October 12

Hello K families!

 I will be doing PALS testing this week Wednesday and Thursday. There will be a sub in our room but I will be just down the hall so I will be able to stop in and make sure everything is running smoothly. PALS focuses on literacy concepts/skills such as letter sounds, beginning sounds, word identification, and so on. I look forward to sharing the results of this screening with you at conferences.

Also, our math staff developer will be here on Thursday and Friday. We are excited to learn from him on Thursday afternoon and have him come into our classrooms on Friday!

Please remember to send back the following papers if you did not yet:

• Conference Forms
• Field Trip Form with $8 to cover the bus and field trips expenses. 

Upcoming events

10/16 Math Morning 7:30-8:15
10/20 Family Night: Grandparents, Goodies and Games 4:30-5:30
10/22 & 10/23 No School for Students
10/26 to 10/30 Red Ribbon Week
10/29 Rollerskating at Skate City from 5:30-8:00

PSC News

•         Roller skating at Skate City, October 29th 5:30-8 pm. NDLC has reserved Skate City for the evening! Cost will be $4 plus $1 skate rental/skater (normal cost is $4.50/$2). Nonskaters will not be charged. (Money will be collected at the door.)

o   Let us know if you are coming by responding here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JBGNGM2

•          Keep collecting your BoxTops and Campbell’s Soup labels. Forms to compile your Labels/BoxTops can be found on the NDLC website (www.ndlccharter.org). Under the “Parent” tab, select “Parent and School Committee” and scroll to bottom of page. ​NOTE:​ NDLC will get double points for all Campbell’s Soup labels sent to school by November 6.
•          Consider signing up with UC Mission. You simply shop at participating local businesses and a percentage of your spending comes back to NDLC.

o   Register at ​www.ucmission.com/join. Click “Join Now,” select “New Directions Learning Community” as your program to support. Register your existing Visa or Mastercard credit cards and use for all purchases. 

o    Examples of some participating local businesses: Pizza Hut, Darboy Club, Papa Murphy’s Pizza, Cherry Berry, Culver’s, Copper Rock Coffee, Express Convenience Stores, MotoMart . . . and so many more! Check out a complete list of participating businesses at ​www.ucmission.com​. 

•          The next PSC meeting is Monday, November 2, at 6 pm in the school library.
•          Questions? Email ​NDLC.PSC@gmail.com

 

What’s happening in Kindergarten this week?

Reading: Students will work on rereading parts of the book that get confusing. We will discuss looking closely at the picture to help us remember how the story goes. Partner reading time is one of my favorite parts of the day. As I walk around the room, I am listening to students read using some of the exact words from the book and not missing a beat of the story. Then, they talk about the book with a partner!

Writing: On Monday, students will collect a bag of artifacts from outside and will use them for writing like scientists do. This week, we will be encouraging the students to move from labeling the pictures to writing sentences on their books. They will use vocabulary sheets to help them get started and encourage them to think carefully about the words they are using. Finally, we will begin to look through books to find more information about the topics/artifacts we are writing about!

 Math: I continue to be impressed with our class math talk. Ask questions like, “How do you know?” or “Can you show me another way” to get your mathematician’s brain workingJ The following are the new centers for this week:

1. Five Finder: Students need to look quickly and be able to identify a group of five objects. They will be searching for five groups in pictures, circling them, and writing and equation to match the picture.

2. Students will create a counting book with objects for numbers 6-10.
3. Students will be given a piece of paper with an equation at the bottom. They will trace their fingers on the page to match the equation.

     4.Students will roll two dice with numbers 0-5 on them. They will show the numbers using tiles and then add or subtract using the tiles.

Word Study: We will continue to practice our sight words I, a, the, and, & is. The students have already excitedly pointed out sight words in the books they are using during Reader’s Workshop. We will be doing a ‘sight word hunt’ in books from our classroom library. We will work on sorting letters, words, and sentences. Finally, students will use our classroom iPads to work on letter sounds.

Social Studies: This will be the final week of interviews and creating books on school community helpers. It is fun to see how excited the students get when they see familiar faces in the hallJ Next week, we will start our School Helper centers.