March 24, 2022

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday!! I am so happy to be back in the classroom. I feel like the students are okay with it also. This has been a short week for me. I was off Tuesday and Wednesday for my mom's knee replacement surgery. I found out quickly why I am a teacher and not a nurse!! I will continue to do my job. God bless those who work in health care! I had a great vacation except that my car engine blew up when I got down there. Thank God I made it to my cousin's driveway before it quit. For those who understand the motor spun a rod bearing. No it is not suppose to so that, but it did. Soooooo I ended up buying a new car. Who else comes home with that kind of souvenir? I would prefer to have a t-shirt with San Antonio on it over a car! Our trip was still a lot of fun once we got a car figured out. I hope everyone else enjoyed their Spring Break! I also had another daughter get engaged right before we left on her trip. Jami is now engaged and will be getting married next summer. Lots of excitement at my house!!

Language Arts

This week we are reading a story called Sacagawea. This story is about the role she played in the Lewis and Clark expedition. It is a very good story about how she was the important person yet it was her husband who they hired to do the job. The kids enjoyed that part of the story. We worked on Abbreviations in grammar. They learned how to abbreviate many things: people and places, mailing addresses, and time and measurement. Tomorrow will be a normal Friday, they will need to study their vocab packets and spelling words.

Next week will be a Unit test week. We will finish their Opinion Writing and I will assign their last book report to them that will be due first week in May. Crazy! I am making all plans based on the end of the year all ready.

Math

We have been working on Division Facts this week, while I was gone. Today I began teaching them the standard algorithm for double-digit multiplication. Tomorrow we will work more on that and have a worksheet to do. Monday we will visit this topic again. I plan to begin to dig into Topic 5 and division next week by at least Wednesday. This is a hard topic to teach and to get the kids to grasp. I hope to finish this topic in good time to dig into fractions by the end of the year.

Social Studies

We are moving into the Midwest Region this week. We began talking about the Great Lakes and how they were made today. Ask your student they should be able to tell you how they were made. We discussed what a lock is and how it works. We will also discuss other forms of transportation; train and barges. We will also begin talking about the Badlands in South Dakota. Sorry, if you haven't been there I will start telling the kids how it is a great vacation spot. They may then start pressuring you, again sorry.

Friday, March 25th.

Tomorrow is the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. It pretty much is celebrating the Mary became blessed with Jesus. We are exactly 9 months away from Christmas. Because this day fall on a Friday, we can eat meat on this Friday of Lent and we can enjoy whatever we gave up for Lent. It is like a break of vacation from Lent during Lent. So if your kid tells you all about this, they are not lying. Father covered it in Mass yesterday also.

Spirit Day

Tomorrow is a Spirit day! Perfect day to wear sweats and pay $1.00. The most recent thing our Pay-it-Forward money went to was we donated money to Winterset for the tornado victims. We really work hard to do great things for others with this money. So wear those sweats and help us out!

Friday, April 1, 2022

We will be taking a field trip to the Civic Center this day. We will leave the school about 8:30 and be returning at 2:45. The students will need a sack lunch that day and it will need to be meatless since it is a Friday. I will give more information next week. Please fill out the form an return it ASAP with the $5.00 please. The fee is to help with bus costs. Thank you!

I wish the weather was more like it was in Texas. We were in capris and sandals and now I am in sweaters again. I am ready for the warmth. I will say being there reminded me how much I love small town. Every where we went took 45 min to an hour to get to. To my cousins that was no big deal. To us we felt like we were in the car a lot. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

God bless,

Mrs. Sickels