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