Weekly News Jan 30-Feb 3

Yikes!  How is it almost February already?!  February brings some exciting events in Kindergarten!  We will celebrate Valentine's Day and the 100th day of school.  We will exchange valentine cards with the class!  Here is a list of student names if you'd like to get started early!  I'll be sending a hard copy of this list home soon as well!   Be on the look out for 100 day information to come home soon too!

Here are links to the homework calendar and lunch menu for February!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 7: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
February 14: Red, white and pink day and possibly 100th day of school celebration
(weather pending)
February 23: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
February 24: NO SCHOOL
February 27: Family Night (more info to come)

Here is a peek at our week!  We are wrapping up both reading and writing units and will have lots to celebrate!

Reading: This week we will wrap up our unit on Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles by powering up our reread power to bring books to life and our book talk power to retell, share new information, and have powerful partner conversations.  We will also learn about how we can use sticky notes to jot our thinking down while reading.  We will celebrate all of our hard work in this unit as we wrap it up on Friday with a little graduation into new and trickier books

Writing:  This week we will move into our last week of writing procedural (how to) books.  We will add introductions and conclusions to our books.  We will also be working to make sure our books have all they need to teach readers and will choose a specific audience to gift one of or more of our books to.  We will also be choosing one of our best pieces to publish and will work together as a class to finish writing our How to Make Peanut Butter and Jelly book.  We will be using this book at the end of the week and will put our writing to the test as we REALLY follow the steps to make sandwiches for snack as a celebration!

Math:  This week we will continue to extend our understanding of teen numbers, sorting and story problems.  We will be introduced to new tools called centimeter cubes and ten sticks that will provide us with another way to show and see a group of ten in teen numbers.  We will also focus on finding partners of a given number by playing a game with a partner.  Our math centers this week will be:

• playing teen number and equation memory
• playing chip toss to see partners of a number
• playing a dice game to quickly see quantities and add them together
• following directions to build a teen number using unifix cubes and comparing what we have built

Social Studies: We will finish family centers and will revisit the definition of family through revising pictures we have previously drawn and labeled.  We will also be having some class discussion surrounding The Family Book that we have been using throughout this unit.

Word Work: We will learn new words this week: with, new, away, down, do
Looking to break up some winter boredom?  Play Sight Word Hide and Seek!  Have your child write their sight words on individual pieces of paper.  Then a parent or sibling can hide them around your home and your child can hunt for them!

Weekly News Jan 23-27

What a crazy week with scheduled (and surprise) days off!  Though we missed some of the fun of Celebrate New Directions week, we made the best of our time together.  We kicked our morning off with a school parade through classrooms which was a super way to acknowledge each of the classes and how special they are to our school!  Our class got to lead the parade, so I didn't get a video, but I believe there is one up on our Facebook page!!


Important Dates and Reminders:

February 7: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
February 14: Red, white and pink day and possibly 100th day of school celebration
(weather pending)   
February 23: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
February 24: NO SCHOOL
February 27: Family Night (more info to come)

Here is what our FULL week of learning will look like:

Reading:  We are certainly growing leaps and bounds as readers!  Your child should be coming home with new leveled (different colored dot books).  Also on Monday look in his/her book bag for new a Matching Books to Readers sheet that will detail the skills and expectations of these new levels.  Please let me know if you have questions or need ideas on supporting this new reading at home.  This week we will continue to use all we know about letters, pictures and word chunks to solve unknown words and really understand what is happening in a book to assist us.  We will be specifically looking at word endings and realizing we can use what we know about sight words to read words that may appear tricky to use (plays, played, playing).

Writing: As writers this week we will be adding tips and warnings to our how to books.  Adding these will help readers be able to follow the steps in our books.  We will also attempt to add comparisons in our writing to show more detail and will be recharging our 'idea banks' by challenging ourselves to write about things we do at school each day.  Of course we work daily as writers to use sight words, work on neat punctuation and be brave spellers.

Math:Math this week will focus on sorting shapes by attributes (size, color, number of sides), showing teen numbers in more than one way and looking at groups of objects and numerals and determining if they are equal or not equal to one another.  We will also take time to model and then write the steps we take to solve story problems.  This will be a great way to push the kids to think about their thinking as well as connect writing and math.  Our math centers this week will be:

• Playing "What's Missing" (a game with shapes)
• Organizing math tools in different arrangements to show teen numbers
• Using dominoes to tell and solve story problems
• Working on math work book pages to promote fluency in quantity representation and addition and subtraction within 5.

Social Studies: Students will get a chance to work in small groups to explore the centers we learned about last week.  They will take turns acting out different family scenarios from pictures, interviewing and reporting their findings about a classmate's family, listening to books about families on the ipads and writing their own books about their families

Word Work:  As you hunt for sight words in books, you may want to look for sight words that are 'disguised' with endings and help your child to read the part they know, think of what sounds the ending has and then read the whole word together.

Weekly News Jan 16-20

We are so excited that this week will be CELEBRATE New Directions week.  The theme for this week is Dream Big!  Each classroom decorated their door to correspond with this theme...our's goes along with the song "Dream Big."  Check it out!!!

Important Dates and Reminders:

January 16-20 Celebrate New Directions 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's what we will be focusing on in a quick 3 1/2 days together:
Reading: This week as readers we will apply more of our alphabet knowledge by looking at not only the beginning sound in a word, but also the ending sound.  We will also learn a way to warm up as readers by checking the pages for words we know before reading and will work to check our reading to make sure that the words we read make sense with the picture, sound right and looks right (has the right letters for the sounds we hear in the word).
As early readers we always need to ask these questions as we are encountering new words:
Does it make sense?
Does it sound right?
Does it look right?
When your child runs into a tricky word while reading at home, please use these prompts as well to help he or she to think about the meaning, syntax, and the visual cues in both the pictures and the words.

Writing: This week we will learn to be a bit more BOSSY with our writing!  We will add the word you to directions we are writing so those reading our books know we are talking right to them.  We will look at a mentor text and study different ways the author shared information in pictures and words and will look for new ways to make our writing better.  As a way to elaborate in our writing we will be working to use more precise words and detailed pictures with labels.

Math:  This week in math we will be reviewing the most important concepts in this unit: teen numbers and partners of numbers.  To do this we will be adding more tools to our math tools boxes and will do many different activities with our partners to share our thinking and understanding of these concepts.

Social Studies: This week we will learn 4 different centers which students will have time to explore in small groups next week.  In these centers we will use dramatic play to act out various family scenarios by taking on the role of various family members, create books about our families, listen to family books on the iPads and interview partners to learn about and compare different families.

Word Work: We will be introduced to 5 new words this week:  she, he, did, help, make.  Keep looking for these words in reading done at home and also taking the time to practice writing them at home.


Don't forget...January is a big month for our school!  There are many informational events taking place to help others learn more about New Directions.  Please share these dates with anyone you think may be interested in hearing more about what a great place New Directions is for students to learn and grow!

Monday, January 16th-6:00 -7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions

Wednesday, January 18th-10:00 AM-1:00 PM Open House for prospective families at New Directions

Tuesday, January 24th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions

Families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours.

Weekly News Jan 9-13

We had such a great (almost) 4 days getting back into the swing of things in Kindergarten!  I told the boys and girls many times this week that they have grown taller, smarter, kinder, cuter and funnier since I saw them in 2016.  All of this growth is helping us to be so successful in the classroom!

Important Dates and Reminders:

January 16-20 Celebrate New Directions Week
Here is a link to the week's events
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 peek at our learning this week:

Reading: In reading this week we will continue to use our reading muscles and will learn specific strategies for solving unknown words.  We will focus heavily on using our alphabet knowledge to look at beginning and ending sounds to solve words and will also learn to check our reading by making sure the words we read makes sense with the picture and looks right (has the correct letter sounds we read).  This is tricky word that these kiddos are ready for!

Writing: How-to writing is in full swing in our classroom!  The boys and girls have been loving studying the work of other author's who have done this type of writing and are coming up with great ideas of what they can teach others.  This week we will focus on adding more specific steps to our books and using a partner to make sure our procedural writing is able to follow.  We will also be working to make sure the illustrations in our books are using to understand and will use labels to show additional information,

Math:Math: This week in math we will continue to solidify our understanding of teen numbers.  We will be making teen number arrangements and working to write equations that show the number of 10's and ones in each teen number.  We will also be revisiting 2D shapes and will work to show how shapes can work together to make new shapes.  Our math centers this week will be:

• Using a 5 frame and chips to solve addition and subtraction problems
• Following the directions of a partner to use position and shapes words to create new shapes
• Organizing math tools into groups of 10 and ones to show teen numbers and recording the equation to match
• Playing a dice game that will help us build teen numbers using ten frames

Social Studies:  We will begin our family study in social studies this week.  We will learn about many different types of families and the people that make them up.  One of the books that we will be using through this study is Todd Parr's The Family Book.  This book touches on lots of different types of families, different living situations, and different interests in a bright, colorful, and funny way.

Word Work:  We will continue to work on reading and writing the words will, for, have, get and play. 

Don't forget...January is a big month for our school!  There are many informational events taking place to help others learn more about New Directions.  Please share these dates with anyone you think may be interested in hearing more about what a great place New Directions is for students to learn and grow!
Thursday, January 12th-6:00-7:30 PM District-Wide Info Session held at Tanner Early Learning Center

Monday, January 16th-6:00 -7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions

Wednesday, January 18th-10:00 AM-1:00 PM Open House for prospective families at New Directions

Tuesday, January 24th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions


Families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours.

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!!