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.