Weekly News Jan 3-6

Happy 2017!!  I cherished every moment with my family this break and hope you did that same!  I am feeling rejuvenated and anxious to welcome the boys and girls back to a "new year" of learning!!!

Here is a link to the new homework calendar
Here is a link to our school newsletter and lunch menu

Important Dates and Reminders:

January 16-20 Celebrate New Directions Week (more info to come; listed below are the dress up days for the week)
January 16: PJ and Stuffed Animal Day and Family Art Night
January 17: Crazy Hair or Hat Day
January 18: NO SCHOOL
January 19: Sports Day and Family Gym Night
January 20: 1/2 day and Book Character Day

Here is a look at our NEW learning for the NEW YEAR:

Reading:  January is such an exciting month for Kindergarten learning as kids just...take off!  We will begin a new reading unit called Bigger Books, Bigger Muscles.  This unit will build upon the super powers the boys and girls have worked so hard to master and use.  The main goal of the unit will be to gain confidence in reading more challenging (and less predictable) books, really using letter sounds to decode words part by part and building stronger reading habits that help to put all of our hard work together to tackle new reading challenges.  We will be reassessing student reading levels and you may see different color "dots" coming home in your child's book the next few weeks!

Writing: We said farewell to true story writing before we left for break and will welcome procedural or how-to writing this week.  We will explore this type of writing by first reading and discussing many different how-to books and then we'll work together to write a class piece that teaches others, step by step, how to do something we do each day in our class (like making a lunch choice).  Then the children will be off to brainstorm teachable topics and write their own teaching books.  I know they will just love this type of writing!  You can encourage idea generating at home by discussing things they do each day and then listing the steps involved in those tasks.  Talking these things through will help them to easily transition to this type of writing.

Math: In math our main focus still remains teen numbers and fluency with addition and subtraction equations.  A big part of this unit is also being able to see and name the partners of a number when using math tools or looking at math drawings.  This week we will review finding a group of ten in a teen number, practice counting on from 5 to find larger sums and naming partners of numbers 2-6.
Please keep an eye out in folders for parent notes explaining these math concepts!
The math centers we will work in this week are:

• creating a teen number book 
• building teen numbers using 10 strip, 5 strips and single chips
• showing partners of a number using dots and break apart sticks
• using dominoes to practice adding and equation writing

Social Studies: We will take this week to review and reboot classroom and school rules and expectations and will be setting goals to be the best learners and friends we can by for 2017!

Word Work: New sight words for the next two weeks are: play, have, get, will, for
Invite your child to try to spell these words in lots of ways: write them using a variety of tools, spell orally in the car, magnetic letters, or on a drawing app

Science Day and Super Reader Celebration

Here are a few pics from our busy and fun-filled days leading up to break!  It was so fun and rewarding for the kids to have a big chunk of time to really apply and "show off" all they have learned!  They make me so excited to welcome 2017 with even more chances to learn and grow!

Check out this awesome writing about the body covering classifying activity!

The boys and girls LOVED creating animals of their own!

More sorting and classifying!

Check out these researchers keeping track of their thinking!

Matching body coverings to the animal and explaining our thinking!

We each wrote a book about what we had learned in our science unit!  They were AMAZING!

Check out these SUPER READERS!!!!!

Weekly News Dec 19-23

Whew!  This cold weather has frozen us out of recess, but we are still keeping warm and busy INSIDE the classroom.  We are entering a very fun, exciting and magical week with the kids before they head off to a much deserved holiday break!!

Important Dates and Reminders:
December 22: Super Hero Day in Kindergarten
December 23-January 2: No SCHOOL

On Thursday children should dress as super heroes!  They can use existing costumes or create one from materials at home.  We will be making capes as a class project.
We are still in need of plastic table clothes and foam letter stickers for this project!  If you are willing to donate please send these items to school with your child!

Here's a peek at our learning!

Reading:  This week we will be putting our reading skills to the test as we celebrate our super powers and do some non-fiction reading of animal books to wrap up our body coverings unit.  We will also take some time to enjoy listening and discussing many different gingerbread stories.  We will compare the plots and characters and may even have a glass debate on which one has the best ending!

Writing: We will be wrapping up our true stories unit this week.  We will learn to revise and edit so our writing is readable to others.  We will also take some time to do some informational writing about animal body coverings.

Math: Those tricky teen numbers will continue to be one thing we focus on this week, as we look for groups of ten ones and then add on any extra ones to determine quantity.  We are learning it is easy to see a group of ten when it is organized in two groups of 5 or a long group of 10, but tricky when we are looking at a random group of objects (see picture below).


 We will also work hard this week to show, recognize, understand and name the partners of numbers 2-6. Please see this note for an explanation of partners and how we use this term in math.
The centers we will work in this week will be:

• listening to story problems on the iPad and then using pictures and equations to solve them
• creating a book using break apart strips to show partners of numbers 2-6
• using equations and math tools to solve both addition and subtraction problems within 5
• using marbles to show partners and writing equations to match

Science:  As a fun way to wrap up our Fur, Feather, Skin ans Scales unit we will be having science morning on Tuesday.  We will work through some different centers where we will sort animals, by their body coverings, create our own animals using art materials to show the correct body coverings, reading and 'post-iting' in animal books to show our learning about body coverings and using picture cards to classify types of animals.

Word Work: We will be reviewing and practicing all of the sight words we have learned this far.  It is important that students can not only read and write them in isolation, but can also read and write them automatically in books they are reading or creating.  Here is a list of sight words we have covered so far this year (the highlighted ones).  You may practice these at home my writing them in and out of sentences and going on word hunts in books!!

Weekly News Dec 12-16

Brrrrr....it feels like winter came and froze us out of nowhere!  Thank you for your help in making sure your child arrives each day with appropriate (and labeled) winter gear!  Also, as more snow falls, please keep in mind that students must be wearing snowpants and boots to play in the fields and on most playground equipment.

Important Dates and Reminders:

Unclaimed Square One art orders that were unbreakable have been sent home in backpacks.  If you have not received your order, it is in the office waiting for you!  Please let me know if you'd like me to send it in your child's backpack or if you plan to pick up in the office!  Thanks!

December 13: NO SCHOOL

December 14: College Wear Day

December 22: Super Hero Day in Kindergarten (a note will come home this week)

December 23-January 2: No SCHOOL 

I am so excited to be back with the boys and girls for (an almost) full week this week.  I had the chance to learn about the latest and greatest thinking in the teaching of reading and cannot wait to begin that work with these perfect readers!

A peek at our week:

Reading:  We have really been doing the heavy lifting of using our strategies (powers) to learn to read the past month or so.  We are now going to take some time to learn how readers can keep track of their learning and understanding of the books they read by jump starting our partnerships.  We will focus on the ways partners listen to one another during reading and the questions they can ask after to help their partner share their thinking.  You may notice that your child's books may come home with post-its on the pages, this means that they stopped to do some thinking while they were reading.  When reading at home ask them to explain their thinking on that page and ask questions like: "Why do you think that?"  "How do you know?"  and "Can you tell me more about that?"

Writing:  We are nearing the end of our writing unit on true stories.  This week we will look back at our old stories and be sure to check if they included in both pictures and words: WHO was in the story, WHERE the story took place, WHAT HAPPENED in the story and HOW the characters felt and what they SAID.  This is serious revising work!!  

Math: This week we will begin a new math unit.  The main focuses of this unit will be:
developing awareness of numbers 11-20 and recognizing these numbers as groups of 10 tens and extra ones.  As in all units we will continue deepen our understanding of addition and subtraction and showing expressions that match story problems as well as writing our own story problems to demonstrate our knowledge of addition and subtraction equations.
The math centers we will work in this week will be:

• going on a teen number hunt and recording teen numbers as a group of ten and extra
• using foam ten frames to construct teen numbers
• finding partners of numbers 1-10 and recording equations to show them
• using buttons to demonstrate subtraction equations

Science: This week will take some time to compare and contrast the skin of amphibians and reptiles and discuss why their skin type impacts where they live and how they protect themselves.  We will also be doing some fun art projects to deepen our understanding of these skin types

Word Work:  The new words we will be introduced to this week are:  one, two and three.
These words will help us in our reading and writing and we will also come across them in math!!

Weekly News December 5-9

Hello!  I am getting our news out early this week!  I wanted to keep you in the loop and let you know I will be attending a reading training in New York this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  Mrs. Spiegel will be the guest teacher who will be here with the boys and girls.  I can be reached by email while I am away, but if you have immediate concerns or changes in your child's pick up schedule, please call the office.  We are so fortunate to have these training opportunities at NDLC and I can't wait to bring some new learning back to our classroom on Wednesday!

Important Dates and Reminders: 

December 6: Kaukauna Christmas Parade
                    NDLC will have a float and families are invited to ride/walk along.  We will meet at 809 Wisconsin Ave at     
                    5:30pm for those who want to join in the parade fun!  All children must be accompanied by an adult!  
December 8: Pajama Day and PJ's and Publishing Family Night 5:30-7:00pm
December 13: NO SCHOOL
December 14: College Gear Day (wear your favorite college team clothing)
December 22: Super Hero Day in Kindergarten (more info coming soon)

Here's what learning will look like this week:

Reading:  As readers this week we are working to strengthen our sight word power and not only read these words n isolation but recognize them immediately when we see them in our books.  We will be getting a sight word list to add to our book bag as a way to warm up for reading.  We will also learn some steps for solving new words: 1.  Look at the picture 2.  Look at the first letter.  3. Think about what makes sense.  It is really important that we are doing our best to use all of the skills we have learned to solve new and different words.  We will also be taking some time this week to use post-its to show our thinking  while we read.  This is a way for us to check that we are understanding the books we read. 

Writing: We have been working "oh so hard" to have readable stories ready for family night  next week.  To keep this hard working going we will be self assessing our writing and celebrating what we are already doing to make our writing readable and then setting a goal or two for what we can do better.  We will also learning to add more to our stories by using flaps and will focus on writing beginnings for our stories that tell when and where are stories take place.  

Math: We are getting ready to wrap up Unit 2 in math.  This week we will review and practice seeing and showing both addition and subtraction problems with pictures, using +1 and -1 operations to quickly solve equations, forward and backward number order for numbers 1-10 and identifying and creating shapes.  The math centers we will work in this week are:
-making forward and backward number parades
-playing a missing number game with a partner
-using geo-boards to construct shapes 
-showing partners of a number and writing an equation to match using chips

Science: This week we will be studying feathers and learning how they protect birds and keep them warm.  We will also learn about different types of feathers, as each has a different function.

Word Work:  Continue to work on reading and writing sight words at home!  Another way to practice spelling is to sound out and write (other than sight words) words at home, focusing in the sounds heard at the beginning, middle and end of the word.