August 31, 2023

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! This is our first official blog. Remember they will come out every Thursday! I will send them via an email and place it on the Facebook page. It will have all the information about our classroom. It will have what we are doing and what might be coming up. Please be sure to read it each week so you are aware of what is going on.

Language Arts

I am going to be honest, I am not sure I know what is going on in this subject! HAHA We have a new series for Language Arts this year. It is definitely a challenge for the teachers to get the routine down. It has so much great stuff to offer but we only have so many minutes in the day. I am trying to pick and choose was is most essential for students to know. That is also hard. This week they read the story Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo. I really enjoy this author but not so sure I enjoy this selection. We talked about the genre and what her purpose was for writing this book. We have talked about Context Clues and how they help you to know words you are unfamiliar with. For grammar we reviewd the subject and predicate of sentences. I feel like I have covered a ton of stuff with them. They took a 5 question quiz today over the story. Tomorrow they will take a spelling post test and reread the story as a gorup and answer some questions in the book to help their comprehension. Next week I hope the story is shorter. This week it was like 20 pages. That's a lot. I plan to only cover the things "essential" to our standards.

Math

We have not been able to do much with this topic due to the amount of language arts we have been doing. Today they were assigned page 2 which is an intro to Topic 1 on Number Sense. We will check this tomorrow and talk about how math will progress through the rest of the year. Next week I will plan to be make sure we do Math each day.

Social Studies

We have been reading about the Regions of the United States this week. We focused on land forms. We will finish lesson 1 tomorrow and the students will have a worksheet to do over the lesson. I have changed the directions of the wkst to make it easier and faster for them to complete. After lesson one we skip on to chapter 2. Again I skip around in the first 3 chapters to only cover what I feel is essential for the students based on our standards.

Spirit Day

Friday is Spirit Day. What is Spirit day? We allow the kids to pay $1.00 to wear sweats, hat, or sunglasses. It is one dollar and one item of choice. So you can not pay 1.00 and wear a hat and sunglasses nor do I want $2:00 to wear a hat and sunglasses. Just one dollar to pick one item. The sunglasses is a new thing. They will not wear them inside the building, but they will be allowed to wear them out for recess.

Where does my money go? We use the money rasied on Spirit Days for a Pay it Forward Committee. This committee helps out people in need. We use it to send to other schools when they lose a student or staff member. We use it for our teachers if there is a death in the immediate family. We help families who have illnesses that need to dr. in Des Moines or other places on a regular basis. We help teachers and staff if they have surgery or health issues. We have a committiee that collects the money and keeps track of where it goes. When we send money or flowers the card always reads "From St. Malachy Students, Faculty and staff." We do this because the money really does come from all of them.

Car Line

Things seem to be moving pretty well in carline so far. We are just having trouble with a few people not getting in line. (The line forms down Oak Street to the South of School, and files up in order) We are also having trouble with cars not pulling all the way up. You need to keep going until they tell you to stop. I know when you see your child you want to stop, but our line is more efficient when we can get as many cars loading at once as we can. Safety is also our number one priority so make sure you know all the rules when picking up.

Friday, September 1

This is a 3 hour early dismissal. The students will get out at 12:15. We will not be serving your students lunch. We will however give them a 15-20 min recess before we send them home. It will just take the place of our normal lunch time. The teachers are going to be attending a guest speaker at the high school.

Welcome Back Picnic

There will be a Welcome Back Picnic in the Courtyard at school on Wednesday, September 6 from 5-7. You will find more information on what to bring in your child's take home folder. This is a great time to say "Hello" and get to know some of our new families. Most of the teachers will be present that night if you missed meeting them at the Open House.

I hope all of you have a great long weekend. It's Labor Day Weekend so no school on Monday. Friday night is the last Friday After Five at the Elk's. It is sponsored by B Rooted and the proceeds will go to St. Malachy. I will be there working the door and enjoying some music. I also have a wedding to attend on Saturday and Family gathers the whole weekend. It is one of my favorite weekends of the year.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels