Week of March 1st

March, already!? It really hit me the other day that I only get about three more months with your kids. It's been amazing watching them grow, learn, and really getting to know them. They have all made such an impact on me.

Please make sure your child is reading 30 minutes a night Monday through Thursday (Friday and the weekends are optional 😊). They should be bringing home their Homework Reading Log which is a bright yellow sheet. It is double sided so this sheet should last about four weeks. Thank you for signing it each night confirming that they have completed their homework. I do check this sheet every morning when students arrive.

Thank you all for your donations to our Penny War! I loved seeing the students competitive sides come out as they were determined to win! Mrs. Lenzner's kindergarten class ultimately won and as a school we raised $765.09 for Pillars Warming Shelter in Appleton! Woo hoo!

Upcoming Events:

March 1st: Parent Group Meeting (https://meet.google.com/ksc-vuig-dtq)

March 2nd: Read Across America Day - Dress Up in USA Colors

March 3rd: Dress Up in Cozy Clothes

March 5th: Dress Up in NDLC Wear

March 4th: Math Mania Virtual Family Night 
March 23rd: Parent Teacher Conferences (Stay tuned for link)
March 25th: Parent Teacher Conferences (Stay tuned for link)
March 26th: Early Dismissal for students
April 2nd: No School
April 5th: No School

Curriculum Update:

Reading: We are well into our Interpreting Characters Unit. The students have been working on a variety of skills and strategies they can apply to their fiction texts to grow ideas about characters. We spent time this week thinking about how writing about reading can help us grow as reader and a person. Students have a reading folder this unit where they have been filling out how much they are reading and identifying a theme and something they've noticed about a character. Each Friday we do a 'gallery walk' where studys lay out their readers notebook and folder and everyone gets to appreciate all the hard work everyone has put into their reading!

Writing: We are still in our Choose Your Own Adventure unit. Students are at all different stages of the writing process as they work hard to finish pieces of narrative, opinion, and information writing. I've been placing a strong emphasis on the importance of writers knowing their audience and keeping that audience in mind throughout their entire writing process. The students have really taken interest to this and this past week I have mailed out student writing to NFL, Nintendo, Tony Evers, Scholastic, and the White House! I can't wait to continue to work alongside students throughout this unit. They've really enjoyed it and I have loved getting glimpses of their ideas, passions, and inspirations through reading their writing.

Word Study: We have begun Unit 9 of our Fundations unit. Tests for Unit 8 were taken this past week and sent home. This unit is all about r-controlled vowels. This syllable contains a single vowel that is directly followed by the letter r. The r changes the sound of the vowel. For example, in the word bark, the vowel a has neither a short nor long vowel sound - instead the sound is "controlled" by the r. There is an exception to the r-controlled syllable. If the r is followed by another r, the proceeding vowel is often short, as in the word carry. Students will also learn about the 1-1-1 spelling rule that applies to r-controlled words. When a base word is a closed or r-controlled syllable with only one consonant following one vowel, you double the final consonant on the base word if adding a vowel suffix

Your child's weeks worth of Fundations work will come home early next week. It should look like this:

  

Content: We are still working hard throughout our Earth's Processes and Systems unit. We've spent a lot of time learning about erosion, weathering, and now we are currently studying fossils. The students have really enjoyed discussing and sharing previous facts they've learned about fossils. It's been so fun to see their excitement when talking about these scientific topics that happened so long ago. 🦕🦖

I hope you all have a great weekend! 

Carly Burris 

Week of February 16th

Hello Everyone! Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all have had a great week and weekend filled with lots of love! ❤

One thing I love is being your child's teacher. I couldn't imagine doing anything else and am so happy that I get to spend this crazy, unique year with them!

Remember, NO SCHOOL TOMORROW (2/15/21)

As a reminder, this is what your child's reading space should look like each night! We've been using these for a week now, so please make sure that you are signing off that your child read at least 30 minutes. I check these each and every morning.

A message from Student Council:

It’s a Penny War! 

Student Council is sponsoring a Penny War from February 16th-19th to raise money for Pillars Warming Shelter. Students can bring in pennies to earn points for their own class and silver coins to subtract points from other classes. 

Upcoming Events:

February 15th - No School for students

February 19th - Dress like your future job!

February 24th - Wear Yellow & Purple

February 26th - NDLC Wear

Curriculum Update:

Reading: We've begun our Interpreting Characters unit! The students are so happy to be back in fiction! Our goals are to increase our reading volume, use previse words and text evidence when studying characters, and identify theme(s) throughout our books. This unit will allow us to read books in partnerships and book clubs! 

Writing: We've begun our new unit in writing as well! "Choose Your Own Adventure" is what we are calling it! Last week students choose which genre: Narrative, Informational, or Opinion. This will be their first writing that they begin the unit with. Our minilessons focus on things that apply to all genres, but majority of the teaching will happen in small groups as I conference and teach each group techniques that are genre-specific. Our goals for the unit are to transfer what we know about structure and elaboration of different genres, strengthen our understanding of the writing process, live more of a writerly life, and understand how truly useful a mentor text can be!

Word Study: We are wrapping up Unit 8 and will be taking the test this week!

Content: We have begun working on our new unit - Earth's Processes and Systems. The students seem to really enjoy this unit and I am very excited by how the discussions have been going as we examine the topics within this unit!

Please let me know if you have any questions! Have an amazing week! 🤩

Carly Burris 

Book Log and Word Study Updates

 Happy Monday!

There are a few changes and updates to the way we are logging our reading and completing word study each day.

For homework everyday, it has been listed on the Google Homework Calendar as well as the  paper calendar students are offered to be reading for at least 30 minutes each night.

This is what your child's reading workspace should look like each night with their own book of choice:

You'll notice that students now need a parents initial to sign off each night showing that they have read. Please let me know if you have any questions!

As I have shared in previous blog posts, students are now completing word study each day on a piece of loose leaf instead of on a white board. This holds students accountable and limits the amount of doodling that happens during this time. Students are coming home tonight with last weeks worth of word study work. It should look like this:

As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns! Have a great week! 

Best,

Carly Burris

Week of February 8th

 Happy Friday, everyone!

NO SCHOOL THIS FRIDAY (2/11) OR NEXT MONDAY (2/15)

 Hello Everyone! January is over already!? Happy February!

Join NDLC staff members and other NDLC parents and guardians in discussing the book The Read Aloud Family on Tuesday, Feb 9th from 8:00-8:30 pm.  The discussion will take place on Google Meet (a link will be sent prior to the meeting).  See below for a description of the book. The book can be purchased on Amazon or any other book retailer. 

The Read Aloud Family

Discover practical strategies to make reading aloud a meaningful family ritual.

The stories we read--and the conversations we have about them--help shape family traditions, create lifelong memories, and become part of our legacy. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family--it has the power to change the world. 

But we all know that connecting deeply with our families can be difficult in our busy, technology-driven society. Reading aloud is one of the best ways to be fully present with our children, even after they can read themselves, but it isn't always easy to do. Discover how to:

• Prepare your kids for academic success through reading to them
• Develop empathy and compassion in your kids through books
• Find time to read aloud in the midst of school, sports, and dinner dishes
• Choose books across a variety of sibling interests and ages
• Make reading aloud the best part of your family's day

The Read-Aloud Family also offers age-appropriate book lists from infancy through adolescence. From a toddler's wonder to a teenager's resistance, you will find the inspiration you need to start a read-aloud movement in your own home.

A message from Student Council:

It’s a Penny War! 

Student Council is sponsoring a Penny War from February 16th-19th to raise money for Pillars Warming Shelter. Students can bring in pennies to earn points for their own class and silver coins to subtract points from other classes. 

Upcoming Events:

February 5th - NDLC Wear

February 12th - No School for students & staff

February 15th - No School for students

February 26th - NDLC Wear

Students will be voting on a school mascot this week thanks to Student Council. Will be it a Red Panda, Husky, or Brown Bear? 

We finished our American Revolution Unit! To celebrate, we turned the classroom into a "Meet the Author" event! The students were able to share parts from their book, what they learned, and why they were inspired to write and research their chosen topic. Here are some pictures!

Curriculum Update:

Reading: Our next unit will focus on "Interpreting Characters". We will fall back in love with reading fiction books of our choice while aiming to increase our reading volume, use precise words and text evidence when studying characters, and identifying themes. This unit will allow us to read books in partnerships and book clubs!

Writing: We finished our American Revolution unit! I have to say, that was may favorite unit yet! I think the students really enjoyed it, too. We are moving on to our "Choose Your Own Adventure" Unit where students will have much more freedom in selecting the genre they'd like to write about. I will be working with each 'genre' regularly supporting their individual unique needs. Our goals for the unit are to transfer what we know about structure and elaboration of different genres, strengthen our understanding of the writing process, live more of a writerly life, and understand how useful mentor texts can be!

Word Study: To keep students accountable, word study is now completed on loose leaf paper and collected each day. At the end of the week I have some awesome student helpers that help me staple each students' weeks worth of word study to send home. Take a look at these as they come home. It might give you some insight to how well your student is paying attention as well as help them identify questions they may need to ask me to better understand what each lesson is teaching. We are on unit 8! In Unit 8, I will review the consonant-le syllable. This syllable is considered a “final stable” syllable. It is always the last syllable in a word and it has only three letters: a consonant, an l and an e. The e is the vowel and it is silent. The consonant and the l are sounded out like a blend. I will remind students that the consonant-le syllable is always the last syllable in a multisyllabic word. Take a look at the following examples and how we mark them:

s¬mple c -le t¡ble o -le

I will then introduce the consonant-le exception. This includes words that end with stle. Both the t and e are silent so stle is read as /sl/. Examples of the consonant-le exception include castle

and whistle: c¤stle c -le wh¬stle c -le

I will teach students all the different ways to spell the /l/ sound in a final syllable (as in table, label or final) Students will also learn how to add suffixes to consonant -le syllables. To add a suffix to a consonant -le syllable, students must follow the silent e spelling rule; they will drop the e to add a vowel suffix (settle - settling) and keep the e to add a consonant suffix (settle - settlement). In week 3, students will learn about another final stable syllable. This one is also always the last syllable in a word. It always has four letters: either the glued sound tion or sion. Students will learn that tion says /shun/ as in vacation and sion says /shun/ as in mansion and /zhun/ as in television.

Math: We started Unit 8 this week - Geometry! Students are struggling more with this unit than I have noticed before. It is important to note that geometry is where students left off when COVID hit in 3rd grade. I will continue to work with small groups and one-on-one with students so they can grow confident with geometry. We have been learning a lot of new mathematic vocabulary as well as practicing using measuring and identifying different angles and lines.

Content: We will begin our new sciene unit on Earth's Processes and Systems this week!

Enjoy your weekend! ❄

Carly Burris