November 27 - December 1

Hello Families,

Since it is a very short school week, the blog is coming a little early! I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy spending some extra time with your family. This Thanksgiving, I am so incredibly grateful to have each one of your children in class! I love learning with and from them. I know this is all made possible by the time and effort you put in with your child at home, so thank you for that!

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 6.
• Some students have a ring of cards attached to their agenda. These are words that I have noticed they have misspelled in their writing that they should know. Students should write these words five times both at school and at home. Because some students have been misspelling these words for a couple years, it takes a lot of practice for our brain to realize the correct way to spell the word. That is why we practice so much! Once we see that they can spell the word correctly in their writing, we'll take it off the ring!
• At home, students can write these words with paper and pencil, markers, fancy pens, "skywrite" with their arm, use a dry erase board, rainbow write with different colors, or any other ideas they come up with!
• Kwik Trip Gift cards Fundraiser -- NDLC earns 5% back on each gift card sold and 10% back on non-fuel purchases made in store with the gift card. Orders are due November 29th and can be picked up at Family Night. 
• Do you ever get frustrated when working with your child on reading? Do you ever wonder why they are making those mistakes? Well, try it out! Below is a simulator on experiencing what a young child goes through when learning to read. Reading is a hard and complicated process! Students need strategies to learn how to tackle the tricky parts.
  https://www.understood.org/en/tools/through-your-childs-eyes
• This is a friendly reminder that your Book Clubs orders are due by 12/13/17 this month. I set the order early in December so the books can hopefully be shipped before winter break! You can place your orders online at scholastic.com/bookclubs using my class activation code: P8W4T or you can write a check from the paper copy.
  
  
  Happy Reading,
  Miss. Kabara
  

Upcoming Events

November 22-24: NO SCHOOL
December 7: Pajama Day
December 7: Family Night
December 8: NDLC Wear
December 12: NO SCHOOL
December 14: Holiday Wear

Curriculum Update

Math: So far in Unit 2 we have finished up the remaining multiplications, meaning we learned to multiply with all factors from 0 to 10. The next part of Unit 2 focuses on problem solving and multiples of 10. Next week, we will work on two-step word problems. These can be challenging as they require multiple steps to solve AND students need to decide which operation to use. We will also multiply with multiples of 10.

Check out some efficient strategies that your students came up with for multiplication and division! :)

Writing: This week we finished our Opinion Unit. I saw students get more interested and engaged in this unit since after all, they do have a lot of opinions to share! We even saw how far we have come since the start of the unit by comparing our first piece of Opinion to our last. Next unit will be information writing. We'll start with our on demand and then brainstorm ideas and understand the structure of information texts. 

Word Study: This week we will learn about suffixes, specifically -s, -es, -ed, -ing, -er, and -est. A new word study packet will go home on Monday for students to practice with during the week. 

Reading: This week we completed our mystery unit! Students did an AMAZING job being real detectives and solving the mystery of "WHO STOLE OUR CHAIRS!?" They now know what it takes to be a great reader-- reading carefully for details (clues) and thinking of the characters (suspects)! This next week we will be beginning our next unti-- Nonfiction reading! We will be reading to learn AND reading to TEACH others! I don't want students regressing all they've done in their fiction reading so about 3/4 of each Reading time I will have students switch to reading a fiction text. They will also most likely be bringing home a fiction book for their reading homework. The big goal of this unit is to get students to figure out the main idea and details of a text. We will be practicing by note-taking using boxes and bullets!

*Scholastic book orders will be sent home when we come back from Thanksgiving!

Content: Students have been loving our world unit! This week we discussed directions and continents. Next week, we'll learn about the oceans, mountain ranges in the United States, and rivers. Feel free to ask your child what they have learned about the world and share what you know too!

Check out some pictures of students exploring the world through different maps, books, a globe, and searching in online databases!

 

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

Best,
Jenny

November 13-17 AND 20-21

Hello Families,

It was good to see some of you for conferences on Thursday, and I look forward to seeing everybody else next week! I'm sure these next two weeks will fly by as we have an early dismissal on Friday, and then the next week there are only two school days! I hope you enjoy this extra time with your family and stay warm with this chilly weather.

Reminders/Updates

• Conferences will continue on Tuesday, if you didn't have yours already on Thursday! 
• Our new shipment of MathBoards (a dry erase board we use for math) came in, so we can send our old ones home with families! I will have them available at conferences for you to take home, but if you didn't get one or would just like another, let me know. 
• Don't forget to order Square1Art! The deadline for orders was Friday, but you can still order online this weekend :)
• There are also extra Funset Boulevard wristbands if you did not get some yet. We're still taking orders through Monday!
• This month New Directions is showing how to BE Thankful!  As a way to bring us together as a school community we are going to have an "Appreciation Station" set up for students and families to use at conferences.  At this station you will be able to write a note to someone you are thankful for in your lives. It can be someone from the school or someone from somewhere else in your lives.  Please look for the station outside the cafeteria by the 4K classroom and stop by to let someone know you are thankful for them!  
• Monday will be Day 5. Next week Monday (11/20) will be Day 4. 
• Next week Friday is an early dismissal. Students will be released at 11:30, and lunch will not be served at school. The following week students do not have school on Wednesday-Friday!

Upcoming Events

November 14: Portfolio Conferences
November 16: Funset Boulevard
November 17: Early Dismissal at 11:30
November 20: Badger Sportswear
November 22-24: NO SCHOOL
December 7: Pajama Day
December 7: Family Night

Curriculum Update

Math: This week we fixed up our mistakes on our Unit 1 tests so we can learn from them! We will continue multiplication and division in Unit 2, so your child does have more time to master these concepts. As students are building on their knowledge of multiplication and division, they will begin to look for more efficient strategies! So far this week we multiplied with 6 and 8 and found area of rectangles. If your child seems like they're struggling in math, the best thing for him/her to do at home is to practice their facts. They can copy down the facts that they're working on at school so they have a set at home. You can ask your child to say the fact and show it (with a picture, using count bys, using other known facts, or any other strategy they have). Next week, we will work more with story problems and matching equations, multiplying and dividing with 7, square numbers, and becoming more fluent with all of our facts (since we will have learned facts with 0-10!) 

Writing: We have been working on writing convincing persuasive speeches! We listened to a powerful speech from a student our age to learn what moves she did as a speaker to give a powerful, persuasive speech. Next week, we'll have a mini celebration by giving our speeches and listening to others' speeches. I'm hoping to do this through Seesaw so families will be able to see as well! We will then start petitions and work on becoming more independent writers.

Word Study: We have been working on our five closed exceptions, -olt, -ild, -ost, -ind, and -old and our "trick words" goes, pretty, and done. If you haven't turned in the Word Study packet yet, that's okay! Just turn it in next week :) We have been working to remember a capital letter at the start of a sentence and a punctuation mark at the end as well! Next week we will review all we have learned so far and take the Unit 3 test. 

Reading: This past week students enjoyed reading as many more mysteries as they could with their partners. This next week we will be staying in our mystery unit, BUT we will be reading regular fiction books with our partners. We will transferring all we learned in reading mysteries to reading ANY type of fiction! The week of Thanksgiving we will be doing our celebration. We will also do some "book stacking." This is where students will get to find ALL the books they read in this unit and stack them up and take a picture on seesaw. Be on the lookout for how many books your child has read! It should be exciting. The last day of school before break we will do a pre-assessment on Nonfiction reading to see what skills students are using as they read. After thanksgiving we will be beginning our first nonfiction reading unit! It should be so exciting!

Content: This week we did a close reading of an article to learn more about geographers and cartographers. Next week we will finish close reading the article and investigate what we know about the world by looking at different maps and globes. In particular, we will be discussing the seven continents, five oceans, and cardinal directions!


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

Best,
Jenny

November 6 - 10

Hello Families,

It's hard to believe that we're already in the month of November! I hope that you all enjoyed yourselves (and stayed warm!) on Halloween! This week was a little bit abnormal with your students having a substitute teacher for two days and also with Halloween. Being gone made me realize how much I enjoy having each one of your children. I was truly ready to get back to these awesome students that I get to spend the rest of the year with :)

I also must say, I had a completely positive note from the substitute teacher on Wednesday. She said EVERYONE was helpful, respectful, and responsible! Kudos to your student!

Check out the pictures from our Halloween celebration with our first grade buddies! Ms. Wittman read us all a book, students drew a costume for their teacher, and we watched "Halloween is Grinch Night" while eating a snack!

Reminders/Updates

• This month New Directions is showing how to BE Thankful!  As a way to bring us together as a school community we are going to have an "Appreciation Station" set up for students and families to use at conferences.  At this station you will be able to write a note to someone you are thankful for in your lives. It can be someone from the school or someone from somewhere else in your lives.  Please look for the station outside the cafeteria by the 4K classroom and stop by to let someone know you are thankful for them!  
• Monday will be Day 6.
• I will be absent for a few more days next week for training. Please remind your child to be the respectful, responsible students that they are for the substitute teacher on those days!
• If you haven't yet, sign up for conferences! They will begin this week on Thursday and continue next week Tuesday. The sign up is similar to how the sign up was for Meet and Greets through PTCFast.com

Upcoming Events

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
November 20: Badger Sportswear
November 22-24: NO SCHOOL

Curriculum Update

Math: We completed Unit 1 this week by taking the Unit 1 test! We also started math fact fluencies with multiplication. Your child has a bag of about 6 cards with multiplication expressions that they do not yet have mastered. These may be problems that students answered incorrectly or that they had to think about for a while to get the answer. As we practice our facts, students will learn and apply efficient strategies to get the correct answer quickly. As they master these multiplication expressions, new cards will be added. Next week, we will be starting Unit 2. We will learn to multiply and divide with 6 and 8. We will also solve area word problems and work to write our own word problems. 

Writing: This week we chose an idea that we are passionate about and wrote long to get all of our ideas down on paper. We then organized our writing to find reasons that needed more evidence to make our speeches that much more convincing! Next week, we will start our drafts by writing fast and furiously with paragraphs, choose strong, emotion-evoking words, and look into writing petitions. 

Word Study: This week we took the Unit 2 test. I was impressed with the progress students are making! Taking the time to work through the Word Study packets at home has really helped some students to grow and solidify their knowledge. We also learned about the five exceptions to closed syllables: -ild, -ind, -old, -ost, and -olt. Next week, we will focus on vowel teams. A vowel team is two vowels that together make one sound (like ai in bait.) Learning these "rules" and concepts will help students to decode words in their reading and to correctly spell words in their writing!

Reading: This past week students have been reading like detectives! They are paying attention to small clues and being aware of "fishy" suspects! Students have finished SO many books in just a short amount of time! This is amazing to see. This coming week we will start talking about red herring clues and thinking about what kind of mind work we should be doing. We will continue to read more mysteries!

*I will not be sending home a November scholastic book order because there will be scholastic books available at conferences!

Content: This week we played Kahoot! to review what we learned in the Land and Water unit and took the end of unit test. Next week we will start our first Social Studies unit about the World. We will do a close reading of an article on geographers to get our brains interested in the world!


I am looking forward to seeing everyone for conferences this next week! Know that you can always contact me with any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,
Jenny