October 30-November 3

Hi Families,

What a quick week! Hopefully you find time to do something you enjoy on this long weekend :)


Check out some pictures of students showing area with Cheez-Its! Students made a rectangle from 24 Cheez-Its, and then had to split the rectangle into smaller arrays, writing the equations to find the area for each. Brennan gave me the tip that they should be called "Cheez-It Array engineers!" :)

Here's some of the different ways they split up or divided the array!

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 1.
• Join your child's Seesaw account if you haven't already! You will get to see things that they have been working on in the classroom. (Check it out this week for some pictures/videos of our dam engineers and "Cheez-it array" engineers!)
• If your CHILD would like to log on to their account, go to this link to sign in. 
• If YOU would like to sign in (as a family member), go to this link, choose your child from the list, and make an account. 
• If it is not working for you, let me know and I will try to troubleshoot! 
• I will be absent for a few days these upcoming weeks for training. Please remind your child to be the respectful, responsible students that they are for the substitute teacher on those days!
• Students will have their Unit 2 Word Study test on Tuesday. I'll send their graded test back later in the week, so be looking for that to see how your child is doing :)
• Conference sign up will be emailed to you on Thursday. You will be able to sign up for a 15 minute block on Thursday, November 9th or Tuesday, November 14. The sign up will be similar to how the sign up was for Meet and Greets. 
• The first date for Kindred Hearts visit is Nov. 11 from 9-10 am.  Families will meet at Kindred Hearts and read stories and their writing/books to residents.  Families will need to bring books/writing with them.  

Click here to sign up to attend the first visit. Please contact Kristin McEneany kristin.mceneany@gmail.com if you have any questions. Thank you! 

•  Typing Club - Some students were wondering if they could practice typing at home. Of course! They can go to feldkamp.typingclub.com and enter in their username and password. Their username does NOT include the @kaukaunasd.org. Remind them that they can only move on to the next level if they get 5 stars!

Upcoming Events

October 30: PJ Wear Day
October 30: Miss Feldkamp will be gone
October 31: Wear Orange and Black
November 1: Miss Feldkamp will be gone
November 1: Picture Retake Day
November 2: Unit 1 Math Test
November 3: Unit 1 Math Test
November 3: NDLC Wear
November 6: Packer Wear
November 7 Miss Feldkamp will be gone
November 8: Dress Like Your Parents Day
November 8: Miss Feldkamp will be gone
November 9: Portfolio Conferences
November 10: Red, White, and Blue for our Veterans
November 10: Yoga with Mrs. McEneany
November 11 (Saturday): Families visiting Kindred Hearts
November 14: Portfolio Conferences
November 17: Early Dismissal at 11:30

Curriculum Update

Math: Unit 1 is winding down! Next week, students will fix up their quizzes and work to solve and create story problems. On Thursday and Friday, students will take the Unit 1 test to demonstrate all that they have learned so far! Please let me know if your child has any anxiety over the test and we will work to lower that so they can do their best work. 

Writing: This week we brainstormed ideas for persuasive speeches. Students learned to directly address their audience to make their writing much more convincing. Next week, we will set goals for our persuasive writing. We will also work to categorize our reasons, include examples for each reason, and take out any reasons that won't help to convince our audience. On Halloween, we will be meeting up with our 1st grade buddies during Writing!

Word Study: We are working on making words using glued sounds, like ong, ing, unk, ang. Next week, we will review all we have learned in this second unit and take the Unit 2 Test. We will then learn about vowel teams, or two letters that together make one sound (like "ai" makes the long a sound in "bait.") Let me know if you have any feedback on the Word Study homework packets, good or bad! :)

Reading: The next week we will learn new strategies when reading mysteries. We will also be reading VERY closely so we can try to solve the mystery before the detective in the book. We will even start digging a little deeper in mysteries and think of patterns and characteristics of mysteries. The goal is that students are reading A LOT! Many students already finished a book or two within 3 days! This work should keep on going. You'll notice that your child is reading the SAME book as their partner. Their partners and them have set goals on what to read each night for homework. This has helped their book stamina increase! :)

Content: This week we finally were able to test our dams!! Check out the videos on Seesaw to see how well your child's dam worked to protect the houses (or, just ask your child--if they haven't told you already!) Next week, we will switch over to a social studies unit about the world. Students will be learning about the continents and oceans.



Know that you can always contact me with any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,
Jenny

Short Week! October 23-25

Hello Families,

I'm enjoying more and more each day that I get to spend with your children! They really are a great bunch of students. This coming week is short--only three days! Even though it's a short week, my blog doesn't seem to be any shorter...

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 4. Tuesday - Day 5, Wednesday - Day 6.
• Join your child's Seesaw account if you haven't already! You will get to see things that they have been working on in the classroom.
• There have been some issues with students being able to get onto Seesaw at home. If that is true for you, let me know and I'll do my best to figure it out!
• Next week is Red Ribbon Week, a time dedicated to celebrating a healthy and drug-free lifestyle. We will participate in dress up days to raise awareness:
• Monday-"Teaming up against drugs is NO SWEAT!" (Active wear)
• Tuesday-"My future is bright drug-free" (Bright/Neon clothing)
• Wednesday-"Be united against drugs" (Wear red)
• I will be absent for a few days these upcoming weeks for training. Please remind your child to be the respectful, responsible students that they are for the substitute teacher on those days!
• Before I had mentioned that the Unit 1 Math Test will be next week. I decided that we will instead have it November 2nd and 3rd. There are a few more things that I would like students to practice more so they can be successful on the test. Spending more time on the first unit and developing that strong foundation of knowledge with multiplication and division will be helpful for Unit 2 and the rest of the year! Let me know if you have any questions. 
• The first date for Kindred Hearts visit is Nov. 11 from 9-10 am.  Families will meet at Kindred Hearts and read stories and their writing/books to residents.  Families will need to bring books/writing with them.  

Click here to sign up to attend the first visit. Please contact Kristin McEneany kristin.mceneany@gmail.com if you have any questions. Thank you! 

•  Typing Club - Some students were wondering if they could practice typing at home. Of course! They can go to feldkamp.typingclub.com and enter in their username and password. Their username does NOT include the @kaukaunasd.org. Remind them that they can only move on to the next level if they get 5 stars!

Upcoming Events

October 23: Wear Sweats and/or Team Apparel
October 24: Wear Neon/Bright Colors
October 25: Red Day! Be United Against Drugs
October 26 AND 27: NO SCHOOL
October 30: PJ Wear Day
October 30: Miss Feldkamp will be gone
October 31: Wear Orange and Black
November 1: Miss Feldkamp will be gone
November 2: Unit 1 Math Test
November 3: Unit 1 Math Test
November 7 Miss Feldkamp will be gone
November 8: Miss Feldkamp will be gone

Curriculum Update

Math: Students should be proud of all they have learned in Unit 1 with multiplication and division! We have been working on solving story problems and determining the type of problem that it represents. It is tricky to determine if a story problem represents multiplication or division because we can use multiplication equations to check our answers! Most students do not have this mastered yet; don't fret too much, though, because we will be working on this for a couple months yet! We went over some of the review on Friday and will finish up on Monday. We will also be working on writing the correct equation to go with story problems and diving deeper into the distributive property with multiplication. 
**Students should work on the Review at home and bring it back Monday. The review is VERY similar to the test. If your child is struggling on the problems not yet solved, make a note of it so I know. Encourage your child to instead explain a problem to you that we have already went over on the review or try another one like it. 

Writing: This week was exciting for Writing! Students had two days to free write--anything they wanted--while each student and I assessed their Opinion On Demand together. We then moved into Opinion Writing, delivering a persuasive speech to Mrs. Frischmann about how construction workers should not be working on our school during the school day. We discussed how problems are not a cause for whining, but rather a cause for writing :) Next week, we will think of ideas for opinion writing and draft many pieces. 

Word Study: We learned about "glued" sounds (ham, pan, pink, song) and r-controlled vowels (car, horn) this week. Since the Word Study packet was sent home at the end of this week, return the "Week 2" packet on Wednesday! If you are ever working on something in the packet at home and your child does not understand yet, that is ok. We probably did not get to that topic in school yet, so you can just wait a few days and try again when they are ready. Also, I'm open to feedback on how the Word Study packets have been going at home. We talked a lot as a school about what homework in Word Study would look like, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Reading: This past week has been SO exciting! Students have become real live detectives! On Tuesday we started off with solving a mystery and students even had to find clues to find the mystery flavored oreos. We learned that in mysteries we need to pay attention to ANY clue and we learned that ANYBODY is a suspect...at first! The next week and a half we will learn new strategies when reading mysteries. We will also be reading VERY closely so we can try to solve the mystery before the detective in the book. We will even start digging a little deeper in mysteries and think of patterns and characteristics of mysteries. The goal is that students are reading A LOT! Many students already finished a book or two within 3 days! This work should keep on going. You'll notice that your child is reading the SAME book as their partner. Their partners and them have set goals on what to read each night for homework. This has helped their book stamina increase! :)

Content: We have been researching to become quite the expert dam engineers! We built our dams on Friday and will add finishing touches next week. We'll then see if our dams will in fact save the people's homes or if they will be flooded from the water! As our land and water unit comes to a close, we will also reflect on all that we have learned in science so far.



Know that you can always contact me with any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,
Jenny

Week of October 16-20

What an exciting week we had!

The fire department taught us about exit drills in the home, we took a field trip to the Trout Museum of Art, and we had our first yoga session! We also have been working especially hard this week to have "three star" partnerships...meaning being the best partners we can be. I must say, students have been rockstars in their partnerships both in writing and math. (I had to take pictures for proof!) We also met our 1st grade buddies and toasted our Kapri Sun's to celebrate our published narrative stories :)

Partnership Work!

 

Trout Museum Field Trip!

Students also requested that I post a picture of the mind map we made to showcase all we learned about narrative writing. It may be my writing, but it was all of your students' ideas!!

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 5. Tuesday - Day 6, Wednesday - Day 1, Thursday - Day 2, Friday - Day 3. 
• Join your child's Seesaw account if you haven't already! You will get to see things that they have been working on in the classroom. They already made a post this week, so don't forget to check it out :)
• We are happy to have yoga with Mrs. McEneany again this year! Please have your child bring a beach towel that can be used as a yoga mat and stay in their locker all year. 
• 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
• Typing Club - Some students were wondering if they could practice typing at home. Of course! They can go to feldkamp.typingclub.com and enter in their username and password. Their username does NOT include the @kaukaunasd.org. Remind them that they can only move on to the next level if they get 5 stars!

Upcoming Events

October 16: Badger Sports Wear
October 17: Family Night: Grandfriends, Games, and Goodies
October 20: NDLC Wear
October 23: Wear Sweats and/or Team Apparel
October 24: Unit 1 Math Test
October 24: Wear Neon/Bright Colors
October 25: Unit 1 Math Test
October 25: Red Day! Be United Against Drugs
October 26 AND 27: NO SCHOOL
October 30: PJ Wear Day
October 31: Wear Orange and Black

Curriculum Update

Math: We continued to work with multiplication this week--including multiplication with 1 and 0! Next week, we will finish up Unit 1. We'll solve and create word problems and practice multiplication and division. Since the format of the test is different from any other math test students have taken in the past, we will take two days to go over questions similar to those on the test. I'm hoping this will create less anxiety over the test as students will already know how the test will go. After these two review days, students will take the test! I have the test scheduled for Tuesday, October 24 and Wednesday, October 25 if students need more than one day. 

Writing: We published our writing and finished up our Narrative unit this week! Next, we will start on Opinion writing. Students will get a chance to see where they are at for opinion writing right now, and work to set a goal to be accomplished at the end of this unit. 

Word Study: We learned about bonus letters f, l, s, and sometimes z! Students have been working to spell bonus letter words correctly both with their magnetic boards and on their dry erase boards. Next week, we will continue this work and add on r-controlled vowels and vowel teams. Students will get another Word Study pack on Monday to work on at home throughout the week!

Reading: This past week students practiced summarizing and making sure they always have a reading plan! Ask your child what they are working on-- they SHOULD be able to tell you! :) Friday we watched the movie Stone Fox! We noticed there were similarities to the book but also many differences. This coming week we will be beginning our NEW Reading unit! We will be starting reading Mysteries (but shhh, don't tell your child! -- it's a surprise).. This unit does an amazing job at teaching students some foundation skills like predicting and paying attention to small details in the text!
**Scholastic orders should be returned by October 20th! :) 
**Join your child's seesaw account to see the amazing work they are doing! They recently posted book recommendations!

Content: We are still working with our stream models, discovering what happens when many streams join together or when a stream comes rushing through the soil. Next week, we'll learn about dams and even work to build and test our own dam!!



Know that you can always contact me with any questions or concerns!

Best,
Jenny

Week of October 9-13

Hello Families,

It's hard to believe that we have already had a solid month of school! I have been enjoying the October/fall weather that we've had this week! We had an assembly this week where Mr. D (self described as "the guy who decides when we get to have snow days") talked to us about what it is to be Kaukauna Strong. It was also nice to see some families at Walk to School Day on Wednesday morning. Another exciting thing happened this week: our chrome book cords finally came in so we were able to log in to our OWN chrome books!!

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 2. Tuesday - Day 3, Wednesday - Day 4, Thursday - Day 5, Friday - Day 6.
• Since lunch is so early this year, I told students that they could have an afternoon snack around 2:30. Feel free to pack an extra afternoon snack if you'd like.
• Our class snack supply is starting to run low. If you are willing and able to bring a class box of snacks, that would be helpful for those times when someone forgets :) 
• We will not be having NDLC's Ride to Read this Sunday. It will be postponed to a date and time that will be more convenient to families. You'll be updated when that date is established!
• We are happy to have yoga with Mrs. McEneany again this year! Please have your child bring a beach towel that can be used as a yoga mat and stay in their locker all year. 
• As it is starting to get chilly in mornings, please make sure your child has a sweatshirt to stay warm. 
• 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
• Typing Club - Some students were wondering if they could practice typing at home. Of course! They can go to feldkamp.typingclub.com and enter in their username and password. Their username does NOT include the @kaukaunasd.org. Remind them that they can only move on to the next level if they get 5 stars!
• In a Science lesson coming up, we will find ways to stop a stream by adding hills and barriers. To do this, we need 20 rocks about 2-3 inches in size. If you have rocks about this size available, please send in one or two with your child!

Upcoming Events

October 10: Kaukauna fire department visits our classroom
October 12: Trout Museum of Art field trip in the afternoon
October 13: NDLC Wear
October 13: Third Grade Yoga at 2:30
October 16: Badger Sports Wear
October 17: Family Night: Grandfriends, Games, and Goodies
October 20: NDLC Wear
October 23: Wear Sweats and/or Team Apparel
October 24: Wear Neon/Bright Colors
October 25: Red Day! Be United Against Drugs
October 26 and 27: NO SCHOOL
October 31: Wear Orange and Black

Curriculum Update

Math: Wow we are learning lots as mathematicians! Students continued to learn more about multiplication and division this week with 3's and 4's. We also worked to relate area of rectangles to multiplication. Another thing we started this week is XtraMath. This website helps students become more fluent with math facts. What I like about this website is that it focuses on a few facts at a time that your child hasn't mastered yet. Once they have those facts mastered, it moves on to other challenging facts. If your child would like to log on to XtraMath at home, feel free! (enter MY email--feldkampj@kaukaunasd.org, their first name, and their four-digit PIN number. If your child does not know their PIN number, email me and I'll get it to you!) This next week, we are going to work to become more fluent with groups of 2, 5, 10, 9, 3, 4, 0, and 1. Know that you are welcome to play any of the math games with your child at any time! If you misplaced a game board, or would just like an extra, let me know and I can get you another!! :)

Writing: Students have been improving their stories each day through revision and editing! We worked especially hard to write meaningful endings and punctuate our dialogue correctly. To make the most out of our writing time, we also tried designated writing spots for each writer in the room this week. This has helped students to get to their writing right away! Next week, we will publish our stories and celebrate our achievements! Our next unit will be informational writing :)

Word Study: We finished our first unit of Fundations this week! We learned that closed syllables have one vowel and are closed in by a letter or letters. We will start Unit 2 next week; look for the letter that will come home Monday for more information!

Reading: This past week we thought about different strategies on solving tricky words! We also talked about figurative language and how students need to figure-it-out! :) This coming week we are finishing up our first unit! We will talk about an important skill, summarizing a bit more! Then on Friday we will have our CELEBRATION of our hard work! This will entail watching the movie, Stone Fox. We finished reading this book as a read aloud and students LOVED it. We will watch the movie and compare the book and movie! Then our next unit will be a...."mystery..." :)
 Scholastic orders should be returned by October 20th! :) 

Content: This week our scientists learned about erosion, glaciers, and bodies of water. Next week, we will discover what happens to our land models when a rushing stream goes through. We also have a few exciting things planned during this time, including Typing Club on chromebooks, our field trip, a visit from the fire department, and yoga! Next week, we will be building dams in our land models. If you are able, please send in some rocks no larger than a size of a fist to help us create these dams!



As we make our way into our second month of school, please know that you are always welcome to contact me with any questions or concerns. If something about school is not feeling good for your child, let me know! I want to make this the best possible school year and learning environment for each and every student. 

Best,
Jenny