayed away. I do know that the farmers probably appreciate the rain. I do enjoy a good thunderstorm with thunder and lightening.

Language Arts

This week we did not do a story in our book. We took our ISASP Practice tests to get them ready for next week's ISASP Testing. We also wrote an essay for Dollars for Scholars. The essay contest is done every year. One person in my class will win $50. They had to write an essay answering the question "What Education Means to Me". This essay was written at school. They typed them on computers and we printed them out. The students did not put their name on their essays. Three teachers in our building will read the essays and determine the top 3. Those 3 will then move on to the Dollars for Scholar's group to be judged. The winner will be announced at the last mass in May. I am a part of the Dollars for Scholars committee and I will tell you that we ask a retired teacher to read the essays and pick the winners. It is not anyone that is on the committee. All classes in Creston 4-8th grade participate in this activity. The 4th graders are only competing against themselves. They are not competing with other 4th graders at Mayflower of the Public School. Each homeroom will have their own $50 winner. The kids are very excitecd about this. The essays are due Friday so we worked hard on them this week.

Math

We are honestly getting ready to be finishing up topic 5 on division. Next week due to ISASP testing we will review division most of the week. We will be getting ready to test over topic 5 the week of the 17th. After that we skip Topic 6 and move into Topic 7 which is on Multiples and Factors. This topic will get us ready for fractions that will come after that. We are in a good spot for sure. We will continue to do Basic Fact testing just not as often. I have been pretty serious about making sure it gets done once a week for 4 - 5 weeks now. We will take it back to maybe every other so we can keep moving in the book.

Social Studies

We finished up Chapter 8 this week! We have begun our 2nd chapter on the Midwest States. The students added capitals to their Midwest Map and will be taking their first map test with Midwest States and capitals next Wednesday the 12th. We have begun reading the first lesson which is talking about the Ojibwa Native Americans. They will learn about their culture. We are picking up the pace a little bit more in this subject to make sure we get through. We are ahead of where we were last year for sure. Adding in the Map Skills time on Wednesdays sure helped a lot!

ISASP Testing

Next week we will be taking the Iowa Assessments. We will take one test a day in the morning! Please be sure your student eats a good breakfast and gets a good nights sleep before these tests. We just want them to do the best that they can do to show us what they know and what they have learned. If students are absent we may will have to be creative finding times for them to make the test up. The PTO will be providing snacks for students on testing days.

Friday, April 7th

NO SCHOOL!! Enjoy your Good Friday! The teachers will be doing service cleaning the church and readying it for Easter!

I wish you all a blessed Easter this weekend. I have two kids coming home this weekend. Josie and Tate will be here Saturday night. Molly comes in later Saturday night. We will attend church together on Sunday! I will be happy to have kids under my roof. That will be my biggest joy of the weekend.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels