It was so nice to be back on a 'regular' schedule this past week without scheduled days off or weather delays and cancellations. This week will also be one with few interruptions and lots of great learning opportunities!

Report cards will be coming home tomorrow. You do NOT need to sign and return report cards. However, if you have any questions or concerns regarding your child's progress, please let me know.

Dr. Berkers will join us tomorrow morning for a dental health presentation.

This Friday, February 3, is the joint New Directions and Quinney Dance. The dance starts at 6:00 and goes until 7:30. Grade levels are asked to wear a color from the rainbow; second graders are the color yellow.  

Tuesday, February 7 is an early release day for students. Staff has professional development in the afternoon.  


Curriculum Updates:

Reading - We started our 4th reading unit, Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power, this past Friday. This unit has students continue with fiction work from the previous unit, but also focuses on foundational reading skills - fluency, literary language, and ways readers can hold on to a story when it is long. Book clubs will also be starting up in our room once again!

Writing - We will write our Narrative Post On-Demands on Monday. On Tuesday, we start our new writing unit - POETRY!  This is a fun unit that produces quite a few unique writing pieces.  

Math - We will continue our work with 2-digit addition and subtraction as we solve word problems. Our work focuses on reading the word problem, thinking about what information we know and what we still need to know, and ways that we can solve the problem. Setting up the information that is known from word problems with a math mountain is a strategy that helps students visualize different ways they can set up an equation to solve.  

Word Work - New words will come home early this week. 

Valentines Day - I will be sending home a note this week with our current class list for Valentines. We will decorate a paper bag late next week to use as our Valentine holders. Students can bring in Valentines when they complete them, but we will not be passing them out until Valentines Day. If your child chooses to hand out Valentines, please be sure that he/she has one for everybody in class. 


Have a great week!
Lisa

Thank you for all you did to help make Celebrate NDLC Week a success! We all had a lot of fun with the dress up days and finishing the week with a character parade around the school. It was a wonderful week!
  

Report cards will be going home with students next Monday.

We will be MAP testing this week. We will take our reading MAP test on Monday morning (rescheduled from last Tuesday) and our math MAP test on Friday morning. 

If you haven't sent back your school preference form for next year, please send it back by February 3rd. We will send another form home on Monday if we didn't receive yours yet.

The NDLC and EQ Dance is coming soon! Please join us for this event on February 3rd from 6:00-7:30 if you are available!

Curriculum Updates  ~

Reading - We will be finishing up our 3rd reading unit focused on characters and the lessons they learn this week. We will begin our 4th unit at the end of the week in which we will work on fluency, literary language, and meeting the challenges of longer books.

Writing - It is time to start publishing! Students will be using their narrative checklists and editing checklists to revise and edit a favorite writing piece this week. They will also have the opportunity to 'fancy up' the book by adding a cover, detailed pictures, and colors. This is a great time in the unit for them to see all of the work that they were able to complete over the course and choose their favorite piece to showcase. We will be celebrating the end of this unit later this week and will begin poetry writing next week. 

Math - We are continuing to work on subtracting double-digit equations. The students have many different strategies to use when solving problems that require ungrouping. The tricky part is to remember that not all problems require ungrouping a ten. We will continue to work on these types of problems this week. 

Have a GREAT week!

Lisa

This week is Celebrate New Directions Week!   There are lots of special days and special events this week.  The schedule is below.

January 16th-20th: Celebrate New Directions Week!

January 16th: Pajama Day; Family Art Night from 5:30-6:30

January 17th: Crazy Hat/Hair Day

January 18th: No School for Students (Staff development for teachers)

January 19th: Sports Day; Family Gym Night/Jump Rope for Heart from 5:30-7

January 20th: Book Character Day;

                    Half day for students - Teachers will be working on records

                    End of First Semester

                    Yearbook orders due    
Scholastic book orders are due

                              

Reminders:

MAP testing : Tuesday, January 17 - Reading MAP test - 1:10-2:20

Monday, January 23 - Math MAP test - 10:00-11:10

Don't forget that the Six Flags Six Hour Reading Program deadline is slowly approaching! If your child is participating this year, all forms are due on February 16. Your child will earn a Six Flags Great America ticket after completing six hours of reading at home. If you need another log, please let me know.

Curricular updates:

Reading and Writing ~ We continue our fiction reading and our fiction writing. We are looking closely at what the characters are like on the inside in both areas.   

Math ~We are learning strategies to solve 2-digit subtraction. To start with, we are using ten sticks and ones to show why we ungroup and what happens when we ungroup.  From there we will learn numeric strategies to solve the 2-digit subtraction problems.

Content ~ Students are excited to learn about Wisconsin’s geography!

There are many informational events taking place to help others learn more about New Directions. Please share these dates with anyone you think may be interested in hearing more about what a great place New Directions is for students to learn and grow!

Monday, January 16th: 6:00 -7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions

Wednesday, January 18th:10:00 AM-1:00 PM Open House for prospective families at New Directions

Tuesday, January 24th: 6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions

Families may also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours.

Have a GREAT week!

Lisa

Whoa, what a temperature drop we had this past week!  With indoor recess all week, we are all ready for some warmer temperatures so we can get outside! Please help your child to remember all their outdoor gear this week.

Upcoming Events:

January 9th: PSC Meeting

January 16th-20th: Celebrate New Directions Week!
January 16th: Pajama Day; Family Art Night from 5:30-6:30
January 17th: Crazy Hat/Hair Day
January 18th: No School for Students (Staff development for teachers)

January 19th: Sports Day; Family Gym Night/Jump Rope for Heart from 5:30-7

January 20th: Book Character Day; 

                     Half day for students - Teachers will be working on records

                     End of First Semester

                     Yearbook orders due    

                               

MAP testing dates:

Tuesday, January 17 - Reading MAP test - 1:10-2:20

Monday, January 23 - Math MAP test - 9:30-10:40

Don't forget that the Six Flags Six Hour Reading Program deadline is slowly approaching! If your child is participating this year, all forms are due on February 16. Your child will earn a Six Flags Great America ticket after completing six hours of reading at home. If you need another log, please let me know.

Curricular updates:

Reading and Writing ~ We are continuing to work with fiction in both reading and writing.  The students are learning ways that readers pay close attention to characters feelings, character changes, and lessons the characters learn.  This ties right into our writing fictional stories and using mentor authors to learn ways that authors develop their characters and how there are lessons in fiction stories.

Math ~ We have been busy counting money at school. Please continue this work at home as often as you can. We will begin this week working on finding unknown addends for 100 using many different methods. This will lead into 2-digit subtraction later in the week.

Word Study ~ Students will come home with new high frequency words tomorrow. We'll be starting to work on homonyms as well, so the new list will be three weeks instead of two. The homonyms that we will start with are there, their, they're, its and it's.

Content ~ We are starting an exciting unit in Social Studies – Wisconsin and Kaukauna Geography!  The students are extremely excited to be learning about our state!

Don't forget...January is a big month for our school!  There are many informational events taking place to help others learn more about New Directions.  Please share these dates with anyone you think may be interested in hearing more about what a great place New Directions is for students to learn and grow!

Thursday, January 12th-6:00-7:30 PM District-Wide Info Session held at Tanner Early Learning Center

Monday, January 16th-6:00 -7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions

Wednesday, January 18th-10:00 AM-1:00 PM Open House for prospective families at New Directions

Tuesday, January 24th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions

Families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours.

Have a great week!

Lisa

Happy New Year!!! I hope that all of you were able to enjoy time with family and friends and found plenty of time to relax over the holidays. II had a great break, but am excited to get the second half of the school year started! 

If you know of any children that will be enrolling for 4K for the 2017-2018 school year, the info-sessions will begin next week. Word of mouth is the best way to get our school's name out there, so please share information about NDLC with friends and family. The district website has the info-session dates listed as well. 
 
January 12 6-7 at Tanner (district-wide 4K info-session)
January 16 6-7 at NDLC (NDLC specific info-session)
January 18 10-1 Open House at NDLC (opportunity to tour and learn more about our school for new/incoming families)
January 24 6-7 at NDLC (NDLC specific info-session)

Celebrate New Directions Week is coming up fast!!  The week of January 16-20 has many special events and dress up days:
 
Monday, Jan 16 Pajama and Stuffed Animal Day   
                          Family Art Night 5:30-6:30
Tuesday, Jan 17 Crazy Hair or Hat Day
Wednesday, Jan 18 No School for students - Teacher Inservice Day 
Thursday, Jan 19 Wear Sports Clothes Day
                             Family Gym Night 5:30-7
Friday, Jan 20 Dress as a Book Character Day
                       11:30 Dismissal for Students - End of First Semester


Curricular Updates

Reading - We will be continuing our unit, "Studying Characters and Their Stories". We will be focus on thinking about what we know about the characters we read about. What do we know about the character's personality, strengths and weaknesses? How can we use what we know to predict what is going to happen as we read?

Writing - the students are loving this writing unit! We will continue to work on writing edge-of-the-seat fiction stories. Adding details through actions and dialogue will be our main areas of focus this week. 

Math - Unit 4 starts this week. Unit 4 involves more work with money, adding the quarter into the mix. This unit also introduces 2-digit subtraction. Students will learn many strategies for solving 2-digit subtraction problems. The standard algorithm will eventually be taught as well. I will be sending home the Units 2 and 3 tests tonight; these tests were both taken in December.

Social Studies - Be prepared to learn a lot of information about Kaukauna soon! Our next Social Studies unit is the Geography of Kaukauna. This unit is a favorite with kids (and teachers) as they learn about an area they are already familiar with. 

Have a great week!
Lisa O'Brien