Sept 25-29

I am very proud of how well the students handled all of the safety drills we practiced last week.  They were very understanding when they were explained and brave when they practiced.  Of course, we hope we will only ever have to practice these things, but if a situation of any type (weather, fire, intruder) comes up we will be prepared.

Important Dates and Reminders:
9/25: Neon/ Tie Dye Day
9/26: Superhero Day (does not need to be a costume)
9/27:Purple OR Orange and Black Day: Homecoming Parade
9/28: Sports Wear Day
9/29: Kaukauna Wear Day
10/8: Ride to Read
10/17: Heckrodt Field Trip


**Library books need to be returned on Day 5, which is THURSDAY this week!!!!

A few things we could use for the classroom:

• old socks or makeup sponges to use for our dry erase boards
• playing cards
• soap dishes to store cards in
• small portion cups with lids

If you are interested in donating any of these items, please send them to school with your child.  Thanks so much!!

Here is a peek at our week:

Reading: It was very exciting to move into "reading" old favorite storybooks last week.  We were so excited to be able to open these new "gifts" of reading!

One way to support this work at home is by reading stories that are familiar to your child over and over and over again until it becomes a story they can 'read' on their own.   We are continuing our work in storybooks in the classroom as well, trying to say even more on every page to make our words match the text and connecting pages to make our reading sound even more grown up by using phrases like "and then" and "after that."  We will even be looking for and reading words we know and see again and again.


Writing;This week we will be learning to write true stories! This means we will be taking an event from our lives, telling that story and then working to show it in pictures and words across three pages. We will practice this work as a class by writing a few class “true stories” together.  As true story writers we will need to do ALOT of story telling to help us say what happened first, next and last.  We will also use our writing folders to help us generate ideas for our true stories.  We will also work  on showing details in our drawings and will be pushing ourselves to write many letters in words we stretch out.


Math: In math this week our focus will shift from showing number quantity to comparing number quantity.  We will learn about a new math tool called a comparing mat that will help us to distinguish numbers as greater than and less than.  We will also be exploring and classifying shapes.  We will also revisit and practice addition and subtraction and begin working with number formation.  Also, please watch your child's folder this week for a packet of math games to play at home that will reinforce seeing numbers as quantities and taking numbers apart and putting them together.

Social Studies: Check out some photos of our published rules and charts we made to help us really understand the rules!

This week we will learn and practice taking positive  time outs for times we need to refocus our learning and think about the rules.  This is a part of our approach to community and discipline called Responsive Classrom.  Here is the Responsive Classroom definition of time out: Time-out in a Responsive Classroom is a positive, respectful, and supportive teaching strategy used to help a child who is just beginning to lose self-control to regain it so they can do their best learning. An equally important goal of Responsive Classroom time-out is to allow the group’s work to continue when a student is misbehaving or upset. Giving that child some space from the scene of action where they can regroup while still seeing and hearing what the class is doing accomplishes both of these goals.

Sept 18-22

We had a great first "official" week of learning together!  I am looking forward to seeing many of you at family night this week!

Just a few reminders (if you haven't already done so):
School fees are due in the office ASAP
Send a pair of tennis shoes to be kept at school for your child to wear for gym
Send a plain white t-shirt to be kept at school for an art shirt
**If you wish to be included in the school directory, please return the forms to school by Monday!

Important dates and reminders:

9/19: Family Night: Hot Dogs and How to Help Family Night
9/20: Picture Day- please send your order forms to school on or before this day
9/22: NO SCHOOL for students
9/25: Wear Badger gear
9/28: Packer Day
9/27: Kaukauna Homecoming Parade (more info to come)
9/29: Wear orange and black
10/8: Ride to Read
10/17: Heckrodt Field Trip

This week the entire school district will be having a "safety week."  You should have received information about this electronically via Infinite Campus messenger.  During this time the students and I will be participating in several drills to ensure we are all aware and comfortable with safety procedures.  We will have the following drills this week: fire drill, tornado drill, lockdown and hold drill and evacuation drill.
Some of these may be new or could possibly cause some anxiety or questions among the students.  Please know I will do my very best to explain everything we are doing to them and will make sure they know they are always safe at school.  If you have questions please feel free to contact myself or Mrs. Frischmann.

Here is a peek at our week:

Math: This week in math we will continue to represent a quantity that corresponds with a number.  We will do this through drawing as well as with various math tools.  We will begin to recognize that when we create a representation of a number we can add more to it or take things away from it and will learn the terms addition and subtraction.  We will also begin to work to see and know partners of a number (numbers that are added together to make a larger number).

Reading:This week we will welcome a new type of book to out reading workshop: Old Favorite Storybooks!  These books are stories the boys and girls have heard me read aloud several times and are ready to "reread" on their own.  They are by no means expected to read these verbatim, but instead will work to rely on story elements and pictures to support their attempts.  This type of work sets them up to really begin to understand the connection that words and pictures have in books.  It also gets us one step closer to reading conventionally.  I cannot wait to listen to the students read these beloved books!

Writing:We will continue to write teaching books this week and will really work to plan how our books will go page by page.  We will be working with a partner to ask and answer questions about our books as a way to add more and will work hard attempt to write words in our books by stretching them out and recording the sounds we hear.  Lastly, we will be using a checklist to make sure our writing is the best it can be...I know the boys and girls will feel so grown up doing this!

Social Studies:  Each person in our classroom has now chosen and illustrated a hope and dream for the school year!  We then created rules for our classroom that will help us reach those hopes and dreams.  This week we will practice what it looks, sounds and feels like to follow these rules and will also discuss what happens when we forget to follow the rules (which will happen, of course).  My hope for this is that students take greater ownership over the rules and grow to understand how to help one another follow them and to also understand how to fix or change things when we forget to follow a rule.

Sept 11-15

I hope you all had a terrific weekend!  I love this time of year!  The weather is beautiful, the school year is underway and football begins!

I was lucky enough to have this view yesterday!   Go Pack!!

Our new schedule has allowed the students to meet most of their "specials" teachers.
Because there are many new faces and names I wanted to let you know the names of these teachers and where they work!
Library-Mrs. Wolf
STEAM- Mrs. Nimmer
Guidance- Miss Duda
Music- Mrs. Krueger
Phy Ed.- Mr. Halloran

Art- Mrs. Siegel

Upcoming Dates and Reminders:

9/15:  International Dot Day- Wear dots to school

9/19: Family Night: Hot Dogs and How to Help Family Night (more info coming soon)

9/20: Picture Day- please send your order forms to school on or before this day

9/22: NO SCHOOL for students

Postcards for Seniors
Our first service project this school year is Postcards for Seniors. Starting in early October students will have the opportunity to decorate postcards that will be delivered monthly to Meals on Wheels participants in Kaukauna.  We are in need of some supplies for this project.  If you have any of the  items listed below at home and would like to donate please send them to school and drop off in the Postcards box in the office.
-New boxes of markers
-Light colored card stock
-Fun stickers

Questions can be directed to Kristin McEneany at  kristin.mceneany@gmail.com



Here is a peek at what will be happening in Room 80 this coming week:

Reading:  Right now as readers we are enjoying super interesting non-fiction books or, as we call them, "learn about the world books."  Our goal when exploring these books is to look closely at the pictures and learn as much as we can.  While we are doing this we are connecting new information back to the title/topic of the book and also connecting new information as we "read" more and more pages.  During reading workshop each day we have a time to reading independently (private reading time) and a time to read with a friend (partner reading time).  When we meet with our reading partners we are talking about and sharing all we have learned from our books.  This week we will focus on rereading books to learn more and more and to begin to think about what the words in the book might tell us.

Writing: As writers we have been working on thinking of a topic we know a lot about and then showing what we know by drawing a picture and maybe even using a letter or two.  We feel so grown up using pens to write with and have also been working to keep writing...we even learned a new saying "when we are done, we have just begun!"  This week we will work more on listening to and writing down the sounds we hear in words we are trying to write.  We will also practice our drawing skills to challenge ourselves to write about ideas that may seem hard for us.

Math: Last week as mathematicians we learned that we carry our most important tools for math right on our body: our fingers and eyes (and our brains too).  We used them to see math all over our classroom and school.  This week we will practice using different math tools in the classroom to reinforce counting, patterning and sorting.  We will also focus on ordering numbers 1-5 (both forward and backward) and drawing and "reading" pictures to tell how many objects we see.  All of this work will set us up for the bog work of addition that will be introduced soon!

Social Studies: Right now in kindergarten we are studying our classroom.  This week we will use all we learned about last week to determine a hope and dream for ourselves for the school year.  Each child will decide on something they really want to accomplish and we will share it with the class.  We will publish our hope and dreams and display them in our classroom.  After we have set our hopes and dreams we will write classroom rules together so we can all reach our hopes and dreams this school.  This is big, important work for the students and really helps them to build a community in our classroom!!

Have a great week and please keep me posted with any questions and concerns!!

Elly :)

Our First "Week"

We have been busy in Kindergarten!!!  The boys and girls are working so hard in all they do!  I am super excited to keep learning with them!!

 Exploring Math tools!

Reading Workshop!

 We LOVE to write!

 Free Choice is our favorite!!