September 25, 2025

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday! Here we are again. I feel like I just sent last week's blog. This has been a good week. We have worked hard all week even with a couple of fun things mixed in. The Pep Rally was on Tuesday and that was fun. The kids did a great job participating. Tomorrow is Homecoming and an early out. I have not given any late slips so far this week. YAY! That is awesome. They are definitely getting better at adjusting to 4th grade. They are an easy class to work with for sure. Thanks for raising good kids and sharing them with me.

Language Arts

We are on to the 3rd week in module 1. This story is called The Mighty Kitoto  it is a folktale. It is a fun little story to read and teaches them a little lesson, which is what folktales do. The spelling list this week is long i short i . Honestly they all did very well on this list. We will focus on short i and long i in decoding also. We will look at the ways in which you can spell them. In grammar we will be working with quotations. Out of everything in grammar I teach, this is the hardest for the 4th graders. We will talk about direct quotations which they get, but when we talk about split quotations, even I have problems. Sooo... their testing on quotations will not be great, it never is. Strategies we will discuss with this story include Retell, literary elements, theme and Author's craft. The author's craft is also complicated for the kids to really grasp, but it is good for them to hear and begin to get used to. This story is about 9 reading pages so it will take 6-7 days for us to cover it. We are almost done with the story. The spelling post test will be on Monday with the end of the story test also.

This is the last story of Module one so we will need to take a Module (Unit) test. That will be next week. We take this test on paper instead of the computer. I split the test into 3 days so that they do not spend one stressful day testing. I break it up by story. These stories are considered "cold" reads (never read before). They will need to apply the skills they learned in the Module to these. I will also assign their first book report book next week. There is no spelling test when we are Module testing.

Math

They took their first math test on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Today they made corrections. I had 5 students with perfect scores. They also started a "show me what you know" page for Topic 2. We will dig into that topic next week. Topic 2 is over adding and subtracting larger numbers. We will review addition and how to regroup, we will also review subtraction using regrouping. This topic we move through pretty quickly because it should be review. Fourth graders should know how to add and subtract so we will review the processes and practice on some problems in the book and on worksheets.

Social Studies

We have been talking about government this week. We also talked about some important amendments to the Constitution. We end by talking about the rights and responsibilities as citizens of the United States. They will complete a worksheet over that today. We will begin a study guide next week and be testing either by the end of the week or Monday of the next week. They need to start studying their vocabulary note cards instead of waiting until the night before.

Friday, September 26th

This is Homecoming Day so it is an early dismissal. The dismissal is a 3 hr. early out so dismissing at 12:05 instead of the normal 3:05. We will be feeding the kids lunch. It will be a sack lunch consisting of an uncrushable (grape jelly), cheese stick, apple slices, cookie and milk. Students are still welcome to bring their own sack lunch if they normally do that. Please make sure you call the office if there is a change in your child's after school plan. Any last minute changes may not be followed. We also will not take what the child says. It needs to come from you to myself or the office.

Spirit Day

Tomorrow is also a Spirit day to pay a $1.00 to wear sweats or a hat with your Panther gear!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Fall temps. They have been nice. I get to spend some time with some of my kids this weekend. I have a wedding of former student on Friday. My kids are in the wedding. I get to spend the weekend with my granddaughter, Maddyn. Saturday I will bring her to Creston for overnight. I love my Grandma time. They honestly really do grow up so fast. October is just around the corner. Ready or not here it comes!

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels