February 17, 2022

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! I hope this finds everyone well! It is hard to believe it is another Thursday again! I feel like I just create a blog, and it is time to do it again. The 4th graders did a great job at Mass yesterday. We had some that could not attend school so I had to find someone to fill in those parts and those kids also did amazing. The homily was a super lesson for kids! The class even talked about it later. They truly listened to it. Thank you for all your help at home working on their readings. Again they did a super job.

Language Arts

This week we are finally reading the story called The Right Dog for the Job. It is about the training process of a service dog. My sister-in-law is acting as a puppy raiser and she had it here in November and she came to the school to show and talk about it. Most of the kids enjoyed the visit. This is another story that is interesting to hear and discuss one time but not 3 in one week. The Vocabulary Strategy this week was on suffixes -ion, -ation, and -ition. The grammar lesson was on Adverbs. This part of speech is difficult for students to understand and pick out. A lot of the time I am walking them through all the worksheets. Tomorrow is our normal Posttest in Spelling and End of the Week test. Be sure they study their yellow packets!

Math

Again the book is making sure they really understand area model. Next week we will turn area model in to just partial product without the picture ( area model). They usually move into this pretty smoothly with some practice. This strategy is one of my favorites. It is so much easier to understand just how multiplication works using this strategy. I will teach them the standard algorithm before this chapter is over but they understand through Partial Product better. With each lesson we review and work on word problems. The students are getting better at realizing they need labels with their answers to word problems.

Social Studies

This week we are starting to talk about the Civil War. We only skim the surface of this topic. We learn that some states seceded from the Union. We learn it had a President, Jefferson Davis, and we learn why we fought the Civil War. They will learn the two most important reasons. One was due to slavery and we talk about the Emancipation Proclamation. Two, it was also a disagreement between who had more power or control the National Government or State Government. We talk about where it began (Fort Sumter) and how you can still visit the site. We will also talk about how the Southeast was affected most by the war. Many farms were burned and towns destroyed and needed cleaned up. To me this just skims the surface on the Civil War but I hope it is enough to carry with them when they learn more as they get older.

Lunches

Just a reminder that if your child opts to bring a sack lunch to school they may purchase milk for 50 cents or we provide water. No carbonated drinks please. Also no fast food is allowed. Lent is coming and we do ask that you bring meatless lunches on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays during Lent. Thank You!

Conferences

Conferences will be held the week of March 7th. I will have openings on Tuesday and Wednesday after school, and then again on Thursday from 10AM - 6PM. We will not be having school on Thursday, March 10th and just doing conferences that day. The sign-up will come out on Monday so watch for that in your email and next week's blog. If you have a band student you will want to schedule your conference time on Thursday afternoon to coincide with their judging of their solo.

Monday, February 21st

There will be no school on Monday, February 21st due to Professional Development. Lucky the students get to stay home but I will still be at school!

Tuesday, February 22nd

The date on this day is 2-22-22 and so to celebrate for fun we are calling it Ties, Tutus, and Tie-Dye Day. So students are invited to wear anything that works for them! If they want to wear ALL of it that is fine too. Some of the teachers have ordered shirts for the occasion.

I hope everyone had enjoyed the decent days this week. I am not enjoying the mud at school. The kids boots are full of it. It makes for a yucky mess in the halls and our classrooms. It is the only downfall of Spring and we are not even there yet. I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I hope to shop a little for a Mother-of-the-Bride dress and pick up my mother-in-law from the airport. Hopefully I find something, I do not care for dresses.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels