March 5, 2026

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! Here we are again. I really feel like I just did this yesterday. This week has flown by for me. Maybe it's because today is my Friday. Remember I am gone tomorrow. I will be in South Carolina by noon. Molly and I are going to explore Charleston Friday afternoon then a little bit of Columbia on Saturday. The promotion ceremony and reception are from 3-9 Saturday. My flight is then at 5:34 Sunday morning, with the time change this will be very early. I will be back in Des Moines by 11:00 AM which is convenient. Mrs. Brown will be in my room with the students. I have a full day planned for them.

Language Arts

We have started the next Module. It is Module 5. The first story is about The Beatles. It is fun to teach about them. I am getting to where more people do not know who they are or have never heard their music than those who have hear of them or their music. As we read the story the first time, I pulled up the video clips of the songs they mentioned. They laughed at how they looked and at their songs. I also showed them clips of when they arrived in America for the first time and how the fans went crazy. The funniest part is how they said they got more famous and made more money for people not to hear them play music cause they were screaming way too loud and drowned out the music . In spelling we are working on words ending in -ed and -ing again. We are also focusing on that in decoding. Grammar this story is about Modal Auxilaries. These words are may, might, can, could, would, should, and must. These can be difficult to keep straight but at least we try to use them correctly.

Book Reports were due last Friday. We were able to share them on Monday, they are in the folders with their scores. Also you will find Module 4 week 3 scores AND Module 4 scores in their take home folders today.

Math

We have been working on Partial Quotient in Math. I like this strategy cause it give the student freedom to take out or divide out however much they want at a time and still get the correct answer. We talked about the many ways you can get an answer. We have been practicing this strategy the whole week. We will work on it on Monday also. I will not start anything new until we get back from Spring Break.

Social Studies

We are finishing up lesson 2 in this chapter. This lesson was on the Badlands in South Dakota. I am sure with all I have talked about the students are going to want to visit there. Sorry, I do give out vacation ideas when I teach about the different regions. They learned about the most complete dinosaur fossil ever found, which was in the Badlands. It was found by Sue Hendrikson and it was of a T-Rex. They named the T-Rex Sue after the person who discovered it. You can find Sue in the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Another good vacation spot. They made a map key of the Midwest States today. They will take the map test over just the Midwest states on Tuesday of next week.

Reconciliation

They 4th graders will have reconciliation tomorrow March 6th. Father has 2 extra priests coming to hear confessions. We are scheduled to go with the 3rd graders from 10 - 11:30. I am positive with 3 priests it will not take all that time. I am sad to be missing this. I always enjoy celebrating this sacrament. I walk away feeling refreshed and a weight off my shoulders.

Spirit Day

Tomorrow is a Spirit day. Since it is going to be so nice, many are saying they are going to wear shorts. So, if they want to pay $1.00 they can wear a hat.

Conferences

Thank you all for signing up for a conference time. I look forward to seeing all of you.

What a busy next week. After my quick trip, we dive right into conferences! Then everyone will be off to Spring Break. I am going to Molly's Friday - Monday of the first weekend. Then I will be home. I am spending a day in Des Moines taking my Granddaughter to the Blue Zoo in West Des Moines and shopping ! I hope to get a lot of reading done.

There will be no blog next week due to Spring Break! Have a fabulous break!

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels