January 16, 2025

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! We are truly back at it!! We have accomplished a lot in the last couple weeks. We have also had an excellent week as a class. They have behaved so well this week. I allowed them a little reward. The Kitchen lady likes to do fun things She buys these little ducks and likes to hide them in classrooms. She asked if she could do it for the 4th grade and I said yes. They had a small duck hunt today. Everyone got one. I hope they enjoyed it, but I did tell them to take the ducks home.

Reminder: I am gone tomorrow. I have a tooth pulled in the morning. It has been killing me all week so I have been waiting patiently. The kids have been very sweet and sympathetic towards me. They know when I am holding my face that I am in pain. I will spend Friday relaxing after the procedure. I am not a good dentist person. It is not my favorite place. But I hope to be back Monday ready to go. The kids will have Mrs. Miller tomorrow.

Language Arts

We finished our story on Monday and Tuesday of this week. We are not taking a Module (Unit) test. They started with the first section today. They will take the 2nd section tomorrow. Monday we will finish the Module test. We are also working on writing a informational essay. I asked them to choose an animal and we labeled 3 categories of information. They researched the information and wrote down 3 facts. We will begin to put together a 5 paragraph essay over it. The first paragraph will be the introduction, then one paragraph each for the 3 categories, and the last one will be a conclusion paragraph. We will be doing all the writing here at school on their computers. We work on it each day after we finish the testing for the day. I have allowed us time on Tuesday to wrap up this project. By the time we are done they should have a very informative essay about the animal of their choice. Later next week we will begin the first story in Module 4.

Math

We have finished up Topic 3 in math. They took the test on Friday and Monday. We have worked through corrections. Now we are moving on into Topic 4 over Double-digit Multiplication. I have covered the first two lessons with them. They have learned how to multiply double-digit multiplication wit multiples of 10. An example would be 50 X 70. We also learned how to estimate answers using rounding. Next week we will learn how to multiply double-digits using Area Box. Hopefully this will come easily for them because they have already done this strategy before with single-digit multiplication.

Social Studies

We took a test over Chapter 6 today. Tomorrow they will correct their tests. Then the substitute will introduce chapter 7 to them. This chapter is also covering the Southeast states. We will add the capitals to our maps during this chapter and the map test will be over states and capitals. They learn about Native Americans from the Southeast in this chapter. Last year we had so many snow days they didn't test and begin chapter 7 until February. We are ahead of the game for sure.

Catholic Schools Week Sunday

A Sign-Up genius was sent to all of you via email. We are looking for student volunteers to be a part of Mass on Sunday, January 26th at Holy Spirit. The students would need to be at the church by 8:30 AM. If your child would like to participate please sign up on the form. We are only accepting names until next Tuesday. That is the day we are planning the mass. Parts will come home in folders next Thursday.

St. Malachy Auction Basket Donation

There has been a note come home the last two weeks about our auction basket. The entire school is just doing one basket. They are asking for a $1.00 donation from each student. I am collecting those to give to Ms. Surma.

Class Auction Item

I am looking for any parents that might want to help with my class auction item. It is normally an art project of some kind the kids make to be auctioned off. I am out of ideas. I think we have to begin repeating things. But if anyone has any ideas and want to help put this together please email me and let me know Meredith Wulf said she could help. So anyone else that might want to join please let me know so we can meet and start coming up with ideas.

It is so weird thinking today is like my Friday. I am taking a lot of work home to work on. I hope I feel like it. Looks like we could be getting some cold weather again next week. Sunday and Monday look very chilly. Which reminds me we have new guidelines to follow for taking kids outside. The "feels like" temperature has to be 10 or above in order to go outside. It used to be 0 but it has changed. We all go off the KCCI website for Creston to make our decision. This is new and started this week. Today was our first day outside all week. Looks like tomorrow should be good for going outside also. I am so happy I got some extra games and puzzles from some of you for my room. It gives them more to do. I hope all of you have a great weekend. Stay warm on Sunday.

God Bless,

Mrs Sickels