Super Reader Day

Wishing you a SUPER holiday season from these special boys and girls!!  Today was a day filled with fun activities celebrating just how far we have come as readers!  They have so much to be proud of!  

                                             Completing a Super Hero Color by sight word 

Playing letter sway in groups!  One super reader read a word and the others swatted the letter they heard at the beginning!

                               Using sight word building blocks to make a tower...we read as we built!!

Striking a super hero pose while playing the game POW!!

                                                     Even SUPER Readers need some quiet time!

                                                       Reading and relaxing around the room....

Mrs. Mares made us SUPER POINTERS for snack!  They were yummy!!

Happy Holidays from the two of us who feel SUPER lucky to work with your child each day!  

Here's to an even more exciting and successful 2016 for our learners!!

Weekly News December 14th-18th

It is our last full week of school in 2015!  Unbelievable!  Although this is such an exciting time of year of our young learners, they have been working hard in the classroom.  The next week and a half will bring lots of wrapping up of units before the winter break.  We will have a guest teacher for the 1/2 day on Tuesday, so if you have changes in transportation plans due to the half day, please let us know as soon as possible.

Upcoming Dates:
December 15: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
December 23: Super Hero Day!  
December 24-January 3: Winter Break 

Reading:  We hope you enjoyed the "Gift of Reading" your child shared with you on this weekend.  The students were so purposeful in thinking about the special people that have influenced their "reading lives" and choosing a book they thought that person would love!  We will dig a little deeper into reading for meaning this week, noticing that many of our books at these beginning reading levels carry much more meaning in the pictures than the words.  We will celebrate all of our super powers next week on Dec. 23rd with a Super Hero Day! Here are the details!

Writing: We hope all of you had the chance to take a peek at the writing your child brought home on Friday, they are growing so much each day as writers!  This week we will work hard to add beginnings to our true stories that include place and time (One day on the playground...).  We will also work to write conclusions for our stories that include showing the feelings of the characters in our stories.  We will continue to work with our reading partners to reread our favorites pieces and will work to ask answer questions about our stories that will push us to say/write more!

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:  We will continue learning about the smooth, moist skin of amphibians this week.  Last week we learned that amphibians absorb water through their skin!  We will also begin to wrap up our Fur, Feathers, Skin, and Scales unit be comparing all of the different body coverings we have studies so far to notice similarities and differences in how they protect and help various creatures.

Word Work:  There are just 3 sight words to focus on until winter break due to the short week next week and the 1/2 day this week.  We will be focusing on the number words: one, two, and three.  We will also look closely at some other number words.  This is sure to bring some exciting discoveries about the words to and two!  Continue to hunt for all of the words as you read nightly.

Weekly News December 7-11

This is such an exciting and magical time of year for students, not only because of all of the holiday excitement, but because their learning is taking off in incredible ways and they are really starting to take ownership over all they know.  We hope you are witnessing this as your child does their nightly reading and completes activities from the homework calendar...they have so much to be proud of!

Upcoming Dates:
December 9: Protective Behaviors Presentation 9:00-9:45
December 10: Pajama Day at school and PJ's, Pizza and Publishing Family Night 5:30-7:00
December 15: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
December 23: Holiday Colors Day
December 24-January 3: Winter Break

Reading:  We will move towards wrapping up our 3rd reading unit at the end of this week.  During this last bend of the unit we will focus on using punctuation to figure out how to read and then match our voices to tell the story.  We will also push our partner conversations by learning our last reading super power: Book Talk Power!  While this unit will be finishing soon, we will rely on these super powers for the rest of the year.  We will have a big Super Hero Day celebration of our new found super powers on December 23rd.  Watch for more info to come home soon!

Writing:  We have been working with our reading partners during writing workshop to practice re-reading our true stories and to give each other tips and kind feedback about using sight words, vowels and neat writing.  It is so neat to observe how much the boys and girls are able to learn from one another.  This week we will use our partner to listen for more sounds in words we stretch out in our stories and will also be working to draw more vivid and telling pictures to accompany our writing.  We will extend and add to the writing we have completed by adding flaps to our writing in spots we realized we have missed details or want to say more...this will be so exciting and motivating for us!

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:  Feathers were VERY exciting last week.  We love all of the hands-on materials we get to use in our Einstein kits!  We learned that there are 3 different types of feathers: down, contour, and flight feathers.  We looked closely at feathers from different birds and learned how amel and female birds may have different feathers.  We compared birds bodies to airplanes and were surprised to find many similarities, and as you probably noticed, we built our own paper airplanes as well.  This week we will focus on reptiles and amphibians.

Word Work:  We will spend another week on the sight words: come, look, my, like, to.  We have also been learning out to create our own "snap" words (words we can read in a snap) as students come across words in their reading that they want to know in a snap.  Here are the 6 steps to follow:

Weekly News November 30-December 4

We hope that you are feeling well rested after Thanksgiving break and were able to enjoy time spent with friends and family!  We are anxious to welcome the kids back and cannot believe that we are about to enter into our last month of learning with them for 2015!  It is crazy how fast this year has gone.
Please keep your eyes peeled for a new homework calendar to be in folders this week, we will also let you know when we have it up on the blog.

Click here for the Dec. homework calendar!

Also, take a look at our school and specialist newsletters for the month.

Here is the December hot lunch menu!

Upcoming Dates:
December 1:  Kaukauna Christmas Parade 6:00pm
                        NDLC will have float and families are invited to ride and walk along in the parade.     
                        If you wish to join, please meet at 809 Wisconsin Avenue Position 27 by 5:50 pm.  
                        All children  must be accompanied by a parent if they are joining in the parade.  
December 10:  Family Night 5:30-7:00
December 15: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal

Reading: So far we have learned the following super powers: pointer power, reread power, partner power, picture power, and snap word power.  We will add on sound power (using letter sounds, especially beginning sounds) and persistence power (trying many powers until we solve tricky words) this week!  So many 'powers' or strategies for our early readers to use as they begin reading conventionally!  Encourage your child to use these powers at home as well.  This week students will begin bringing book baggies home nightly with a book they selected from their personal book bin.  You many notice that some nights the book your child brings home seems easy while other nights it may seem difficult.  This will vary depending on how which day of the week your child selects new books (new books are trickier for the first few days) as well as if the book he or she brings home is at his or her independent or instructional level.  If your child gets stuck reading, you can be a coach by saying things like:

• Check the picture.
• Reread this sentence.
• Use your sight words
• What makes sense there?
• Does that sound right?
• Use your letter sounds--What sound does this word start with?

Writing:  We are really growing as true story writers in here!  The boys and girls have been so focused on writing stories that others want to read and working so hard to make their writing easy for others to read.  This week we will use a checklist to make our stories even better and will also use them to set goals for new work in writing.  We will also be focusing on both using vowel sounds and sight words consistently in our writing.  We will also work on rereading our stories to a partner.  We will be busy and are looking forward to showing off our hard work at our next family night.

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: Last week we conducted an experiment to discover how blubber keeps arctic mammals warm.  We tested how cold water felt without blubber and then put our hands in a 'blubbler glove' (crisco inside two ziplock bags) and discovered that the water felt room temperature when we were insulated with blubber.  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:  New sight words for the week are: come, look, my, like, to.  Invite your child to point out these and previous sight words in books as they read to you nightly.

Thanksgiving in the Lunchroom

This morning each classroom at New Directions decorated tablecloths to spread a little cheer and start conversations about thankfulness throughout our lunchroom.  The students loved working together on this project to "put smiles on others' faces."