October 1-5

Important Dates and Reminders:

This week is homecoming week in Kaukauna, see dress up days below:

Monday-PJ/Comfy Clothes
Tuesday-Superhero day (just a t-shirt or parade, doesn't need to be a costume)
Wednesday- NDLC Wear for the parade
Thursday-Sports Team Wear
Friday-Kaukauna Spirit (wear black and orange)

10/11:  PSC Family Event at Skate City
10/12: Scholastic Orders due
10/19:  Heckrodt and Fire Station Field Trip--Please send back form if you have not already done so!
10/25&10/26: NO SCHOOL

Check out the October lunch menu.

This October students at New Directions will CREATE Kindness as they collect socks for Kid President's Socktober sock drive.  Look for more information to come home with your child on October 4.  Check out the link below for more information on Socktober!

  http://soulpancake.com/socktober/

We look forward to making a difference as a school!

Reading: On Monday, we will have a celebration to mark the end of our first reading unit. The readers will choose their favorite book to carry around during our reading parade through the school. Stay tuned for a video!  Students have worked so hard to learn to retell their old favorite storybooks using the exact words from the book, sounding like the characters, and using connecting words to keep the story going. As we continue to work in these "Old Favorites" in our next unit, we will learn to use the pictures and words to really think about how the character might be feeling and what they are thinking. These colorful stories provide a great base to begin that comprehension work with our emerging readers!

Writing:  Students will learn to plan their story across pages, add more details in pictures and words, and add speech bubbles to their writing. At home, you could help your child generate ideas to write about! Practice telling the story orally and asking questions to add more details. This helps students to write more vivid stories. Oral storytelling is a key component in the writing process and will help students to get their ideas on to the page. Here is how Kindergartners are taught to think about the writing process:

 Pretty amazing work for these young writers!


Math: This week, mathematicians will work on adding and subtracting using pictures. We will continue to work writing numbers 1-5 and seeing numbers of objects in a group. Students will work on number order using dot to dots.

Phonics:  Fundations as our phonics program. This program focuses on foundational skills necessary for successful reading and writing.
To help your student be successful, you can practice letter formation at home! Check your child's backpack for:

• A copy of the verbalizations to form each letter  
• Handwriting paper in a page protector. 
• You can use this with a dry erase marker so that it is reusable! Socks make great erasers:)

Social Studies: This week, we will begin our School Study unit. Throughout the unit, we will be exploring who the community helpers are in our school and conducting interviews to learn more about what they do! We will be learning about interviews and planning what kinds of questions we are going to ask our school community helpers. We will be conducting interviews with a few school helpers this week and some more next week!  We are excited to start this project!

September 24-28

We are very proud of how well the students handled all of the safety drills we practiced last week.  They were very understanding when they were explained and brave when they practiced.  Of course, we hope we will only ever have to practice these things, but if a situation of any type (weather, fire, intruder) comes up we will be prepared.


Important Dates and Reminders:
September 25th:Family Night 5:30-7:00
September 26th:  Picture Day (send envelopes if you wish to order on before this day)
October 19th: Heckrodt Field Trip

Math: In math this week our focus will shift from showing number quantity to comparing number quantity.  We will learn about a new math tool called a comparing mat that will help us to distinguish numbers as greater than and less than.  We will also be exploring and classifying shapes.  We will also revisit and practice addition and subtraction and begin working with number formation.  Also, please watch your child's folder this week for a packet of math games to play at home that will reinforce seeing numbers as quantities and taking numbers apart and putting them together.

Reading: It was very exciting to move into "reading" old favorite storybooks last week.  We were so excited to be able to open these new "gifts" of reading!  One way to support this work at home is by reading stories that are familiar to your child over and over and over again until it becomes a story they can 'read' on their own. 

We are continuing our work in storybooks in the classroom as well, trying to say even more on every page to make our words match the text and connecting pages to make our reading sound even more grown up by using phrases like "and then" and "after that."  We will even be looking for and reading words we know and see again and again.

Writing: This week we will be learning to write true stories! This means we will be taking an event from our lives, telling that story and then working to show it in pictures and words across three pages. We will practice this work as a class by writing a few class “true stories” together.  As true story writers we will need to do ALOT of story telling to help us say what happened first, next and last.  We will also use our writing folders to help us generate ideas for our true stories.  We will also work  on showing details in our drawings and will be pushing ourselves to write many letters in words we stretch out.

Social Studies: Check out our published rules!!

This week we will learn and practice taking positive  time outs for times we need to refocus our learning and think about the rules.  This is a part of our approach to community and discipline called Responsive Classroom.  Here is the Responsive Classroom definition of time out: Time-out in a Responsive Classroom is a positive, respectful, and supportive teaching strategy used to help a child who is just beginning to lose self-control to regain it so they can do their best learning. An equally important goal of Responsive Classroom time-out is to allow the group’s work to continue when a student is misbehaving or upset. Giving that child some space from the scene of action where they can regroup while still seeing and hearing what the class is doing accomplishes both of these goals.

September 17-20

Hi K Families! We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the nice weather!

If you are able to donate extra snack for the days when someone doesn't have one, we would appreciate it! Our healthy snack keeps our brains ready for learning:)


Upcoming events:
September 21: NO SCHOOL for students

September 25: Family Night, Hot Dogs and How to Help--more info to come soon!
September 26: Picture day-- you can send envelopes to school on or before this day!
October 19:  Field Trip to Fire Station and Heckrodt (more info coming soon)

Reading: This week we will be starting a new bend in our reading unit, meaning the focus shifts a bit. We have been reading learn-about-the-world books (informational texts) to practice rereading and thinking about how pages go together. This week, we will begin to focus on reading old favorite storybooks. We have been reading books such as Mrs. Wishy-Washy, The Carrot Seed, and The Three Billy Goats Gruff throughout the last couple of weeks. Now, we can “read” by retelling the story using the character’s voice and saying more and more of the story. Have your child practice reading a familiar book at home! They are great storytellers!

Writing: In writing, we have started to create books! Students are using packets of three or more pages to write about things they know about. First, they plan what they are going to write about by pointing to the page and talking through their book. Then, they draw and write! Later this week, we will be working with writing buddies that will ask questions about our writing; this will help students to look over their writing and start to think about revising. Finally, we will continue to stretch out words to label our work.

Math: Mathematicians will learn about adding and subtracting this week. We will also discuss the partners of a number. Partners are any numbers that work together to make another number (i.e. 3+1 and 2+2 are partners of 4). We will build numbers using many different materials including our purple, blue, and red tiles
   Here are what they look like!



Social Studies:  Each person in our classroom has now chosen and illustrated a hope and dream for the school year!  We then created rules for our classroom that will help us reach those hopes and dreams.  This week we will practice what it looks, sounds and feels like to follow these rules and will also discuss what happens when we forget to follow the rules (which will happen, of course).  Our hope for this is that students take greater ownership over the rules and grow to understand how to help one another follow them and to also understand how to fix or change things when we forget to follow a rule.

September 10-14

We are off and running this school year and we are doing a fabulous job getting to know the routines at school! I am having a great time getting to know each and every one of your special kiddos.

 Please remember to send your child’s writing folder to school if you have not already done so.

Here is a list of our specials teachers so that you know who your child sees throughout the week: 

Phy Ed: Mr. Halloran 

Music: Mrs. Krueger

Art: Mrs. Seigel

Guidance: Ms. Duda

Library: Mrs. Wolf

STEAM: Mrs. Nimmer

Upcoming events:

September 15: Dot Day-Wear polka dots
September 21: NO SCHOOL for students

September 25: Family Night, Hot Dogs and How to Help--more info to come soon!
September 26: Picture day-- you can send envelopes to school on or before this day!

A peek at our week! 

Reading: In reading, the students have been practicing the routine for getting ready for Reader’s Workshop. We are focusing on looking at the cover and thinking about how the pages in the book go together. We talked about using our fingers to search for all different things on the page. This week, we will talk about the importance of rereading. Readers reread by putting all the pages together, thinking more about the book and learning from the words in the book.

Writing: We are currently working on writing about topics we know about. Students are learning how to think of, visualize, and then put what they know about a topic on paper. We are working on adding more details and words to a page when we think we might be done. We will learn that writers might run into problems, like finishing a page or pens running out of ink, but strong writers are problem solvers and decide what they can do to keep on writing! We will be focusing on labeling pictures and stretching out the sounds in words to write them on the page.  When your child brings home their writing, you might ask what his/her book is about or ask him/her to show you where they tried to add labels to their pieces.

Math: We have been learning about many different tools that can be used for math including our eyes, fingers, red/blue counting tiles, and purple number tiles. These math tools can help us think about building numbers, showing numbers and quantities in different ways, and finding different ways to count objects. We will also start reading Anno’s Counting Book, which encourages students to count, classify, and compare objects. I encourage students to be counting things all day every day. Help them notice things to count; setting the table is a great way to get kids counting!

Social Studies: We have been learning all about what we need to do to make our room a safe and happy place to learn. We will be creating our hopes and dreams wall this week. Each student will pick one thing that they hope to accomplish this year, then we will be generating rules that will help us reach these dreams. These will serve as our classroom rules. I look forward to sharing a picture of our hopes and dream wall with you later this week!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail.

First week of Kindergarten!

Wow! We cannot believe how quickly our first week of Kindergarten flew by! The students did an AMAZING job!

This week we...

• Spent time getting to know our friends’ names 
• Explored the different areas and tools in our classroom
• Began our Reader’s Workshop. We have been reading privately and with a partner!
• Started our Writer’s Workshop. Ask your kiddo what strong writers do!
• Practiced counting and ordering numbers 1-10. We learned that we can use our eyes and hands as math tools too. 
• Learned how to use the different free choice options in our classroom 

Notes:

• We will be posting our weekly blog at the beginning of next week
• Remember to keep sending a snack with your child every day
• The water bottles are working well! Please make sure your child's name is on the bottle.
• Remember to send a quick note or email if your child is taking breakfast.
• Send your child's writing folder back once it is decorated.

Here is a quick peek at what happened in our room this week!

Free Choice is our favorite!!

We are growing our reading muscles everyday!

We sure are busy writers!

It's going to be a GREAT Year!!