Weekly Update May 9-13th

Hello,
As the year begins to wind down, we are still very busy in first grade.  Read below to find out what's happening!

Thank you to all who made me feel very special during Teacher Appreciation last week!  I love being a part of the New Directions family! Your support and willingness to be a part of your child's education this year has been amazing. Thank you! 

The Penny War has begun! Read below to learn more about this exciting activity.

Upcoming Events:

May 12: Family Night 5:30-7:00-Tailgate and Trail Night
May 20: Community Walking Tour Field Trip-Please return the permission slip and money by Wednesday. 

May 26: Early Dismissal 

May 27-May 30: No School

June 1: Mini Courses/ Field Day

June 2: Last day of school for students. Early Dismissal

Curriculum Updates:

Readers' Workshop: We are continuing our nonfiction study. This week we will spend more time growing our reactions to what we are reading. We can think things such as, "In my opinion..." or "I agree/disagree with the part where..." to help us grow our reactions. We'll also be noticing when what we read doesn't match what we thought and change our thinking. We'll work on asking questions such as, "How do..?" "Why do..?" "How come...?" and "Why would...?" to help us think deeper about the text. Readers can use the information they do find to suggest possible answers to their questions. Partners have been reading books about similar topics and sharing and growing their thinking together.

Writers' Workshop: We are finishing up publishing our series books. We are working on blurbs to get our readers interested in our books, and All About the Author page to teach the reader more about the author, and fancying up our pictures and making a catchy cover for our celebration at the end of the week. 

Word Study: We will continue to work on using all of our words from this year. Our goal is to not only write them isolation, but also spell them correctly in our writing.  This week we are focusing on short e and long e words.

Math Workshop:  We will continue learning about shapes this week. We will be composing 2-Dimensional shapes using other shapes, learning more about 3-Dimensional shapes and composing some of our own, and beginning to learn about measurement by measuring with length units. 

Social Studies: We are continuing our study of communities. This week we will add to our map of our playground and begin our community centers. Centers will include: reading and making a map, building a community location, and exploring community helpers. We're getting very excited for our community field trip next Friday!

Hello New Directions Families,

             As you know the Kaukauna Public Library has a lot more space for more books. Student Council would like help from the families at New Directions Learning Community to raise money for purchasing more books for the library.  Student Council is organizing a Penny War to buy books so there are more available for checkout. 

A Penny War works like this: Pennies count as one cent each as you would expect but each silver coin, bill or check reduces the number of points from that container by the amount of the coin. (e.g. a nickel reduces the points by five, a dime by ten, a dollar by 100, etc...). Teams can then place silver coin and paper money into their competitors jars. 

All the books purchased with the money New Directions donates will have a donor’s plate inside the front cover telling everyone we donated the books. Our Penny War will run from Monday May 9 - Friday May 13. (So get your coins/bills ready.)

 Our goal is to raise $500. If each student brings in at least $3.00 we will exceed our goal. 4th graders will present our donation to the Kaukauna Library on May 31. 


Thank you for supporting NDLC and the Kaukauna Public Library.