November 4, 2021

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday!! Here we meet again. Thank you very much for coming in for conferences. It was so nice to talk to all of you. I feel like we are back from a nice break and ready to go until Thanksgiving Break. I have 13 days with your kids until then. I will be gone next Tuesday, Nov 9th for my Behavior Class. So I guess 12 days with me! I plan to get a lot of things accomplished before then. We will work hard and I will keep the kids very busy. I told you this time of year goes super fast from a teacher's standpoint. Just a reminder if you child is not 100% and needs to stay home the option of being online for an illness is always there. I have had a couple take advantage of that. We are not offering it for vacations this year. We want you to go on vacation and unplug and enjoy your trip! I know some have not been feeling well. Please do whatever you need to for your child and I will do the same.

Language Arts -

This week we are reading a favorite story of mine from this anthology. It is called Me and Uncle Romie. It is a very heartwarming story. One of the characters is base on a real artist by the name of Romare Bearden. He was a famous collage artist. You can google him and see some of his works and learn about him. The story is about a boy who visits an Aunt and Uncle he has never met before. It talks of all the places they visit and the fun that he has visiting. It also talks a little about collage art and we see a couple examples. The kids seem to enjoy this one compared to the others we read. I told them they would love next week's story also. The vocabulary strategy this week was on the use of figurative language specifically idioms. They totally understood what this meant and were giving me their own examples which was great. In grammar we are talking about Present and past progressive verbs. These are made up of two words. One is a helping verb and then a main verb. We spent today picking out the two kinds and learning how to tell the difference. Friday will be normal with a spelling post test and the end of the week test. Remember to have them study those yellow packets!!

Math

We are working on finishing up Topic 2. I did find some fluency practice pages for them to work on before reviewing for the test. We will work on those Thursday and Friday. Monday and Tuesday they will be working on the practice test. Then I will go over that with them problem by problem. I hope to finish the week with a Topic 2 test. Then we can begin Topic 3 before Thanksgiving Break. It is a great goal to have! With me being out of the room one day it may change a little bit. But I promise every day they will be working on some math problems! Topic 3 begins talking about multiplication.

Social Studies

I brought out the States and Capitals song on Tuesday! I hope it's not driving you crazy yet. Some were very excited about it and some were not. It is the easiest way to learn all 50! If you can sing the song you can do it! We also got out the maps of the Northeast. They created an answer key and now have 4 practice maps that they can practice on. They will have a map test on Monday! It will be over the exact map I have given them to practice on. They will need to label the states and name its capital. We learn each region at a time to help make it easier for them to learn all 50. If we master each region at a time they will be able to do the end of year test of all 50 states and capitals. We will begin the next chapter and get going on it. This is the last chapter over the Northeast. We begin by talking about the Narragansett who were the first to live there. We always cover a Native American group in each region that was important to its growth. We will dig into that lesson next week.

Spirit Day

Friday, Nov. 5th is a Spirit Day! The weather is just right for sweats! They can pay a dollar to wear sweats only. Bring in that $1.00 and be comfy for the day.

October Book It!

For the month of October, I had 9 calendars turned in as of today. Eight of the 9 reached the goal or beyond. The goal for October was 350 minutes. Here are the kids who succeeded and their minutes.

Kinsley 446 min Kylin 814 min.

Breckyn 697 min. Hayden 656 min.

Indie 450 min. Kalvin 350 min.

Brock 835 min. Karsi 580 min.

Congratulations to all of the reading minutes they put in. I also keep track of my minutes. I have not read like I used to since Covid happened. I read a total of 1,395 min this month. They get prizes if they beat me. Brock was the closest with 835.

Looks like the temps could be back in the 60's for the weekend. I hope everyone gets out and enjoys it! I have my college kid coming home and possibly my daughter and future son-in-law to join me for the weekend. I am so happy to have people under my roof! I love hearing all the college excitement from the last couple weeks. But I may be putting son-in-law to work while he is here! I also hope to get over to Corning to their Handmade Market. I usually go every year except last year. I love going! Never know what you might find for a Christmas gift or for yourself.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels