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