Week of December 4 - 8

Hello Families,

It's hard to believe it is already December! It was another quick week. I have noticed that I often have to stop myself or a student when sharing because some classmates are talking or not paying attention. We have been talking about how this affects ourselves and others when this happens and ways that we can improve. Feel free to have these conversations with your student at home as well. Sometimes that extra reinforcement helps! Remind your student that they can be (or can continue being!) a role model for our class and our school through their respectful actions and kind words.

Reminders/Updates

• Monday will be Day 6.
• If you haven't yet returned your student's portfolio, you can send it on back so we can fill it with more of their work!
• 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. 
• Your students convinced me (through their opinion writing!) that they should be able to bring in something for share other than pictures. So, for one "round" of shares, they can bring in something to talk about - as long as it can fit in their locker and it is not a pet! :) On Monday we'll figure out who will be sharing this week.
• Half birthdays are starting to come up for those students with summer birthdays. We do celebrate half birthdays! If your child's birthday is during the summer months, feel free to bring in a half birthday snack if you'd like. 

Upcoming Events

December 5: Kaukauna Parade
December 7: Pajama Day
December 7: Family Night: PJ's, Pizza, and Publishing
December 8: NDLC Wear
December 12: NO SCHOOL
December 14: Holiday Wear
December 21: Pajama Day
December 22-January 1: NO SCHOOL

Curriculum Update

Math: We have been working on solving two step problems! Next week, we will continue to work on these types of problems. I sent home a review for students to work on each night for about 10 minutes. If they work through the review, that will help them greatly to be prepared for the test. The test is formatted exactly as the review is! We will go over all that we have learned in Unit 2 (and so far this year!) and take our Unit 2 test at the end of the week. 

You can help you child in math by asking them what math facts (like 5x7 or 2x9) they are working on right now. Have them tell you a strategy they use for solving them. They have about 6 math facts to practice at a time. The more we practice these facts, the more fluent and efficient they will be!

Writing: This week we started our next unit, information writing. We compared teaching things we know a lot about in our writing to YouTubers teaching what they know to their viewers. We also looked at the most effective ways to set up our table of contents for our audience and different ways to structure our writing. Next week we'll work on saying more about each of our facts and writing a lot of books! On Family Night on Thursday, you'll get a chance to see some of your child's writing!

Word Study: This week we learned about suffixes and how they change the meaning of the baseword. I sent home a Word Study packet at the beginning of the week, but it doesn't need to be returned until the end of next week! Next week we'll work on building more words with the suffixes and our trick words: sure, use, and used. 

Reading: This past week we started reading nonfiction books! We are learning that it is very important to take some notes so we can become experts AND teach others what we learn. We learned that we can take these notes by using a boxes and bullets format. The main idea is written in a sentence in the box and the details support it. This is different from second grade because in second-grade students had to write the topic in the box and facts that went with that topic in the bullets. So students are taking the jump to be more organized and get more out of their readings. We will continue to work hard on this. Students are reading mainly nonfiction at school. I'd like students to keep their fiction skills still strong so for homework I would like students to be doing SOME fiction reading. They can also read nonfiction but fiction should be happening. :)

*Scholastic book orders are due December 13. If you would like a gift for the holidays and want it private please let me know and we can work something out. kabarac@kaukaunasd.org

Content: We are continuing to learn all about continents, oceans, and mountain ranges! Next week, we'll learn about some rivers and put them on our maps. Students will start to gain more independence in doing their own learning at different centers that will be set up with maps, pictures, videos, and more!

Here's the link to the continents video/song we watched/sang along to. I apologize in advance if you have been hearing this song on repeat! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DSMZ8b3LE




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

Best,
Jenny