Weekly News Feb. 1-5

February is shaping to be quite the exciting month in Kindergarten...100 day, Valentine's Day, an upcoming field trip  and some fun family night events!

Also along with a new month comes a new lunch menu and homework calendar.

Additionally, here are the school and specialist newsletters.

Upcoming Dates:
February 8th: 100 Day of School Celebration
February 12th: Valentine's Day Celebration
February 17th: Field Trip (more info to come)
February 25th: 1/2 day 11:30 Dismissal
                         PSC Family Night at Funset Boulevard
February 26th: NO SCHOOL
February 29th: Family Night

Reading: We are starting a new unit this week called Readers are Resourceful.  This unit will kick off with some inquiry about how readers know when they need to go back and fix things up and what the signs are that they look for.  The students' realizations during this first day session will set the stage for moving beyond "sounding it out" to use the many, many sources of info available in texts to assist readers.  We will draw on our prior knowledge of topics or connections to stories while thinking about what would make sense in the text and sound right in the sentence.

Writing:  This week we will move into our last week of writing procedural (how to) books.  We will 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:  We are also approaching the end of Unit 3 in math.  We will work this week to solidify the major concepts in this unit: teen numbers, story problems and shape composition.  We will work hard to see and write the partners of a number as look at arrangements of math tools and pictures.  Our math centers this week will be:

• playing teen number Go Fish
• working with a friend to find the missing partner of a given number
• coloring and classifying by shape on a workbook page
• making arrangements of teen numbers with real objects   

Science:  We wrapped up our short family unit it Social Studies last week.  Your child brought home a book he or she wrote about your family.  They turned out so great!  Make sure to look for it in your child's folder over the weekend.  Our new Science unit focuses on wood and paper.  We will study different types of wood and where it comes from and then learn about and engage in the paper making process.  On February 17th we will take a field trip to the Paper Discover Center in Appleton for some additional hands-on investigations.

Word Work:  New sight words for the next two weeks are: 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!

Friday Celebrations!

Our Friday was filled with celebrating!  We celebrated the end of our reading unit by having a mini-graduation, complete with diplomas and processing to pomp and circumstance.  We surprised Mrs. Hixon with a party to celebrate Baby Hixon almost being here.  We also celebrated Dylan's birthday and the joint EQ/NDLC dance was last night!  Whew!  Hope your kiddos slept well...we sure did!

Mrs. Hixon reading the birthday book we made for the baby
and receiving all sort of important tips for proper baby care.

There was CAKE!  And we ate most of it.

Our predictions for Baby Hixon

Students sharing their Mega Skills that they used to graduate
on to more challenging books in this unit.

Weekly News Jan. 25-29

We had a fun week celebrating our school last week!  This week we will celebrate more student accomplishments as report cards will be sent home.  Please be sure to check your child's folder for his/ her report card today.  As always, if you have question or concerns, please feel free to contact us! 

Important Dates:
Jan. 29th:  NDLC/Quinney Dance-5:30 pm
Feb. 8th: 100 day of school celebration (more info to come)
Feb. 9th: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
Feb. 12th: Valentine's Day Celebration
Feb. 25th: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
Feb. 26th: NO SCHOOL
Feb. 29th: Family Night

Our Valentine's Day celebration will be on Friday, February 12th.  Here is a class list if you are feeling really ambitious and want your child to work on writing cards soon!  We will send a paper copy home with your child in the near future.

Reading: We are studying our sight words closely this week as we notice that often words that look tricky might actually just be sight words with additional letters on their endings.  Later this week we will wrap up the unit 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 celebrate all of our hard work in this unit as we wrap it up on Friday with a little graduation into new and tricker books!

Writing: This week we will continue to focus on ways to improve upon and elaborate in our how to writing.  We will work or include introductions and conclusions in our books and will also be using comparisons in our books to add more specifics to directions we give in our writing.  We will also use parts of our school day and procedures we take part in daily to generate new writing ideas and to create collections of books on the same or similar topics.   We will wrap up the week by using an editing checklist to remind us of ways we know to make our writing easy to read.

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
• creating and solving math stories using the quantities shown on dominoes
• following directions to build a teen number using unifix cubes and comparing what we have built

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, and writing their own books about their families.

Word Work:  As mentioned, in reader's workshop this week we are talking a bit about sight words wearing "disguises" or having additional letters on the endings.  Example:  play: playing, plays, played.  You can hunt for this disguised sight words as you are reading together at home or on environmental print from signs and billboards on the road!

Celebrate!

Check out how we wrapped up a great week celebrating our school!

Book Characters matched up to favorite books!!!

The whole class celebrating book character day!!

We had a blast dancing at the pep rally....

                                        and were proud to parade around the gym as the other grades cheered us                                                on for all of the awesome ways we have grown so far this year!

The BEST parts of this school are the students and families we share it with!  We hope you took some time this week to celebrate your child and all they have accomplished so far this year!  

Weekly News Jan. 18-22

We are excited for a fun and exciting week celebrating everything that makes our school a truly wonderful place to learn!  See  below for the fun events we have planned!  Despite of all the fun, we will, of course, take time for lots and lots of learning!

Important Dates:
January 18-20: Celebrate New Directions Week

• January 18- Pajama Day
• January 19- Crazy Hair/Hat Day 
• Spaghetti and Art Family Night 
• January 20- NO SCHOOL 
• January 21- Sports Wear Day
• Family Gym Night 
• January 22- Book Character Dress Up Day

January 29: NDLC/Quinney Dance (more info to come)

Reading:  Last week we met with small groups of students introduce them to the new, challenging work they will be tackling as they move into new reading levels.  As you most likely noticed, we also included an info sheet about the changes and work at this level in your child's book bag to help you know what to look for, coach into, and expect in these new books!  If for some reason this paper never made it home to you, please let us know so we can send another copy.  Last week we spent the entire week focusing on using letter sounds in the beginning, middle, and end of words, using blends, and trying various sounds (especially for vowels) to help us figure out tricky words.  Often when early readers get 'stuck,' the go to prompt is to tell them to "Sound it out!," but some words just do not make sense phonetically, which is why this week we are following up our sound work by focusing on utilizing sight words and thinking about these three prompts when figuring out tricky 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 in our directions and include warnings and safety tips for our readers too!

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 numers
• Using dominos 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: This week we will learn 3 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, and interview partners to learn about and compare different families.  These next two weeks may be a great time to encourage your child to interview some of his or her family members or to discuss what things were like in your family when you were a child and now what they are like when you are the parent.

Word Work:  New sight words this week:  she, he, did, help, make
We completed a sight word assessment last week and each of the students were so proud of how many more sight words they know now compared to the beginning of the year!  Keep up the great work practicing at home!

Don't forget, January is a BIG month to promote our school!  We have many events going on yet this month that are open to anyone and everyone interested in learning more about our school!  Please feel free to share with friends, family and neighbors! 

• Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM-Spaghetti and Art Family Night 
•  (new families should RSVP to mitchellc@kaukauna.k12.wi.us by Monday 1/18)
• Wednesday, January 20th-10:00 AM-noon-Open House at New Directions
• Monday, January 25th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions

Weekly News Jan. 11-15

It was so great to see so many smiling Kindergarten faces as we welcomed them back last week! The beginning of a new year is proving to be successful for our class for sure!  This is the time of year when kids really take a leap in their learning and in 5 short days we have seen them do some terrific things!

We know they are always excited to share their learning with you at home.  Homework calendars went home last week!
Just in case you didn't see it in your child's folder, click here to access it!

Important Dates:
January 15: 1/2 11:30 Dismissal
January 18-20: Celebrate New Directions Week

• January 18- Pajama Day
• January 19- Crazy Hair/Hat Day 
• Spaghetti and Art Family Night 
• January 20- NO SCHOOL 
• January 21- Sports Wear Day
• Family Gym Night 
• January 22- Book Character Dress Up Day

January 29: NDLC/Quinney Dance (more info to come)

Reading: This week in reading we will spend multiple days focusing on using our letter-sound knowledge to read unknown words.  We will use consonant clusters (chunks of consonants together) and practice reading through the whole word to the end to solve new tricky words.  This will be the big work in the blue dot/yellow dot books that many students are moving into by the end of this week.  Students have mastered checking the beginning sound and the picture to figure out words, but as we read more challenging texts we will need to use the whole word while also thinking about what makes sense in the story and sounds right in the sentence.  Whew!  That's a lot of work for new readers!

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: 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:

• Listening to and solving recorded story problems on the iPad.
• 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 the sight words: have, get, for, play, will.

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 14th-6:00-7:30 PM District-Wide Info Session held at Tanner Early Learning Center

Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM-Spaghetti and Art Family Night

Wednesday, January 20th-10:00 AM-noon-Open House at New Directions

Monday, January 25th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions

Info Sessions

As we move towards January, New Directions begins to think about enrollment for next year. We have several informational sessions scheduled during the month of January for any families who would like to learn more about New Directions for their child. Word of mouth is the best way to spread the great things happening at New Directions, so if you know of any families who would be interested in sending their children to New Directions, here are the dates of our upcoming information sessions:

Tuesday, January 5th-6:00-7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions

Thursday, January 14th-6:00-7:30 PM District-Wide Info Session held at Tanner Early Learning Center

Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM-Spaghetti and Art Family Night

Wednesday, January 20th-10:00 AM-noon-Open House at New Directions

Monday, January 25th-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 4-8

Happy 2016!  We hope you all had a fun and restful break!  We are so anxious to welcome the boys and girls back for a "new" year of learning in Kindergarten.   Along with the new year come brand new units in both reading and writing that will really push and energize our learners.

As you know, we got some snow over break!  Students will continue to go outside at recess during the winter as long as the temperatures are above 0.  Please send full winter gear to school with your child (snow pants, boots, coat, hat, gloves/mittens) daily.

Important Dates:
January 15: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
January 18-22: Celebrate New Directions Week (more info to come)
January 19: Spaghetti and Art family Night
January 20: NO SCHOOL for students
January 21: Family Gym Night

Please take a peek at the January lunch menu and January school and specialist news!

Reading:  January is always such an exciting time for kindergarten learning.  All of a sudden the students just....take off!  Our new reading unit is entitled Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles.  In this unit students will continue to use the super power we learned last unit, but also learn more about the next levels of books they are moving into and what makes them so tricky.  This week we will study patterns in our books, identify words that change in the patterns, and also what to do when the pattern breaks.  We will be reassessing student reading levels as we move towards the end of the 2nd quarter (yes..next week!) and you may notice some new 'dot' colors or more challenging texts within the same dot color coming home with your child in the near future.

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. 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 spend this week reviewing the "cool tools" we learned at the beginning of the year for expectations in the various areas of the school.  After two weeks off, students will likely need to shake some rust off of these behaviors as we get back into the groove!

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.