May 4, 2023

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! Yes, it is already another Thursday!! Only 2 more blogs after today. I am really amazed that we only have 17 days of school left including today. This year has definitely gone by quickly. We are still working hard and will continue to do so up until the end. Yesterday was a perfect day to go home and sit outside and read my book. I did that for a while. Today I plan to do the exact same thing. I am finishing up a book and will happily finish so I can start a new one! I hope all of you are finding ways to enjoy the beautiful temperature.

Language Art

This week we are reading our last story in the textbook. We will be taking our last spelling test and end of the week test tomorrow! This does not mean that reading is over with. We will be reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory together as a whole class for the rest of the year. We will start that next week as we are taking our Unit 5 test. We move through it pretty quickly. The students will get a packet of pages that we will complete while reading this story. We will still work on grammar skills and comprehension throughout the story. I will show the old 1960's movie the last week of school. I am not a fan of the Newer version by Tim Burton.

This week the story we are reading is called "The Fun They Had" it is a science fiction story written about the future. It talks about what school is like in the future. They discuss what school used to be like and what it is like for them in 2157. They no longer have books and they no longer attend schools. They have a mechanical teacher in their home. It is just a big computer that does all the teaching. The kid were not quite sure what they would think about that. Grammar this week has been reviewing different things. We talked about how to capitalize and punctuate short stories, movie and book titles. Ending punctuation and types of sentences was reviewed and commas with conjunctions. The vocabulary strategy we discussed was Greek and Latin word parts looking at meter, therm, aud, and fac. Meter and therm are Greek and aud and fac are Latin. We talked about their meanings and some words that include them. Tomorrow is their last spelling post test and last end of the week test. Please be sure they study their vocab notecards and spelling words. Again next week we will take Unit 5 Benchmark test. Then testing will be complete for the year.

Book Reports

The students Diorama or Book Box is due Friday, May 12th. Most of them are working on typing the necessary things here at school and getting them printed off. I think all students have finished reading their books and now are putting the project together. This is one of my favorites.

Math

We have begun learning what factors are and being able to list the factors of numbers. Some find this fun because it is challenging and some don't like it, again, because it's challenging. I have told them it is important to know factors for when we do fractions. Next week we will talk about multiples. We also have to know that for fractions. They have taken their last Math test. We will not test over Topic 7 because I am only teaching a couple of necessary lessons. We will work our way through important fractions lesson before the end of the year. They will do the homework but again not test will be given since time is flying.

Social Studies

We have begun talking about the Southwest Region. We will only do certain lessons. I will still have them do vocabulary words and the end of lesson worksheets. We will move more quickly so we get through the Southwest and into the West. We will also still be sure to do Map tests because they have the big test the last week of school. They will need to be able to locate all 50 states on a map and name its capital also. That test will happen about the 24th or 25th. So hopefully they will spend some time studying and singing the song before then.

FAST Testing

We have been FAST testing this week. I have 5 students left to read with but all the computer testing is complete. I will say our basic fact work has definitely paid off on the Math Automaticity test. YAY!

Creston Arts Day

Tomorrow we will be walking to Creston Arts to particiapte in a project. I would recommend not wearing clothing that you don't want to ruin. The students will be working with Indigo Dye. It's a Spirit Day so that may help. It also looks like rain during our walk over there. Please send an umbrella with your child or rain coat if you have one. Thank you. Also, Thank you to Meredith Wulf for taking time to walk with us.

Spirit Day

Tomorrow is a Spirit Day. You can pay $1.00 to wear sweat pants or a hat. Remember to wear something that can get dirty for Creston Art Day.

As we near the end I will have less to report. I will just have the subjects to keep you up to date. There will not be any special events taking place until the last week. I am ready to spend my summer reading in the sun. I have done a better job this year of keeping track of the books I have read. I have a Good Reads account if anyone want to follow me. I used to have my own blog called Simple Book Junkie but I have not figured out how to get back in and start up again. I have not read as many as Ms. Surma or Mrs. Burg but I have read quite a few. I do not think my words per minute compares to theirs. I have a free weekend this weekend and am looking forward to it.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels