September 8, 2022

Dear Parents,

Happy Thursday!! We have been very busy in 4th grade. Some are learning what late slips are all about! It's okay we will learn. I am trying to help them be more organized and keep track of their work and to double check whether it is done or not. This is the biggest adjustment to 4th grade. They will get it, I know they will. They do a good job of working during work time but if they finish early they struggle keeping themselves busy. This is also something that we will work on. They may find themselves losing some recess time but they will learn. This group has been a great group to work with so far. I look forward to everything we will do this year.

Cy - Hawk Friday

Tomorrow is Cy-Hawk Friday! The students are to wear their favorite Iowa/Iowa State gear. They may add a hat for $1.00. That is our spirit day donation. Remember when we participate in Spirit Day we are donating money to a good cause. When we have anyone in need we will donate gift cards to the family from this money. We call it our Pay Forward Account.

Language Arts

This week we are reading the story My Brother Martin. It is about Martin Luther King, Jr. His sister Christine wrote it. She tells the story of their childhood and what made Martin Luther decide to fight so hard for equal rights. We also learned about Langston Hughes and how he wrote poetry. His poetry was written to express feelings of African Americans who were treated unjustly. In grammar this week we reviewed 4 sentences: Declarative (telling statement), Interrogative (question), Imperative (command) and Exclamatory ( strong feeling). We practiced picking out the different kinds of sentences. Our vocabulary strategy this week was on prefixes: ir-, il-, im-, and in-. These all mean "not". They change the base word to mean not, example illegal means not legal. This was a short week so things were really worked on in a rush! I even feel that way. Tomorrow will be our normal Friday. The students should be studying their spelling words for a post test and their vocab words for a test.

I would like to apologize, you should have had scores come home this week int the folder over Week 1 testing and I totally forgot. They will come home next week with week 2. I guess I am not into the routine myself yet!!

Math

We have been working on place value in chapter 1 so far. They have reviewed place value charts, values of numbers in each place value and that each time you move a place value you are multiplying by 10. Today we worked on comparing numbers. They need to use these symbols <, >, and =. We will finish up this lesson tomorrow. We will also be working on Successmaker, which is the computer program that foes along with our book. It is to help fill in any gaps the students might have. I was informed by a student today no one likes it so we should not have to do it! This did make me laugh, because I think they thought I would agree and just not make them do it.

Social Studies

We are working on Chapter 2 in our books. We are learning about how America expanded. We talked about how the price of things are very different today then they were long ago. Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase for about 25 cents an acre. Compare that to what farmland is going for today! I tried to compare the price of milk vs. what I use to pay and price of gas. That was eye opening to them. We will be finishing up the lesson tomorrow. they will have a worksheet to complete over the lesson!

I hope all of you have a great weekend!! Enjoy the Cy-Hawk game! Email me if you have any questions or concerns.

God Bless,

Mrs. Sickels