Week of September 25 - 29

Hello Families! 

Students are getting back into the swing of things as the third week of school comes to a close. We were busy with drills for Safety Week the past couple of days. A lot of students had questions about the evacuation drill, so feel free to talk to your child and answer any lingering questions they may have. Luckily, the evacuation drill was AFTER we took our pictures of Picture Day! Students were sure looking spiffy and showed their brightest smiles for the pictures. 

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 2. Tuesday - Day 3, Wednesday - Day 4, Thursday - Day 5, Friday - Day 6. 
• We will have MAP testing this next week. On Tuesday morning, students will complete the Reading MAP test and on Wednesday we will have our Math MAP test in the afternoon. 
• Our first service project this school year is Postcards for Seniors. Starting in early October students will have the opportunity to decorate postcards that will be delivered monthly to Meals on Wheels participants in Kaukauna.  We are in need of some supplies for this project.  If you have any of the items listed below at home and would like to donate please send them to school and drop off in the Postcards box in the office.
• new boxes of markers
• light colored card stock
• fun stickers
• Questions can be directed to Kristin McEneany at kristin.mceneany@gmail.com
• If you did not send in the form on Picture Day but would like to order pictures,  you still can! You can mail a check or pay online to Network to order your student's pictures. 
• We are excited to have the opportunity to have yoga with Mrs. McEneany again this year! We are planning to have yoga at the end of the day, from 2:30 to 3:00, on the second Friday of each month. Please send a towel with your child that can be used as a yoga mat throughout the year. 
• Please send the field trip form for Artistic Adventures back as soon as possible; if you need another copy, just let me know :)

Upcoming Events

September 25: Dress Up - Neon or Tie Dye
September 26 AND 27: MAP testing for 3rd grade

September 26: Dress Up - Superhero
September 27: Dress Up - NDLC Wear
September 27: Kaukauna Homecoming Parade
September 28: Dress Up - Sports Teams Wear
September 29: Dress Up - Kaukauna Spirit Colors

October 8: Ride to Read
October 10: Kaukauna fire department visits our classroom
October 12: Trout Museum field trip in the afternoon

Curriculum Update

Math: This past week we have been working to become more fluent with multiplication and division with 5 and 2. We also discussed good practices for solving problems (1. Interpret the problem. 2. Represent the situation. 3. Solve the problem. 4. Check that the answer makes sense.) Next week we will continue this work on multiplication and division with 10 and 9. Another math game will come home for homework -- feel free to keep these at home and play as much as you'd like! :)

Writing: Students have been writing fast and furious on their draft booklets! We have been working to add dialogue, feelings, actions, and the five senses to our stories so the reader feels like they were right there with us. We will start to work on revision to add more to our stories and to build suspense right before a story's problem. 

Word Study: Students are learning all about digraphs and enjoying leading the class with Baby Echo! As we continue with Word Study into next week, students will be building words with their magnetic letters and letterboards and practicing writing on their special Fundations whiteboards.

Reading: This past week we learned why it is so important to understand a story! We know that we can give ourselves a comprehension check after a chapter! This helps us realize if we are on the right track! After your child is done with a chapter you can ask them:

1. Who are the characters in this part?

2. What just happened in this part?

3. Does the part you just read fit with something earlier or is it new?

This next week we will talk about strong predictions and students will also get a reading log. We won't always have a reading log but this week I want students to track their reading habits so we can set goals from them!

Content: We started our experiments with land and water! Students made a model of land and saw the affects of "rain" on the soil. Students will see how land and water interact with and affect one another. Next, we will create a stream in our land model and examine soil types and groundwater.



I hope you enjoy this long weekend and get the most of this "summer" weather!

Jenny